April 16, 2024 • 54 mins
In this poignant episode of The Dark Side of the Rainbow, host Robert Wallace invites listeners into a profound discussion on the hidden dangers and vulnerabilities facing gay adolescents today. With a focus on the disturbing reality of grooming and manipulation in children's lives, Wallace amplifies the urgent call for societal and parental vigilance.
This episode with guest Joey Macasieb, a member of Gays Against Groomers and a survivor of child sexual assault, uncovers the grim possibilities that homeless or disenfranchised youth might encounter when seeking help from predatory support systems. The conversation takes a deep dive into how children's trust can be breached and innocence violated by such malevolent individuals, and underscores the urgent need for proactive safety measures and increased parental involvement in the lives of children.
Joey bares all in this real-life horror story of how he was sexually exploited at just 15 years old. It stands as a stark warning against grooming behavior and sheds light on the toll such actions take on young victims. At the same time, it accentuates the dire need for parental involvement and understanding to prevent such events.
Broaching the topic of the digital world's potential dangers, the conversation encourages vital discussions on online safety, privacy standards, and the importance of maintaining parental authority in the AI age. The importance of open conversations about harmful encounters on social media are addressed while pointing out resources and support systems for victims of sexual assault.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This episode of The Dark Side of the Rainbow is sponsored by us.
We wanted to let you know that we have a huge online store full of official,
gotta get the official, Gays Against Groomers merch.
Each purchase really helps us continue our fight, and it's also a great way
(00:23):
to spread an important message. So, check it out at shop.gaysagainstgroomers.com.
That's shop.gaysagainstgroomers.com. And to learn more about our organization,
donate to our cause, or get involved, just visit gaysagainstgroomers.com.
(00:44):
And if you're interested in sponsoring this, please reach out at podcast at
gaysagainstgroomers.com.
Music.
(01:09):
Welcome to The Dark Side of the Rainbow.
This is Robert Wallace. The Dark Side of the Rainbow is a presentation of Gays Against Groomers.
Today we're going to be dealing with a very graphic subject.
We'll try not to be too graphic in our discussions,
but it's what happens when those that you trust take advantage of you,
(01:35):
and particularly with regards to the LGBT plus crew. crew.
Kids find themselves homeless sometimes.
They find themselves in a position where they need support, and maybe it has
something to do with their sexual identity that's put them on the streets because
the parents want nothing to do with it.
(01:58):
And in certain cases, people find their way through support systems put in place
to help these disenfranchised youth.
Certain situations have occurred where individuals who are charged with the
care of the youth have taken advantage of that responsibility and have pursued their sexual demons.
(02:26):
Now, what in general we're going to be discussing here has a lot to do with
the vulnerabilities and the
vulnerable situations that gay youth in particular can find themselves in.
And this could probably in any case be said of any type of youth,
(02:46):
but there are some unique additional areas where.
That demographic that gay youth can be taken advantage of in particular,
that parents and society need
to be aware of in order to watch and prevent activities from manifesting.
(03:07):
So, Gays Against Groomers fights the war on grooming,
and grooming ultimately leads to to the acceptance or even the enjoyment of
certain deviant activities.
When a child or somebody is being prepared to be abused, they're slowly being indoctrinated.
(03:31):
They are being indoctrinated by
somebody who's attempting to groom them or prepare them for said activity.
To think it's okay, to think that it feels good, that it will be their secret,
that this is what they don't want you to know about or what makes you feel so good.
(03:53):
Whatever a predator, a groomer might say to a young person in order to cause
them to open up to them about sexual matters,
but also keep those secrets and keep that between them so the groomer or the
would-be predator may continue and stay free while he does this, he or she.
(04:20):
So what we need to look out for are various things, and particularly people.
Right on the face of it, we have teachers, We have counselors or area leaders
or people in charge who have expressed at various times their feelings toward
(04:43):
a more sexualized education for kids.
A more open, sexually fluid attitude towards the types of activities and discussions
that children might be engaged in,
including but not limited to the ideologies that the individual supports.
(05:04):
Courts, the queer theory, and bringing that into discussions maybe around pronouns
and around the discussion of anything sexual that should not be discussed with children.
We see this in schools in the form of books.
We see this in culture and how the drag queens are opening themselves up to
(05:30):
hosting your children at their little dance.
And so we need to be aware that even though an adult is an adult and they're
smiling nicely and they seem to be caring and have good intentions.
If they value these types of things, it can and will find its way to your child,
(05:53):
and that will be the beginning of a spiral of problems for them.
Now, for younger gay guys, sometimes when they get around groups of older gays,
you're going to have different dynamics occur.
You hopefully will have a situation where everybody is appropriate and is friendly
(06:17):
and is guiding their young person here and have themselves no internal motivation
to do anything inappropriate.
You know, it should be that adult women are teaching little girls how to be
women, how to grow up into women.
And men should be raising young boys up into being men.
(06:41):
And in the community where we have disenfranchised youth,
kids who maybe don't have good relationships with their parents,
they're not throwing that proverbial baseball back and forth with their dad out in the yard.
A lot of times that leadership, that guidance is sought for and found in the older community,
(07:09):
the older portion of the gay community among members of that class,
of that ilk, that most closely relate to how that kid feels.
And if he finds himself going down these paths, seeking out this guidance from
these kinds of people, then a lot of random influences can make their way into
(07:34):
his life, and even vulnerability.
And so it is important, just like with any kind of stranger that we know who
we're putting our children in front of and what they are discussing.
And the nature of that discussion, because sometimes the nature of a conversation
(07:56):
can start off very wholesome, and then it goes down into a rabbit hole,
and then it may enter into gray zones of appropriateness with regards to matters
that pertain to sexuality of any kind,
and in the event of sharing or oversharing in this place, space.
(08:17):
Bonds and connections of a certain nature can be formed while we're in really
a secret special relationship is forged.
And so we don't want the parents excluded from this.
We do want the kids to be able to have the information that they're seeking,
(08:38):
the knowledge and insight into growing up being themselves, but they need to
be able to do that without going to the arms of a stranger, perhaps,
where they may be taken advantage of.
And so, however a person is parenting a child,
and particularly a gay child, it's very important to be mindful of the areas
(09:02):
of influence, particularly those people and places, programs,
which are designed for kids or designed to help young people in this department
of uncovering, understanding their sexuality, for instance.
Of course, it's not to say that people who do this types of work are of necessity
(09:26):
predators of any kind or groomers necessarily of any kind.
These are areas where predators have been known to strike Where certain individuals
who maybe even have gone into those services To help people,
(09:47):
you know, possibly with good intentions All of a sudden,
a situation you would not think comes to bear So, it is a very sensitive area
of discussion It's a subject that does affect a very core part of an individual,
and so there needs to be healthy options to keep kids protected.
(10:10):
Particularly, again, from individuals who feel justified in sexualizing kids.
And the form that the sexualizing of kids takes can be anything from,
let's discuss your sex life, let's talk about sex,
let's talk about your sexual identities, to things that are even more explicit.
(10:34):
And holding these types of conversations or giving content to kids that instructs
them on how to go and seek out a gay sex partner or all of the ways in which
they may explore and express their homosexuality or their transsexuality.
This is not the content that parents are approving for the kids.
(10:59):
This is not the place for the school. and.
Because the powers that be are supporting and really pushing these agents of change,
these instructors who have been thoroughly instructed in not just the affirming,
(11:19):
the affirmation part of these kids'.
Trans identities, but the promotion of these identities.
And so it's really spreading more and more, where it was not, these ways of thinking.
And so if we have our kids around those types of people, it's going to bring about situations.
(11:44):
Situations are going to occur around them, in their classroom,
in those groups, where had it never entered into the conversation,
it would not be discussing it at all.
We have the other issue of what happens
when our little girl goes into the bathroom and there
is a you know six foot five man okay of any other details just the fact of being
(12:09):
a man in there and we all we've seen weirdos okay you got a man in there he's
just simply saying he's a woman and he's doing weirdo activity,
okay, this is a dangerous position to be in as a child.
And it's a dangerous world to raise your kids in.
So if you know there's a policy somewhere in the school or wherever you're going
(12:32):
where this sort of thing is allowed to happen,
you need to take extra caution to ensure that those situations aren't taken advantage of.
