Corey was sexually abused and raped in his home by a teenage girl
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Corey was sexually abused and raped in his home by a teenage girl. It began when he was a young boy who had no idea about sex – ‘just a baby’ he says.
The abuse caused him immense distress, confusion and revulsion and has had huge repercussions on his life.
Corey lived with his dad and his brother. His dad had a partner with a son and a daughter, Steffi. Steffi, who was about 16 years old, began abusing Corey at times when the families were together. He was about eight years old.
When his dad’s partner and her two children moved into Corey’s home, the abuse escalated and occurred two or three times a week until Corey was 11 or 12. Steffi also abused Corey’s brother and her own brother.
He remembers one incident in the middle of the night when he woke up and Steffi was on top of him, ‘molesting’ him. He didn’t know what was happening at the time.
Steffi would make excuses to get close to Corey, such as watching television with him. He has a memory of lying on a bed and Steffi making him touch her genitals, which he found disgusting. He adds that he feels bad because sometimes when he was being abused he enjoyed the physical sensations, but he didn’t understand them, and it was very confusing and upsetting.
He witnessed Steffi abusing his brother, who had not reached puberty at the time, and saw her abusing her own brother too.
Steffi sometimes abused and humiliated Corey in front of her friends. He says he was ‘terrified of being left alone with her’.
He describes abuse by Steffi that he now realises was rape. He hates what Steffi made him do and doesn’t understand what she got from raping such a young boy.
Steffi’s mother was physically abusive to Corey and his brother. He remembers that he once passed out when she was hitting him and he saw her kick his brother to the floor.
The abuse stopped when Corey was in the early years of secondary school. His father kicked Steffi out of the home because she and her friends had stolen some things while the family was on holiday.
Some time later, Corey’s father got a new girlfriend, who made him feel safe. He says ‘It felt so different to when Steffi was around’.
Corey says he is not sure whether he showed any signs at the time he was being abused, but when he was a teenager he ‘went off the rails’. He sometimes started fires and he was caught by the police a few times.
But, he says, nobody asked him why he was so destructive. He remembers being slapped by his father when he was in trouble with the police, but he says he doesn’t think his father ‘wanted to notice’.
He wishes he or his brother could have told their father, but feels they didn’t have the words to describe what was happening. He was close to his grandparents and also wishes he could have told his grandad about the abuse. He says he knows ‘he would have done something about it, but even he didn’t see the signs’.
As a young adult Corey finally told his father, but ‘he didn’t want to know’. He says his father is still ‘very distant’.
Corey has had issues with drugs and alcohol, and suffers with intrusive thoughts about Steffi abusing him. He can’t watch some programmes on TV, because it reminds him of the abuse. He says ‘It will never leave me and I’ll take that to the grave with me.’
In the last decade Corey has got a regular job and feels his life is stable. He is married with children and is aware that the abuse he suffered has affected him as a parent. He feels he is overprotective and looking at his son makes him realise how Steffi took his innocence.
He has told his wife about the abuse, but not all the details. He says it affects their intimacy, because he has feelings of confusion and shame. He often feels ‘dirty’ and wants to wash his hands a lot.
However, he realises now that he didn’t do anything wrong, but he didn’t feel that way growing up. He feels that Steffi knew what she was doing when she abused him, even though she wasn’t fully an adult.
Corey would like to see parenting programmes to raise awareness of the risks, signs and the impact of child sexual abuse. He believes that parents should always listen to what their children have to say. He thinks his father was ‘too in love’ with Steffi’s mum to see the abuse.
He wonders how different his life could be if he had been able to disclose the abuse instead of having to go through it alone. He believes that anyone in a position of responsibility with children should be trained in how to spot the signs of abuse and encourage disclosures.
Corey and his wife feel there is limited coverage of young women raping young boys and they believe that society needs to take the stigma away, so boys feel they can come forward without feeling embarrassed or ashamed.