I’m Seriously Not Trying To Bang Your Kids Everybody.
So I was just walking home from the store when I saw this probably junior high school kid walking back from school with some big heavy musical instrument in a case. Hard to tell what the instrument was, but it appeared to be the kind that would most likely make certain that he would not get to kiss a girl for at least the next eight years.
Any ways, the kid was small and he was really struggling with it. Putting it down every 10 feet or so and then picking it back up again. My initial thought was to help the kid. To offer to carry it to his house for him or whatever because I’m a full grown, strong man.
But then I thought to myself, “Nope. Can’t do that. Can’t offer to help that kid with his burden because then everyone will assume I’m trying to fuck him.”
Isn’t that a drag? And you can say that I was overreacting and maybe I was a bit, but you have to admit that if most people saw some dude in his 30’s offer to help a boy carry something they would probably, at least for a moment, think to themselves, “Uh oh, that guy’s gonna fuck that kid. We should probably call somebody.”
Times have changed. Things didn’t used to be like this. When I was a kid, I wouldn’t have thought twice about some dude helping me carry something, and my parents wouldn’t have cared either. In fact, some neighbor/stranger probably could have called out of his window as I walked by “Hey little boy! I need help taking a bath up here! Come up! The door’s open!” and if my mom were walking with me she’d have said, “You heard that man Michael. That grown up needs help in the bathroom. Get up there.”
But somewhere between then and now we all became ridiculously suspicious. Everyone is presumed guilty now. Has society gotten worse? Are there really more pervs nowadays or are there the same amount but we’re simply more aware of them because of the constant bad news we’re bombarded with via every possible form of media?
And overall, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Are your kids safer or are they just more paranoid? Is that constant paranoia worth the slightly lessened chance of having some dude diddle your kids? Is this any way to exist? All of us afraid to help or be helped?
If I had helped that awkward 12 year old, nothing probably would have happened. Maybe the parents even would have been appreciative. Maybe they even would have invited me in for a beer to thank me. But what if that beer was poisoned and it knocked me out? What if that kid was just bait to lure in a man that the whole sick family could drug and then collectively diddle?
And there we go again.
I do know this: I don’t feel comfortable offering children help if I am alone. Or talking to them. Or looking at them. And the fear is not relegated to kids alone. I’ve offered to help some women my age-ish carry something if they appear to be struggling, only to be met with suspicion and apprehension. I’ve even had middle-aged ladies respond with a brisk “No thank you!” when I’ve offered to help them with something. As if I’m trying to bang them too. Get over yourself, Someone’s Mom, I’m not that hard up yet.
Men get a bad rap sometimes. A lot of women say that chivalry is dead, but I don’t think it’s as much dead as it is often times suppressed for fear of it being misconstrued as a gateway to rape.
Essentially, the only scenario in which I feel totally comfortable helping a fellow member of society any more is when I offer to help a grown man of roughly my same size jump his car when his battery is dead. That’s really the only time that both parties can feel completely assured that this is a truly altruistic gesture with no malice intended.
And it’s right then, when his guard is down, that I fuck him.