By some confused adult who
thinks themselves a woman and then
all of a sudden thinks themselves a very
(12:53):
heterosexual cis man all of a sudden when they're in the girl's bathroom you
know and back and forth they go very dangerous so the kids need to be watched
okay who's who's advising them at school what clubs and groups are they part
of are you sending them to a camp who's Who's running,
you know, that camp and what are their beliefs and what are they talking about
(13:16):
when it comes to bathrooms, when it comes to sports?
What are the policies on these things and what kind of extra watching do you
have to do to make sure that those types of policies don't directly end up affecting you?
You know, maybe the policies put in place and, you know, no trans person ever
joins and it's not an issue. you, maybe it's enough to know that it could happen.
(13:40):
That's enough to take your child out of that program.
And with bathrooms, okay, if you don't know who's in there, you might want to check them out.
We've seen the videos, parents going ahead of the kids and finding some strange
trans-identifying individual lurking in the shadows of that restroom to spring
out and And do what to whom we do not want to know.
(14:05):
So, but with that said, I.
This can happen to anybody. Again, in the gay community, it happens in a certain
way because there is a disenfranchisement of youth a lot of times with their
church, with their mentors,
parents, with any sort of wholesome guidance.
They've got the world. They've got the gay community.
(14:27):
They've got those clubs and those groups of friends that they're going to make.
And if they're the ones educating your child, particularly during the young
years, your kids are going to have a lot more going on in their heads than you think.
And they're going to be developing into a much different kind of person than
your efforts were meant to forge them into.
(14:52):
You know, this person that we're about to talk to had actually this sort of
thing. And his name is Joey.
And when he was in his late teens, he actually was sexually assaulted by somebody
not too, too much older than him, but an adult who definitely misrepresented their age.
(15:13):
And it's a situation that we can only really prevent if we know where our kids
are at, who they're talking to, and then there's some chance of intercepting
these types of encounters.
So I want you to listen, and if you have any questions, comments,
if you want to sponsor the show or donate,
(15:36):
you can go to GaysAgainstGroomers.com forward slash podcast and do that,
And you can write podcast at GaysAgainstGroomers.com if you'd like to sponsor
an episode or the series.
And so enjoy the interview and we'll see you on the other side of the rainbow. Music.
(15:57):
Music.
Today, we have Joey McAseeb with us. How are you doing, Joey?
(16:17):
I'm doing well, Robert. How are you? I'm very good. So for our listeners and viewers today,
Joey McAseep is a member of Gays Against Groomers and is also a survivor victim
of some past sexual assault and grooming type activity,
(16:40):
which is what we here at Gays Against Groomers are trying to put a curb to.
So, Joey, could you give us an introduction and tell us about your first 15 years of life?
Yeah, so I'm a member of Gays Against Screamers here in California.
We're one of the older chapters, and I'm one of the original members.
(17:00):
So growing up here, I grew up here, born and raised in Southern California.
Beautiful place, of course. I was born down here in the South Bay.
And growing up, I mean, I was just kind of a normal kid. I
maybe had a little bit of gender non-conforming activity I used to my grandmother
doesn't actually have her ears pierced so she said it's a little clip-on earrings
(17:21):
and like when I was super little I would sneak into her room you know like try
on grandma's earrings but then I'd also try on my grandfather's shoes it was
like one of those you know kids play and dress up kind of situations.
My parents were divorced I lost my father unfortunately when I was 12 years
old And that was really rough on me.
(17:41):
But sometime around 12, 13, hitting puberty, I kind of started to have those
little realization moments that when my guy friends were talking about the girls at school,
I was maybe a little bit more interested in the other boys at school.
The exact moment was, I had my aha moment was in, I was in choir,
(18:03):
spent a lot of time in choir and we were getting ready to do a musical.
So a little bit of stereotype there, I know.
Loved it, loved theater. And so I went to, I get to high school.
And I guess some things kind of happened, kind of with my emotional state and still,
(18:23):
you know, Being a teenager and dealing with the loss of my father and some of
the struggles that were also happening and having this little bit of a freak
out moment that I might be gay because I was raised in a very conservative religious family.
That I had said some things or I'd done some things in the early days of Zynga, Myspace, whatever.
And I was outed to my parents by the school, which was equally as traumatic. attic.
(18:50):
But eventually, things kind of calmed down and they settled.
And my mom had actually made the suggestion, why don't you go look into see
if they have some youth programs at the Gay and Lesbian Center here in Long Beach.
So I was about 14, 15 years old at the time.
I was kind of resistant to it at first, you know, because this kind of got dragged out of me.
(19:14):
It was this part that I hadn't And part of me that I hadn't really explored much yet.
I mean, 15 years old, but I did eventually.
I went down there and I found out that they had a, like a youth support group
that met after school at about six, seven o'clock at night.
And the age range for this group, and this probably should have been red flag.
(19:36):
Number one was like 13 to, I want to say it was like 25.
So that's already a pretty crazy age range. you know, a gap,
generational gap, you know, however you want to put it. And this is in 2005. So-
You know, you can kind of see that a little bit of that, that timeframe there.
(19:56):
So I attended this group every so often. It was kind of like a general support group.
You know, you would sit and people would talk about their lives and what their
struggles were and, you know, and so on and so forth.
Well, they were going to have a Thanksgiving event at the, one of the facilitators
homes. So before Thanksgiving.
(20:18):
So I asked my mom, Hey, can I go to this thing? And she said, yeah, sure.
So I get out of school. We go to this event.
And that is where I met a guy who was significantly older than me.
He told me he was 18, but it turned out that I would find out later.
I think it was actually the detectives that told me he was 21.
(20:40):
And again, I was 15. I had just turned 15 the month before.
And so I don't know exactly, I can't really recall that night specifically,
but I do know that once the event
started winding down, he and his friends offered to give me a ride home.
(21:01):
Well, between home and the event, I guess they had decided that they wanted
to stop at some of the bars that were downtown, that are kind of in downtown Long Beach.
So our gayborhoods down on Broadway, there's a little string of bars there that are really popular.
Parking down there is a nightmare, so we had to park several blocks away.
Of course, I'm 15 years old. I'm not getting into a bar. This guy told me he's 18.
(21:26):
He's not getting into a bar as far as I know. So the friends go to the bar and
leave me alone in the car with the guy.
And I'm deliberately not naming him, by the way.
I don't even think he deserves the dignity of it.
And so we're sitting in the car. And we're just kind of talking about life.
(21:50):
I somehow start talking about my dad. And as we know with grooming behavior,
one of the first things that somebody is going going to do who is grooming a
child is going to try to make some kind of emotional connection,
they're going to try to say oh you know yeah i i'm here for you can talk about
that in this case you know i i've lost you know i think said a grandparent or
(22:10):
something i don't remember,
and so that was then again this should be red flag number one,
kind of sitting there talking his friends are over in the bar he's kind of putting
his hand hand on my hand. I'm getting a little emotional.
And then I do remember that he had leaned in to kiss me and I went ahead and
(22:30):
just kind of, okay, this is what it's going to be.
So eventually they take me home, guy friends with me on my space as kind of,
you know, this is the days before smartphones.
So I'm having, you know, I'm kind of logging in after the whole thing.
Cause I'm thinking, Ooh, I met this cute older guy.
Like it's, you know, this is great. I know I'm, I'm, I'm in,
(22:54):
I'm 15 years old. I'm in high school. Like, Oh, everybody wants to have that older boyfriend.
So I'm logging in, you know, kind of sending some messages back and forth.
And I went to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving.
And, you know, we kind of had said, like, when I get back, maybe,
you know, might pick me up from school when, when I get back and we could,
and we could hang out after school.
(23:17):
So the week after, so, you know, we're kind of sending messages back and forth
a little bit. My grandparents don't have a computer.
So I get back and I check my messages and I'm all giddy because here's,
you know, a bunch of messages and, you know, just kind of being really sweet
and asking how my holiday was and asking how my family is.
And we make plans that he's going to pick me up from school in a couple of days
(23:38):
after Thanksgiving. And that's what happens.
He picks me up from school and he takes me back to his apartment,
where his roommates were there for a bit.
So before I go any further, Robert, if I can, anyone who is struggling with
sexual violence, with sexual assault, I'm not going to go into any graphic detail,
but I just kind of want them to be aware.
