Member-only story
Is there a minimal amount of sexual indecency with a child that is no big deal?
I ask because of a personal experience.
My experience occurred almost 40 years ago. This is the first time I’ve ever mentioned it in any way. I was 6 or 7 years old, and my best friend was 4 or 5.
Our neighbors were close-knit.
We all felt like family. As kids, we loved hanging out with the adults, too, sometimes. One man, who always gave us kids his time, lived nearby. He’d let us help him garden and set traps for the moles. He’d create woodwork items for us. He taught us how to bird watch, and he’d be our guide as we hiked in the forest behind the houses of the neighborhood. He was a friend. This neighbor and friend had so much good in him, and he and his wife were a fundamental block of our neighborhood family.
Yet there was this one time…
My friend and I knocked on his door as we often did, wanting to know if he “wanted to play”.
When he answered the door, he was standing there with only a towel wrapped around his waist. We honestly thought nothing odd about it. I’m sure we assumed that he would go change and we’d be off doing something fun. His wife was not home.
