Davide feels he has a ‘dark side’ to his character as a result of being abused
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Davide was a member of a sports club and he enjoyed training and competing.
The seemingly respectable president of this club groomed and abused him, and trafficked him to other abusers in the nearby town.
Davide grew up in the 1960s in a ‘loving and supportive’ family.
He was good at sports and joined a club outside school when he was about nine. The president of the club, Mr A, was in his 60s. He dressed smartly and was seen as ‘a figure of respect’. Davide was pleased when Mr A took an interest in him and noted his sporting prowess.
Mr A began coming into the changing room after training, and making complimentary remarks about Davide’s body. The club president was the only adult who came into the changing room.
Mr A suggested to Davide he could get changed in another room where there was more space. ‘With hindsight, I was being groomed’ says Davide. Mr A would encourage the boy to leave the door open so they could chat with each other.
The club president made remarks about Davide’s developing body, including comments about his genitals. Davide adds ‘This is a guy you trust, he is in a position of responsibility and I was brought up to respect adults’.
After a few months, Mr A offered Davide a lift home in his car. He stopped on the way and told Davide that in his army days, it was ‘perfectly natural’ for males to touch each other. He started touching Davide, and then performed oral sex on him. Davide was 12 years old.
Afterwards, Mr A said ‘This is our little secret, it’s perfectly normal but you don’t need to talk about it’. He gave Davide some money and took him home. Davide says Mr A ‘was never unpleasant, never threatening’. The abuse continued for about six to nine months, with Mr A reinforcing the message that it was ‘between you and I’.
After about nine months, Mr A told Davide there were other people who enjoyed the same ‘activities’. He took Davide to the public toilets in the local town, where he encouraged the boy to let other men perform oral sex on him. Davide recalls that Mr A warned him to stay away from some of the men.
As Davide became older, he thinks that Mr A began to lose interest in him. Davide had been feeling increasingly uncomfortable about the abuse. Eventually he dropped out of the sports club and the abuse stopped.
Davide never told his parents about it, but says that he had moved from ‘being an innocent child to having knowledge; a dark side that I couldn’t talk about and who didn’t know what was right and wrong sexually’.
Looking back, he believes that other adults at the sports club must have known what Mr A was doing.
Davide became rebellious and untrusting of men in authority, and he says this has continued throughout his life. He finds it difficult to make friendships with men.
Davide felt ‘internal turmoil’ about his sexuality. He carried on engaging in risky behaviour, even after he got married and had a successful professional career, which made him feel sick and angry with himself. ‘I hated myself for it, and still do’ he says.
He tried to talk about the abuse and his behaviour with his wife, but she could not cope with his revelations and the marriage broke up. Davide has had counselling to try and come to terms with the abuse but says he is still coping with considerable ‘internal angst’.
He is unable to share everything he has experienced with his current partner, and he is critical of himself for this. Although, he adds, he believes it is difficult for people who haven’t had similar experiences to understand the damage that abuse causes victims and survivors.
In recent years, Davide contacted his old sports club to share information about Mr A and find out if any other victims and survivors had come forward. No one at the club was able to provide any information.
Davide suggests there should be rigorous supervision of staff in all organisations involving children. He says there should be confidential ‘safe spaces’ for children to discuss any concerns, and improved access to specialist counselling and therapeutic services.
He adds that more education, awareness-raising and mentoring in schools would help protect children. ‘If there’d been more awareness and communication of what’s normal and what’s not so normal … that might have helped me’, he says.