(24:00):
If there's something you're struggling with, you may not want to listen past
this point, or you may want to bring somebody in to listen with you because
I just don't want to bring up any emotion in anyone else that could be harmful.
So his roommates, they had to go to work. So here I am about three o'clock,
four o'clock in the afternoon, alone in the house with this guy.
(24:24):
And we're talking and he asks, and he's kind of moving a little bit closer to me sitting on the couch.
Kind of, you know, putting his hands on me a little bit, kissing me a little bit.
And the next thing I know, he's taking my clothes off.
(24:45):
And I'm getting a little freaked out at this point. You know,
I'm like, hey, I don't think this is a good idea. Like, I don't really know you that well.
And then he held me down and sexually assaulted me. Wow. Yeah.
You know, to think how vulnerable we are growing up and then to compound that
in your situation with this added trauma and these circumstances that you've
(25:09):
gone through with your father and all that.
And then to have that taken advantage of being young, finding yourself,
going through trauma, and then
here you are trusting somebody who's a bit older, and then this happens.
(25:30):
And that's not even the crux of it, is it? Because it wasn't done.
Yeah it's not it's not really even the crux of it i mean you have these things
that are compounding of course but then this happens and you're frozen you don't
know what to do at this point i couldn't even it was not anything that could occur to my young mind,
(25:53):
that i had just been assaulted and i mean it didn't actually hit me until like
maybe four or five hours later, because I completely disassociated.
And that's something that I kind of understand later from therapy,
but it's almost an out-of-body experience, you know?
(26:14):
Your brain kind of shuts down to try to protect you. And I think that's what happened.
Yeah. Wow. So, you know, you raise a good point there because a lot of times
people go through trauma, victimization, assault of whatever kind, sexual assault.
And in many cases, they don't even know that they've been realized that they
(26:36):
are technically a victim and that that shouldn't have happened to them,
that they had a right to be protected from that.
And that what the other person did was not just wrong, but it was criminal.
And so how did that affect you moving forward?
Can you tell us about the days after that and how you came to terms?
(26:58):
Yeah. So when I was home, I was kind of sitting, I was kind of sitting back
on the computer and I was chatting with one of my friends on AOL instant messenger.
And I just told him, I was like, I remember it just hit me and I said, can you do me a favor?
And he goes, what? And I said, define rate.
(27:19):
And he says, he just stopped. He said, I'm going to call you right now. So he called my house.
And I'm crying at this point. Like I'm not processing things. My parents are asleep.
I'm just losing it. And he's asking me, what happened? What happened?
And I finally tell him what happened.
(27:40):
And he says, let me get another friend of mine on the phone.
He's a lawyer. Gets a friend on the phone.
Friend who starts, you know, trying to console me goes, you're okay. You didn't do it.
They're trying to get this through my head that I did not do anything wrong.
That's number one. That's the number one thing they're trying to do.
I stayed home from school the next day. I kind of just told my mom I was sick.
(28:00):
My friend called me back and he said, you need to say something.
And you need to say it now while they can get this guy.
Because this is within a few hours. I haven't showered. I haven't really,
you know, done anything. I think I kind of took my clothes, you know,
off and just kind of threw them in the corner.
So there's evidence. There's what they would need.
So my mom comes home from work and I'm sitting on the edge of my bed and I tell
(28:26):
her what happened. And my mom calls the police.
We have a weird jurisdictional issue here in Long Beach.
Long Beach Police Department, where we live, covers one side of the street and
then you cross the street and you're in a different jurisdiction.
So Long Beach Police is who showed up. I tell them, I tell the responding officers,
two uniformed officers, what happened.
(28:48):
They asked me to take them to the apartment. So So I do.
That's how they figure out, well, unfortunately, they're not going to handle
this case. The other police department can handle it.
So I get taken to the other police department and I have to tell the story all over again.
I just I honestly, to this day, don't know how I did it.
(29:10):
At this point, I've told the story three times within the span of, God, 24 hours.
And to their i mean law enforcement
has to ask survivors a lot of questions and a lot of
them seem insensitive and sometimes they seem probing but
what they're trying to do is make the best case possible
and have the most information that they have
(29:32):
so they're asking me well did you agree to anything did you
know was any of this okay at first you know and they're
asking me these questions and all i can think of was and
i i told them the truth i said yeah you know i you didn't kidnapped me
like i i was there of my own free will you
know i i went there that i i made these
decisions myself that's that is true so eventually
(29:56):
detective shows up and detective says
we want to get you a medical exam see if we can still get any
evidence okay my mom has to drive me to the hospital where they have the the
forensic unit and when i when i when i when i tell you that is probably the
most the second worst experience of my life because they are very thorough,
(30:22):
looking for what they can find it sounds like you had to be re-violated just
try to make sense or get some justice for the first violation Dr.
Justin Marchegiani Emotionally and physically.
And so the, uh, at that point I was able to go home.
(30:42):
Detective wasn't going to keep me up late. It was already, you know, 11, 12 o'clock at night.
My mom pulled me out of school for the next day. There's no way I was going to school.
And so the next day the detectives come back, you know, they kind of have to
wake me up because detectives have been up all night.
They had a photo array ready for me. They wanted me to identify him and I did right away.
(31:05):
And they arrested him that day. That's awesome.
So let's let's progress a little bit more
in the story and then and then i've got some
follow-up questions about this but what what
happened to him how did they catch him and what's
he so he was at he was at home they arrested him at home as far as i know he
(31:27):
was taken to men's central jail in downtown la i never act i don't think they
tried him i'm pretty sure he pled out so they They pled him down to statutory
rape because I think under California law too,
the charge would be different.
You can't charge male on male rape. It's like forcible sodomy or something of that nature.
(31:48):
And of course I was a minor, so that adds other things to it.
So he didn't actually do jail time except for between sentencing.
I didn't testify to sentencing either. My mom did on my behalf because I was
a minor. So my name is also not in the court record.
But she was given this laundry list of parole violations, and he was put under
(32:14):
very strict supervision for having been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor.
And that is the last that I had ever heard. Well, I'm sorry that happened to you.
And I think the story is just so important. Were you going to say something?
No. Okay. Sorry, I'm just kind of recomposing myself here for a second.
(32:35):
Yeah. Yeah, you have to relive that trauma just to go through and tell the story. It's terrible.
And because it is so terrible, people who've never had any sort of trauma like that,
maybe they can't imagine how scarring and what kind of mark that leaves on a
person's consciousness, subconscious.
(32:57):
And so it's important to understand that stuff. But in this case,
you know, when we're dealing with groomers, we're dealing with all these sexual
assaults, especially within the gay community.
And when you're young and you're a child and you're put into the care or in
(33:17):
an environment where you're supposed to be around trusted adults who are able
to easily manipulate the situation in order to express their lusts, etc.
Et cetera, it's a very dangerous situation to be in.
And there's only really one way to do it. Yeah, it's very dangerous.
(33:38):
You really need to be, parents should be aware of who their kids are around.
I understand that, of course, you and I are both gay men.
We maybe had a little bit of a difference in our teenage years and some of our
social development and our psychological development. And our parents weren't
(33:59):
really equipped to help us with these things.
But on the other side of that, you can't outsource it.
It's a lot of what we've done with education, with a number of things in this
country, but we can't outsource parenting. Sure, you can go out there and say,
hey, you know, there are some resources for you.
But the message that I want to carry across is that parents really need to take
(34:24):
an active role in these cases to make sure their kids aren't getting into these situations,
to make sure that there is screening going on. Sorry about that.
It's okay. Make sure there is screening going on. You know, if you're going
to be around adults or if adults are facilitating these groups or anything,
or even just, you know, let have these conversations at home.
(34:49):
You know, because these predators are out there.
We saw it with that couple in Georgia. And I mean, that was something I took
really personally, I think now for obvious reasons, but they're out there.
And they always come as a wolf in sheep's clothing.
And you want to make sure that you can try to insulate children from that as
(35:13):
much as you possibly can.
Teenagers especially, because you know what? High risk taker,
low thought process, bad decisions happen.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like what you said there. We can't outsource parenting.
And you know, the funny, weird, difficult angle of the whole parent raising
(35:37):
gay child is that as a gay person,
even though you don't know you're gay, you don't know what it means or what
all comes with that, you still know very little about yourself.
