I despise public restrooms.
Porta Potty facilities too. For that matter, any bathroom that isn't mine. I'd rather pee in the the great outdoors.
As a kid I remember dad always choosing house rentals with 1 bathroom for the 6 of us (until my oldest sister was kicked out at the age of 14 for being 'promiscuous'. At the recommendation of church elders, they sent her to live with an aunt and uncle down in LA. Neither dad nor our step mom wanted to invest further in 'what trouble she was' with neither of them being her biological parents I guess any emotional investment they might have had was evidently pretty shot by that point.)
We were always broke, residing in cramped spaces. I guess living in a 1 bath rental where we girls bunked up in shared rooms and beds was dad's way of saving some money. Being frugal was not really dad's strong suit. He frequently overspent and then when mom would ride him about it, they'd get real heated, dad would sulk off, making himself scarce. Often it was work in the garage or the attic that occupied his time. Time spent in the attic none of us really understood. It was always a mystery what he actually did up there since the attic looked ever a hot mess of boxes resembling something out of an episode of hoarders. Who knows what was in all those boxes, dad never liked us up there plus it was hot as hell and had a musty smell. Itchy fiberglass and cobwebs gave extra incentive for us kids to avoid the attic altogether anyway.
I was finishing high school by the time we to put two and two together; an old mattress stored among the upstairs clutter spread out across the attic floor offered direct visibility at the front end which coincidentally lay just above the bathroom's poorly patched up ceiling fan hole. I had my buried suspicions about Dad's frequent 'rest periods' he took up there. And the sickening realization that I was his flesh and blood... we were his daughters for fuck sake... and more than that, vulnerable prey to his peeping tom habits wasn't limited to family. Often we housed exchange students from Japan, Germany, Spain, etc. for a week or two, pregnant females on more than one occasion lived with us for the bulk of their pregnancy, not to mention church groups of girls visiting from other churches even some from Canada.... well as our own friends who stayed overnight on occasion. Dad was real big on "opening our homes and hosting these ladies as Christian families should."
To this day I can't go anywhere without obsessing over the smallest shadow, dark hole or obscure gap in some restroom... my mind will always jump to the conclusion there's likely some pervert on the other side of that wall or ceiling jacking off to our vulnerability and nakedness.
I'm always taken back by how many of the women I've known throughout my childhood who have been sexually abused in their youth. The numbers are staggering. It's like we live in a world of perverts. Especially when I think of the rampant Sex Trafficking across the globe. What gets me even more than the ones who sell these girls....it's the 'demand'. Is our humanity really so sick that we manage to not just keep this perversion afloat but thriving! There are countless young women and boys all around us being trafficked right under our noses by males ready and willing to chew any victim up and spit them out without conscience?!
And so automatically my mind cuts straight to this...if the numbers are that high for these women (and we know they are) how many more sick males per victim are living among us, paying for sex, forcing themselves on a girl or guy who (even if the victim 'appears' to want it and 'enjoy' it' more likely than not have flipped the switch into 'survival mode' because ultimately they feel trapped or in danger and HAVE NO OUT) are forced to choose the lesser of two nightmares.
Is there such a thing as a lesser hell?
This is a huge part of why I can't bring myself to date right now...and haven't in about 8 years (the entirety of my daughter's existence and then some.) Remind me again why I chose to bring a child into this sickness that is life as we know it to be?
Where are all the decent human beings? Not perfect by any stretch... just persons with human decency and kindness... are you out there?
If you are, beam me up.
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