Groomed

It is estimated that 1 in every 6 boys will experience a sexual encounter with an adult at some point in their lives before they reach the age of consent. In this day and age, many adults find this topic unsettling and will often circumvent the issue even if they remotely suspect that some form of abuse may be occurring. Parents, regardless of intent, have a tendency to blame the victim, which further perpetuate feelings of guilt and shame in the child. They don't know what questions to ask, and if they do, they may not believe the answer no matter how honest the child is capable of being at that moment. Groomed tells the story of abuse and how it changed the trajectory of who the author would have been. The story is told from the perspective of a thirteen-year-old victim and a fifty-five-year-old survivor.