Self in like any other child
in any other circumstance require or are
relying on adults and responsible
(36:00):
people to help guide you through whatever you
might find yourself in but most parents are not equipped you know straight right
usually you know because they had the kids sometimes you know gay people have
kids but a lot of times straight people they don't know what a a gate kid is
going to go through or what that means for them, for the child or for them as the parent.
(36:21):
And so all of a sudden they're, they're unequipped to help navigate you, you know, the child.
And then what, what happens services randomly come along or the kid's friends,
or they go their own way and they
just kind of, you know, willy nilly find their way through the forest.
And this sort of stuff happens because, um.
(36:42):
Like you're saying, wrong place, wrong time, or the provisions weren't there.
What could have been done at home wasn't done.
It wasn't done maliciously that way,
but through negligence or at least being improperly prepared or informed about
(37:03):
the child or sexuality and then all of these different conditions.
And then, yeah, it's really tough. so
do you what kind of education do you
think you know i'm a parent and you know i'm
straight i don't know much about the the gay life lifestyle or
what it is to be raised in the circumstance my kid tells me
they're gay how can i safely bring them
(37:28):
up in the world i think probably
the best yeah i think probably the best thing that parents can do
is listen first to their kids because they're going
to be having all the same feelings that you know your your
straight children are but they're gonna be having them for members of the same sex
and so you know you want to you know
if uh if it's within your belief
(37:48):
system your value system you are gonna parents want
to have you know conversations about safe sex practices one of the things that
i got a really good talking to about was hiv because it was still the 2000s
and my parents you know my my mom and was older and she you know had immediately
the aids epidemic from the 80s in her mind so that was That was like number
(38:09):
one thing that happened.
But you also want to have these safety talks.
Right now we are in the digital age.
AI scares the crap out of me for a number of reasons. But that person that you
meet online, that could be an AI generated photo.
The messages that you're getting could be AI generated as well.
(38:30):
There's a real risk of human trafficking. Parents need to tell their kids,
you know, there are, you know, these apps out there and you might be, you know, teenagers,
especially because they're going to see their peers, you know,
having relationships and you know, kind of starting that stage of their development
and they're going to say,
oh, well, this app grinder is out there or, you know, things of that nature,
(38:54):
parents are going to want to be aware of that.
There are ways for kids to download these apps and conceal them, you know, delete them.
Maybe when they come home, I really, you know, I'm probably gonna get a lot
of hate for this, but parents, you really need parents really need to do phone
checks because if my, my space had been checked, I fully believe this not would
have gone. This would not have gone as far as it did.
(39:15):
Look for these things, have these conversations, tell them, you know,
you do not get in a car with somebody you don't know, drive that point home,
home, but also tell your kids, if something happens,
come to me, just do it, you know, have these conversations where if you're somewhere
in the middle of the night and you made a decision to get drunk with your friends
(39:38):
or whatever, just call me, I'll come get you,
deal with everything else later, have that openness, you know,
where it's enough, where There's enough latitude, but that, you know,
a parent is still an authority figure.
Right. Yeah. It's a very delicate balancing act to stay both accessible,
(40:00):
you know, a trusted, you know, companion in a sense with your child,
but not going the other road of just becoming their friend and failing to be
the adult on the hard line issues.
And then, you know, the phone issue. Yeah. Yeah, as a kid, I probably would
not have, you know, wanted something like a phone check or something like that.
(40:22):
But, you know, we have too many things going on right now. I mean,
A, parents need to parent.
And B, these devices are connected to the Internet.
So that means anything can happen, anything goes.
And if you just turn your head away
turn your attention away for a week two weeks
(40:42):
a month years you know we're becoming
different people on the sidelines through the different things we're able to
explore on these devices you're going to lose touch of what is motivating your
child you're not going to be prioritizing those safety precautions because you're
(41:02):
not going to to know if there's anything on a safe hat.
Right, because at this point in children's development, especially in their
teen years, the peer group becomes their primary source of socialization.
And they're going to be taking a lot of cues from their peer group,
for better or for worse. So parents need to be aware of that.
Primarily, because that's where a lot of these influences are going to come from.
(41:25):
They're going to come from the internet. They're going to come from,
you know, if you don't have, if you don't have these conversations with your
kids, somebody else is going to, you just, that's kind of what it boils down to.
Yeah, they will. They do. They are stirring up the conversation.
Even if they do, it's never entered into your kid's mind. That's become so proactive.
(41:47):
It's actually sparring on the whole problem.
Absolutely. That's where the whole notion of a social contagion comes in. Yeah, definitely.
And so we're looking at that, we're seeing it all around us,
and we're thinking, I'll try that.
We're thinking, hey, maybe I should go and hang out with them,
or this is normal, and the kids are being sexualized, and they're entering into
(42:12):
and adopting fetishes and things.
I don't even realize there's nothing unhealthy, unnatural about it,
because we're being told that it's all very natural.
And I've had a friend of mine who's told me that her, that her son is being,
it was bullied at school for being a straight white kid.
You know, because he's not gender. He doesn't have any weird,
(42:35):
anything with his gender. He's not gay. It's just him.
And he's bullied for it. Like, I mean, I don't know about you,
Robert, but kids weren't too kind when I was in school about being gay.
And now it's like, you know, showing up to school in full Abercrombie, like, Yeah.
Well, to be honest, I kind of skirted through past, past a lot of that because
(42:57):
I didn't really come out until a little bit later in my school years and like right before I got done.
So, but yeah, it is obviously a much different environment.
We had the one gay kid, people were giving them problems and now it's completely flipped.
But the representation, it doesn't make sense, you know, whether it's on TV,
you know, Hollywood, it's like there is just such a great proportion of LGBTQIA
(43:23):
plus identifying individuals that are being cast onto us than there really are in our environments.
It's so disproportionate that people become overwhelmed and they become susceptible
to the idea that they need to conform or get in the groove if they want to,
you know, hang out with the cool kids and stay relevant. Right.
(43:48):
But the problem is, aside of the mental issues that are going to come along
with these sorts of influences,
namely confusion about one's own identity, gender expression,
gender identity, sexual attraction, all of these different so-called variables
that convolute a person's sense of self.
(44:10):
The problem is aside of the degradation
of the dignity of a person and
the confusion is that it's going to lead them into sketchy areas of life with
people very sketchy people who are managing and people that do not have your
best interests at heart you know and they're going to seem like it this guy
was very sweet he was he was he was very sweet but that's how grooming transforming begins,
(44:36):
you know, kind of like I said earlier, they find an in, they find where,
where the hole is in your armor.
And then it's always just a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.
And before you know it, you're, you can end up in a situation that really,
I mean, even as much therapy and everything as I've been through,
(44:57):
in a lot of ways, I'm still dealing with to this day.
In a lot of ways, I don't have normal, I don't want to say normal,
but I don't have relationships are difficult because my ability to trust someone
that intimately was taken from me at a very early age.
(45:18):
And that has a lot of later emotional and psychological consequences.
And it's getting better. It's been getting it's gotten better for years.
I had one major setback as an adult, but then I was able to find therapy resources
that deliberately treated trauma and that had me.
(45:39):
I'm a firm believer in cognitive behavioral therapy because I went through it.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy,
which is a wonderful trauma therapy that helps you to reprocess these traumatic
events in a way that's safe and develop different beliefs about them so that
the stress stored in your body is no longer...
(46:00):
They don't hold that same power over you.
These are fantastic resources that are out there to help deal with this.
There's great organizations out there. Ours is one of them.
You know, we have a lot available for parents on our radar website that they
can go and look at and, you know, to help them to determine if something is
(46:23):
safe, something is not, you know, if they should be cautious.
Our team has been really good about that. If somebody is struggling with sexual
abuse, sexual assault, and you haven't talked about it yet, you need somebody to talk to.
I had previously reached out to RAINN, R-A-I-N-N,
Rape Abuse Incest National Network, and they have a lot of resources on their
website to help people that are struggling with sexual assault,
(46:47):
sexual abuse, and intimate partner violence.
Yeah, great. I'm glad you mentioned all of them, and it will include links to
these organizations on the video description so you can follow up with them
if you are hearing this and experiencing the same issue.
What do you think, this has been one of my favorite questions for a little bit,
(47:08):
what do you think we're going to be 40 years from now?
What do you think our peer group right now is going to be looking like if the
current trends don't go back to how they were?
Yeah, my biggest concern right now is that in 40 years, we're going to start
realizing that some that a lot of that we've inflicted a lot of physical and
(47:34):
psychological harm on children.
Physical harm i mean we don't know ultimately yet
what the long-term results are of puberty blockers of hormone replacement therapy
of you know all of these things that are being done to kids we don't know the
psychological trauma yet from anyone who's had say top surgery,
(47:58):
at a young age and maybe one day they just realize well crap this wasn't actually the case.
And I worry for the mental well-being these of these kids I worry for their
physical well-being you know like I said we just don't know at this point so
(48:18):
I can't say well it's going to probably result in this or that we just plain don't know.
My primary concern, if we don't speak up, is that we, as the adults in the room,
are going to look back on this and say, what were we thinking?
We destroyed an entire generation.
World War I is often called the silent generation because so many people were killed in the war.
(48:45):
And I think we run the same risk of creating a generation that doesn't have the ability.
Psychologically to cope with decisions that they made or decisions that they
are influences that they faced when they were 10, 11, 12, 13 years old,
(49:05):
or that were forced upon them when they were that young.
And that's my primary concern.
Yeah. No, that's the, I think really in a big way, that's the crux of maybe all of this is,
you know, we can't be living with decisions
that were were made when we were
(49:26):
in an indecisive lost period of life and and that's the same thing of the trauma
which is enforced on people or you know if there's parenting styles of people
who want to like we don't know our baby's gender until they're 10 years old sort of thing you know,
you know it's there's the there's all sorts of crazy stuff that happens with
(49:49):
you know raising and gay kids and then the trans thing enters into the situation
and then the outside influences already and.
And then you add that the perverts are running around and kind of like a lot
of times running certain facilities that are designed to help these kids,
that parents want to trust their kids into their care.
(50:09):
And that's exactly where some of these pedophiles or groomers or whatever they
flock to. They know that's where they're going to find vulnerable kids.
Well, yeah, because they're always going to be looking for the easiest access
possible. I don't know that necessarily that's what happened in my case.
Maybe it was just a sheer circumstantial thing because I was the youngest person there.
(50:34):
But yeah, absolutely. They're always going to look for easy access.
It's going to be in any organization you can think of. I mean,
these things happen even the neighbor next door.
That's why I just want parents to play the most active role in their kids' lives
if they can. And of course, you know, I don't have kids.
(50:55):
So me giving parenting advice is probably sounds pretty hypocritical.
But speaking of somebody who had to deal with this down the line,
just plain talk to your kids.
That's all you really have to do sometimes. times, they're going to understand
that you care and that you're only doing this because you care,
even if it takes them to be 21, 22, 23, 33 years old.
(51:19):
They might come up to you and say, hey, you know that time where you checked
my phone and I was really mad about it?
And then they might say, you know, something happened to a friend of mine and
they were on an app or they were on the internet, they were on Twitter, they were on Facebook.
And this is what happened. So thank you, because I would have done the same
thing. yeah that's a great point.
(51:40):
Well, I think we really just, you know, went into this and I appreciate you
opening up about your personal experience,
you know, hopefully, you know, the whole, the community at large,
which already, you know, Gays Against Groomers is at odds with so many people
who feel like so many of the compromises that are being made for,
(52:02):
you know, towards children's safety in the name of LGBTQIA plus inclusiveness,
really consider the activities and what we talk about somehow be against, okay, children.
And it's not that, but we have to remember that, well, of course,
not everybody in these circumstances are always going to be like this. It happens.
(52:27):
We need to be aware of that. We need to be able to call it out what happens
and, you know, Not cover for it, not act like, oh, if that comes up,
then it makes the community look bad.
What makes the community look bad is covering it up, is allowing it to format
under the surface unaddressed.
And so we all need to be more aware that it's happening and it's underreported
(52:51):
and we have victims every day.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Cool.
Well, Joey, can you share your, any social media handles you'd like to connect with?
Yes. You can find me on Twitter primarily at Joey underscore Mackesy, my name.
My, my DMS are open. If anyone, if there are any, especially any men out there
(53:15):
that are struggling, maybe dealing with sexual abuse, sexual assault, please reach out to me.
I'll be there for you as much as I can. You know, if you're in California,
you want to go to police, I, and then I can swing it. I'll go with you if that's what you need.
You can find me also on Instagram. That's private, but I think they allow you
to DM me and I can look at the message requests.
(53:35):
You can find me at Radar1923 on Instagram.
You need help, please reach out. I'm here for you guys.
This is very hard for us to talk about. This was not easy for me to sit down
and talk about before we started recording Robert.
I told you, uh, I, I don't talk about this really.
And I went back and forth as to whether or not I was going to, but speak up, please.
(53:59):
You know, you're not the only one. You're not alone.
Absolutely. Well, thanks so
much. I know this is going to help a lot of people. So we appreciate that.
So if you're not already subscribed to The Dark Side of the Rainbow,
please go to Spotify or Apple Music or anywhere else amazing podcasts are had.
(54:20):
Like, subscribe, join us at GaysAgainstGroomers.com.
Donate there. If you want to become a sponsor of the show, please contact us,
podcast at GaysAgainstGroomers.com.
And this has been Robert Wallace and Joey McAseeb. And we appreciate your time. Have a great day.
This episode of The Dark Side of the Rainbow is sponsored by us.
We wanted to let you know that we have a huge online store full of official,
gotta get the official, Gays Against Groomers merch.
Each purchase really helps us continue our fight, and it's also a great way
(00:23):
to spread an important message. So, check it out at shop.gaysagainstgroomers.com.
That's shop.gaysagainstgroomers.com. And to learn more about our organization,
donate to our cause, or get involved, just visit gaysagainstgroomers.com.
(00:44):
And if you're interested in sponsoring this, please reach out at podcast at
gaysagainstgroomers.com.
Music.
(01:09):
Welcome to The Dark Side of the Rainbow.
This is Robert Wallace. The Dark Side of the Rainbow is a presentation of Gays Against Groomers.
Today we're going to be dealing with a very graphic subject.
We'll try not to be too graphic in our discussions,
but it's what happens when those that you trust take advantage of you,
(01:35):
and particularly with regards to the LGBT plus crew. crew.
Kids find themselves homeless sometimes.
They find themselves in a position where they need support, and maybe it has
something to do with their sexual identity that's put them on the streets because
the parents want nothing to do with it.
(01:58):
And in certain cases, people find their way through support systems put in place
to help these disenfranchised youth.
Certain situations have occurred where individuals who are charged with the
care of the youth have taken advantage of that responsibility and have pursued their sexual demons.
(02:26):
Now, what in general we're going to be discussing here has a lot to do with
the vulnerabilities and the
vulnerable situations that gay youth in particular can find themselves in.
And this could probably in any case be said of any type of youth,
(02:46):
but there are some unique additional areas where.
That demographic that gay youth can be taken advantage of in particular,
that parents and society need
to be aware of in order to watch and prevent activities from manifesting.
(03:07):
So, Gays Against Groomers fights the war on grooming,
and grooming ultimately leads to to the acceptance or even the enjoyment of
certain deviant activities.
When a child or somebody is being prepared to be abused, they're slowly being indoctrinated.
(03:31):
They are being indoctrinated by
somebody who's attempting to groom them or prepare them for said activity.
To think it's okay, to think that it feels good, that it will be their secret,
that this is what they don't want you to know about or what makes you feel so good.
(03:53):
Whatever a predator, a groomer might say to a young person in order to cause
them to open up to them about sexual matters,
but also keep those secrets and keep that between them so the groomer or the
would-be predator may continue and stay free while he does this, he or she.
(04:20):
So what we need to look out for are various things, and particularly people.
Right on the face of it, we have teachers, We have counselors or area leaders
or people in charge who have expressed at various times their feelings toward
(04:43):
a more sexualized education for kids.
A more open, sexually fluid attitude towards the types of activities and discussions
that children might be engaged in,
including but not limited to the ideologies that the individual supports.
(05:04):
Courts, the queer theory, and bringing that into discussions maybe around pronouns
and around the discussion of anything sexual that should not be discussed with children.
We see this in schools in the form of books.
We see this in culture and how the drag queens are opening themselves up to
(05:30):
hosting your children at their little dance.
And so we need to be aware that even though an adult is an adult and they're
smiling nicely and they seem to be caring and have good intentions.
If they value these types of things, it can and will find its way to your child,
(05:53):
and that will be the beginning of a spiral of problems for them.
Now, for younger gay guys, sometimes when they get around groups of older gays,
you're going to have different dynamics occur.
You hopefully will have a situation where everybody is appropriate and is friendly
(06:17):
and is guiding their young person here and have themselves no internal motivation
to do anything inappropriate.
You know, it should be that adult women are teaching little girls how to be
women, how to grow up into women.
And men should be raising young boys up into being men.
(06:41):
And in the community where we have disenfranchised youth,
kids who maybe don't have good relationships with their parents,
they're not throwing that proverbial baseball back and forth with their dad out in the yard.
A lot of times that leadership, that guidance is sought for and found in the older community,
(07:09):
the older portion of the gay community among members of that class,
of that ilk, that most closely relate to how that kid feels.
And if he finds himself going down these paths, seeking out this guidance from
these kinds of people, then a lot of random influences can make their way into
(07:34):
his life, and even vulnerability.
And so it is important, just like with any kind of stranger that we know who
we're putting our children in front of and what they are discussing.
And the nature of that discussion, because sometimes the nature of a conversation
(07:56):
can start off very wholesome, and then it goes down into a rabbit hole,
and then it may enter into gray zones of appropriateness with regards to matters
that pertain to sexuality of any kind,
and in the event of sharing or oversharing in this place, space.
(08:17):
Bonds and connections of a certain nature can be formed while we're in really
a secret special relationship is forged.
And so we don't want the parents excluded from this.
We do want the kids to be able to have the information that they're seeking,
(08:38):
the knowledge and insight into growing up being themselves, but they need to
be able to do that without going to the arms of a stranger, perhaps,
where they may be taken advantage of.
And so, however a person is parenting a child,
and particularly a gay child, it's very important to be mindful of the areas
(09:02):
of influence, particularly those people and places, programs,
which are designed for kids or designed to help young people in this department
of uncovering, understanding their sexuality, for instance.
Of course, it's not to say that people who do this types of work are of necessity
(09:26):
predators of any kind or groomers necessarily of any kind.
These are areas where predators have been known to strike Where certain individuals
who maybe even have gone into those services To help people,
(09:47):
you know, possibly with good intentions All of a sudden,
a situation you would not think comes to bear So, it is a very sensitive area
of discussion It's a subject that does affect a very core part of an individual,
and so there needs to be healthy options to keep kids protected.
(10:10):
Particularly, again, from individuals who feel justified in sexualizing kids.
And the form that the sexualizing of kids takes can be anything from,
let's discuss your sex life, let's talk about sex,
let's talk about your sexual identities, to things that are even more explicit.
(10:34):
And holding these types of conversations or giving content to kids that instructs
them on how to go and seek out a gay sex partner or all of the ways in which
they may explore and express their homosexuality or their transsexuality.
This is not the content that parents are approving for the kids.
(10:59):
This is not the place for the school. and.
Because the powers that be are supporting and really pushing these agents of change,
these instructors who have been thoroughly instructed in not just the affirming,
(11:19):
the affirmation part of these kids'.
Trans identities, but the promotion of these identities.
And so it's really spreading more and more, where it was not, these ways of thinking.
And so if we have our kids around those types of people, it's going to bring about situations.
(11:44):
Situations are going to occur around them, in their classroom,
in those groups, where had it never entered into the conversation,
it would not be discussing it at all.
We have the other issue of what happens
when our little girl goes into the bathroom and there
is a you know six foot five man okay of any other details just the fact of being
(12:09):
a man in there and we all we've seen weirdos okay you got a man in there he's
just simply saying he's a woman and he's doing weirdo activity,
okay, this is a dangerous position to be in as a child.
And it's a dangerous world to raise your kids in.
So if you know there's a policy somewhere in the school or wherever you're going
(12:32):
where this sort of thing is allowed to happen,
you need to take extra caution to ensure that those situations aren't taken advantage of.
By some confused adult who
thinks themselves a woman and then
all of a sudden thinks themselves a very
(12:53):
heterosexual cis man all of a sudden when they're in the girl's bathroom you
know and back and forth they go very dangerous so the kids need to be watched
okay who's who's advising them at school what clubs and groups are they part
of are you sending them to a camp who's Who's running,
you know, that camp and what are their beliefs and what are they talking about
(13:16):
when it comes to bathrooms, when it comes to sports?
What are the policies on these things and what kind of extra watching do you
have to do to make sure that those types of policies don't directly end up affecting you?
You know, maybe the policies put in place and, you know, no trans person ever
joins and it's not an issue. you, maybe it's enough to know that it could happen.
(13:40):
That's enough to take your child out of that program.
And with bathrooms, okay, if you don't know who's in there, you might want to check them out.
We've seen the videos, parents going ahead of the kids and finding some strange
trans-identifying individual lurking in the shadows of that restroom to spring
out and And do what to whom we do not want to know.
(14:05):
So, but with that said, I.
This can happen to anybody. Again, in the gay community, it happens in a certain
way because there is a disenfranchisement of youth a lot of times with their
church, with their mentors,
parents, with any sort of wholesome guidance.
They've got the world. They've got the gay community.
(14:27):
They've got those clubs and those groups of friends that they're going to make.
And if they're the ones educating your child, particularly during the young
years, your kids are going to have a lot more going on in their heads than you think.
And they're going to be developing into a much different kind of person than
your efforts were meant to forge them into.
(14:52):
You know, this person that we're about to talk to had actually this sort of
thing. And his name is Joey.
And when he was in his late teens, he actually was sexually assaulted by somebody
not too, too much older than him, but an adult who definitely misrepresented their age.
(15:13):
And it's a situation that we can only really prevent if we know where our kids
are at, who they're talking to, and then there's some chance of intercepting
these types of encounters.
So I want you to listen, and if you have any questions, comments,
if you want to sponsor the show or donate,
(15:36):
you can go to GaysAgainstGroomers.com forward slash podcast and do that,
And you can write podcast at GaysAgainstGroomers.com if you'd like to sponsor
an episode or the series.
And so enjoy the interview and we'll see you on the other side of the rainbow. Music.
(15:57):
Music.
Today, we have Joey McAseeb with us. How are you doing, Joey?
(16:17):
I'm doing well, Robert. How are you? I'm very good. So for our listeners and viewers today,
Joey McAseep is a member of Gays Against Groomers and is also a survivor victim
of some past sexual assault and grooming type activity,
(16:40):
which is what we here at Gays Against Groomers are trying to put a curb to.
So, Joey, could you give us an introduction and tell us about your first 15 years of life?
Yeah, so I'm a member of Gays Against Screamers here in California.
We're one of the older chapters, and I'm one of the original members.
(17:00):
So growing up here, I grew up here, born and raised in Southern California.
Beautiful place, of course. I was born down here in the South Bay.
And growing up, I mean, I was just kind of a normal kid. I
maybe had a little bit of gender non-conforming activity I used to my grandmother
doesn't actually have her ears pierced so she said it's a little clip-on earrings
(17:21):
and like when I was super little I would sneak into her room you know like try
on grandma's earrings but then I'd also try on my grandfather's shoes it was
like one of those you know kids play and dress up kind of situations.
My parents were divorced I lost my father unfortunately when I was 12 years
old And that was really rough on me.
(17:41):
But sometime around 12, 13, hitting puberty, I kind of started to have those
little realization moments that when my guy friends were talking about the girls at school,
I was maybe a little bit more interested in the other boys at school.
The exact moment was, I had my aha moment was in, I was in choir,
(18:03):
spent a lot of time in choir and we were getting ready to do a musical.
So a little bit of stereotype there, I know.
Loved it, loved theater. And so I went to, I get to high school.
And I guess some things kind of happened, kind of with my emotional state and still,
(18:23):
you know, Being a teenager and dealing with the loss of my father and some of
the struggles that were also happening and having this little bit of a freak
out moment that I might be gay because I was raised in a very conservative religious family.
That I had said some things or I'd done some things in the early days of Zynga, Myspace, whatever.
And I was outed to my parents by the school, which was equally as traumatic. attic.
(18:50):
But eventually, things kind of calmed down and they settled.
And my mom had actually made the suggestion, why don't you go look into see
if they have some youth programs at the Gay and Lesbian Center here in Long Beach.
So I was about 14, 15 years old at the time.
I was kind of resistant to it at first, you know, because this kind of got dragged out of me.
(19:14):
It was this part that I hadn't And part of me that I hadn't really explored much yet.
I mean, 15 years old, but I did eventually.
I went down there and I found out that they had a, like a youth support group
that met after school at about six, seven o'clock at night.
And the age range for this group, and this probably should have been red flag.
(19:36):
Number one was like 13 to, I want to say it was like 25.
So that's already a pretty crazy age range. you know, a gap,
generational gap, you know, however you want to put it. And this is in 2005. So-
You know, you can kind of see that a little bit of that, that timeframe there.
(19:56):
So I attended this group every so often. It was kind of like a general support group.
You know, you would sit and people would talk about their lives and what their
struggles were and, you know, and so on and so forth.
Well, they were going to have a Thanksgiving event at the, one of the facilitators
homes. So before Thanksgiving.
(20:18):
So I asked my mom, Hey, can I go to this thing? And she said, yeah, sure.
So I get out of school. We go to this event.
And that is where I met a guy who was significantly older than me.
He told me he was 18, but it turned out that I would find out later.
I think it was actually the detectives that told me he was 21.
(20:40):
And again, I was 15. I had just turned 15 the month before.
And so I don't know exactly, I can't really recall that night specifically,
but I do know that once the event
started winding down, he and his friends offered to give me a ride home.
(21:01):
Well, between home and the event, I guess they had decided that they wanted
to stop at some of the bars that were downtown, that are kind of in downtown Long Beach.
So our gayborhoods down on Broadway, there's a little string of bars there that are really popular.
Parking down there is a nightmare, so we had to park several blocks away.
Of course, I'm 15 years old. I'm not getting into a bar. This guy told me he's 18.
(21:26):
He's not getting into a bar as far as I know. So the friends go to the bar and
leave me alone in the car with the guy.
And I'm deliberately not naming him, by the way.
I don't even think he deserves the dignity of it.
And so we're sitting in the car. And we're just kind of talking about life.
(21:50):
I somehow start talking about my dad. And as we know with grooming behavior,
one of the first things that somebody is going going to do who is grooming a
child is going to try to make some kind of emotional connection,
they're going to try to say oh you know yeah i i'm here for you can talk about
that in this case you know i i've lost you know i think said a grandparent or
(22:10):
something i don't remember,
and so that was then again this should be red flag number one,
kind of sitting there talking his friends are over in the bar he's kind of putting
his hand hand on my hand. I'm getting a little emotional.
And then I do remember that he had leaned in to kiss me and I went ahead and
(22:30):
just kind of, okay, this is what it's going to be.
So eventually they take me home, guy friends with me on my space as kind of,
you know, this is the days before smartphones.
So I'm having, you know, I'm kind of logging in after the whole thing.
Cause I'm thinking, Ooh, I met this cute older guy.
Like it's, you know, this is great. I know I'm, I'm, I'm in,
(22:54):
I'm 15 years old. I'm in high school. Like, Oh, everybody wants to have that older boyfriend.
So I'm logging in, you know, kind of sending some messages back and forth.
And I went to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving.
And, you know, we kind of had said, like, when I get back, maybe,
you know, might pick me up from school when, when I get back and we could,
and we could hang out after school.
(23:17):
So the week after, so, you know, we're kind of sending messages back and forth
a little bit. My grandparents don't have a computer.
So I get back and I check my messages and I'm all giddy because here's,
you know, a bunch of messages and, you know, just kind of being really sweet
and asking how my holiday was and asking how my family is.
And we make plans that he's going to pick me up from school in a couple of days
(23:38):
after Thanksgiving. And that's what happens.
He picks me up from school and he takes me back to his apartment,
where his roommates were there for a bit.
So before I go any further, Robert, if I can, anyone who is struggling with
sexual violence, with sexual assault, I'm not going to go into any graphic detail,
but I just kind of want them to be aware.
(24:00):
If there's something you're struggling with, you may not want to listen past
this point, or you may want to bring somebody in to listen with you because
I just don't want to bring up any emotion in anyone else that could be harmful.
So his roommates, they had to go to work. So here I am about three o'clock,
four o'clock in the afternoon, alone in the house with this guy.
(24:24):
And we're talking and he asks, and he's kind of moving a little bit closer to me sitting on the couch.
Kind of, you know, putting his hands on me a little bit, kissing me a little bit.
And the next thing I know, he's taking my clothes off.
(24:45):
And I'm getting a little freaked out at this point. You know,
I'm like, hey, I don't think this is a good idea. Like, I don't really know you that well.
And then he held me down and sexually assaulted me. Wow. Yeah.
You know, to think how vulnerable we are growing up and then to compound that
in your situation with this added trauma and these circumstances that you've
(25:09):
gone through with your father and all that.
And then to have that taken advantage of being young, finding yourself,
going through trauma, and then
here you are trusting somebody who's a bit older, and then this happens.
(25:30):
And that's not even the crux of it, is it? Because it wasn't done.
Yeah it's not it's not really even the crux of it i mean you have these things
that are compounding of course but then this happens and you're frozen you don't
know what to do at this point i couldn't even it was not anything that could occur to my young mind,
(25:53):
that i had just been assaulted and i mean it didn't actually hit me until like
maybe four or five hours later, because I completely disassociated.
And that's something that I kind of understand later from therapy,
but it's almost an out-of-body experience, you know?
(26:14):
Your brain kind of shuts down to try to protect you. And I think that's what happened.
Yeah. Wow. So, you know, you raise a good point there because a lot of times
people go through trauma, victimization, assault of whatever kind, sexual assault.
And in many cases, they don't even know that they've been realized that they
(26:36):
are technically a victim and that that shouldn't have happened to them,
that they had a right to be protected from that.
And that what the other person did was not just wrong, but it was criminal.
And so how did that affect you moving forward?
Can you tell us about the days after that and how you came to terms?
(26:58):
Yeah. So when I was home, I was kind of sitting, I was kind of sitting back
on the computer and I was chatting with one of my friends on AOL instant messenger.
And I just told him, I was like, I remember it just hit me and I said, can you do me a favor?
And he goes, what? And I said, define rate.
(27:19):
And he says, he just stopped. He said, I'm going to call you right now. So he called my house.
And I'm crying at this point. Like I'm not processing things. My parents are asleep.
I'm just losing it. And he's asking me, what happened? What happened?
And I finally tell him what happened.
(27:40):
And he says, let me get another friend of mine on the phone.
He's a lawyer. Gets a friend on the phone.
Friend who starts, you know, trying to console me goes, you're okay. You didn't do it.
They're trying to get this through my head that I did not do anything wrong.
That's number one. That's the number one thing they're trying to do.
I stayed home from school the next day. I kind of just told my mom I was sick.
(28:00):
My friend called me back and he said, you need to say something.
And you need to say it now while they can get this guy.
Because this is within a few hours. I haven't showered. I haven't really,
you know, done anything. I think I kind of took my clothes, you know,
off and just kind of threw them in the corner.
So there's evidence. There's what they would need.
So my mom comes home from work and I'm sitting on the edge of my bed and I tell
(28:26):
her what happened. And my mom calls the police.
We have a weird jurisdictional issue here in Long Beach.
Long Beach Police Department, where we live, covers one side of the street and
then you cross the street and you're in a different jurisdiction.
So Long Beach Police is who showed up. I tell them, I tell the responding officers,
two uniformed officers, what happened.
(28:48):
They asked me to take them to the apartment. So So I do.
That's how they figure out, well, unfortunately, they're not going to handle
this case. The other police department can handle it.
So I get taken to the other police department and I have to tell the story all over again.
I just I honestly, to this day, don't know how I did it.
(29:10):
At this point, I've told the story three times within the span of, God, 24 hours.
And to their i mean law enforcement
has to ask survivors a lot of questions and a lot of
them seem insensitive and sometimes they seem probing but
what they're trying to do is make the best case possible
and have the most information that they have
(29:32):
so they're asking me well did you agree to anything did you
know was any of this okay at first you know and they're
asking me these questions and all i can think of was and
i i told them the truth i said yeah you know i you didn't kidnapped me
like i i was there of my own free will you
know i i went there that i i made these
decisions myself that's that is true so eventually
(29:56):
detective shows up and detective says
we want to get you a medical exam see if we can still get any
evidence okay my mom has to drive me to the hospital where they have the the
forensic unit and when i when i when i when i tell you that is probably the
most the second worst experience of my life because they are very thorough,
(30:22):
looking for what they can find it sounds like you had to be re-violated just
try to make sense or get some justice for the first violation Dr.
Justin Marchegiani Emotionally and physically.
And so the, uh, at that point I was able to go home.
(30:42):
Detective wasn't going to keep me up late. It was already, you know, 11, 12 o'clock at night.
My mom pulled me out of school for the next day. There's no way I was going to school.
And so the next day the detectives come back, you know, they kind of have to
wake me up because detectives have been up all night.
They had a photo array ready for me. They wanted me to identify him and I did right away.
(31:05):
And they arrested him that day. That's awesome.
So let's let's progress a little bit more
in the story and then and then i've got some
follow-up questions about this but what what
happened to him how did they catch him and what's
he so he was at he was at home they arrested him at home as far as i know he
(31:27):
was taken to men's central jail in downtown la i never act i don't think they
tried him i'm pretty sure he pled out so they They pled him down to statutory
rape because I think under California law too,
the charge would be different.
You can't charge male on male rape. It's like forcible sodomy or something of that nature.
(31:48):
And of course I was a minor, so that adds other things to it.
So he didn't actually do jail time except for between sentencing.
I didn't testify to sentencing either. My mom did on my behalf because I was
a minor. So my name is also not in the court record.
But she was given this laundry list of parole violations, and he was put under
(32:14):
very strict supervision for having been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor.
And that is the last that I had ever heard. Well, I'm sorry that happened to you.
And I think the story is just so important. Were you going to say something?
No. Okay. Sorry, I'm just kind of recomposing myself here for a second.
(32:35):
Yeah. Yeah, you have to relive that trauma just to go through and tell the story. It's terrible.
And because it is so terrible, people who've never had any sort of trauma like that,
maybe they can't imagine how scarring and what kind of mark that leaves on a
person's consciousness, subconscious.
(32:57):
And so it's important to understand that stuff. But in this case,
you know, when we're dealing with groomers, we're dealing with all these sexual
assaults, especially within the gay community.
And when you're young and you're a child and you're put into the care or in
(33:17):
an environment where you're supposed to be around trusted adults who are able
to easily manipulate the situation in order to express their lusts, etc.
Et cetera, it's a very dangerous situation to be in.
And there's only really one way to do it. Yeah, it's very dangerous.
(33:38):
You really need to be, parents should be aware of who their kids are around.
I understand that, of course, you and I are both gay men.
We maybe had a little bit of a difference in our teenage years and some of our
social development and our psychological development. And our parents weren't
(33:59):
really equipped to help us with these things.
But on the other side of that, you can't outsource it.
It's a lot of what we've done with education, with a number of things in this
country, but we can't outsource parenting. Sure, you can go out there and say,
hey, you know, there are some resources for you.
But the message that I want to carry across is that parents really need to take
(34:24):
an active role in these cases to make sure their kids aren't getting into these situations,
to make sure that there is screening going on. Sorry about that.
It's okay. Make sure there is screening going on. You know, if you're going
to be around adults or if adults are facilitating these groups or anything,
or even just, you know, let have these conversations at home.
(34:49):
You know, because these predators are out there.
We saw it with that couple in Georgia. And I mean, that was something I took
really personally, I think now for obvious reasons, but they're out there.
And they always come as a wolf in sheep's clothing.
And you want to make sure that you can try to insulate children from that as
(35:13):
much as you possibly can.
Teenagers especially, because you know what? High risk taker,
low thought process, bad decisions happen.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like what you said there. We can't outsource parenting.
And you know, the funny, weird, difficult angle of the whole parent raising
(35:37):
gay child is that as a gay person,
even though you don't know you're gay, you don't know what it means or what
all comes with that, you still know very little about yourself.
Self in like any other child
in any other circumstance require or are
relying on adults and responsible
(36:00):
people to help guide you through whatever you
might find yourself in but most parents are not equipped you know straight right
usually you know because they had the kids sometimes you know gay people have
kids but a lot of times straight people they don't know what a a gate kid is
going to go through or what that means for them, for the child or for them as the parent.
(36:21):
And so all of a sudden they're, they're unequipped to help navigate you, you know, the child.
And then what, what happens services randomly come along or the kid's friends,
or they go their own way and they
just kind of, you know, willy nilly find their way through the forest.
And this sort of stuff happens because, um.
(36:42):
Like you're saying, wrong place, wrong time, or the provisions weren't there.
What could have been done at home wasn't done.
It wasn't done maliciously that way,
but through negligence or at least being improperly prepared or informed about
(37:03):
the child or sexuality and then all of these different conditions.
And then, yeah, it's really tough. so
do you what kind of education do you
think you know i'm a parent and you know i'm
straight i don't know much about the the gay life lifestyle or
what it is to be raised in the circumstance my kid tells me
they're gay how can i safely bring them
(37:28):
up in the world i think probably
the best yeah i think probably the best thing that parents can do
is listen first to their kids because they're going
to be having all the same feelings that you know your your
straight children are but they're gonna be having them for members of the same sex
and so you know you want to you know
if uh if it's within your belief
(37:48):
system your value system you are gonna parents want
to have you know conversations about safe sex practices one of the things that
i got a really good talking to about was hiv because it was still the 2000s
and my parents you know my my mom and was older and she you know had immediately
the aids epidemic from the 80s in her mind so that was That was like number
(38:09):
one thing that happened.
But you also want to have these safety talks.
Right now we are in the digital age.
AI scares the crap out of me for a number of reasons. But that person that you
meet online, that could be an AI generated photo.
The messages that you're getting could be AI generated as well.
(38:30):
There's a real risk of human trafficking. Parents need to tell their kids,
you know, there are, you know, these apps out there and you might be, you know, teenagers,
especially because they're going to see their peers, you know,
having relationships and you know, kind of starting that stage of their development
and they're going to say,
oh, well, this app grinder is out there or, you know, things of that nature,
(38:54):
parents are going to want to be aware of that.
There are ways for kids to download these apps and conceal them, you know, delete them.
Maybe when they come home, I really, you know, I'm probably gonna get a lot
of hate for this, but parents, you really need parents really need to do phone
checks because if my, my space had been checked, I fully believe this not would
have gone. This would not have gone as far as it did.
(39:15):
Look for these things, have these conversations, tell them, you know,
you do not get in a car with somebody you don't know, drive that point home,
home, but also tell your kids, if something happens,
come to me, just do it, you know, have these conversations where if you're somewhere
in the middle of the night and you made a decision to get drunk with your friends
(39:38):
or whatever, just call me, I'll come get you,
deal with everything else later, have that openness, you know,
where it's enough, where There's enough latitude, but that, you know,
a parent is still an authority figure.
Right. Yeah. It's a very delicate balancing act to stay both accessible,
(40:00):
you know, a trusted, you know, companion in a sense with your child,
but not going the other road of just becoming their friend and failing to be
the adult on the hard line issues.
And then, you know, the phone issue. Yeah. Yeah, as a kid, I probably would
not have, you know, wanted something like a phone check or something like that.
(40:22):
But, you know, we have too many things going on right now. I mean,
A, parents need to parent.
And B, these devices are connected to the Internet.
So that means anything can happen, anything goes.
And if you just turn your head away
turn your attention away for a week two weeks
(40:42):
a month years you know we're becoming
different people on the sidelines through the different things we're able to
explore on these devices you're going to lose touch of what is motivating your
child you're not going to be prioritizing those safety precautions because you're
(41:02):
not going to to know if there's anything on a safe hat.
Right, because at this point in children's development, especially in their
teen years, the peer group becomes their primary source of socialization.
And they're going to be taking a lot of cues from their peer group,
for better or for worse. So parents need to be aware of that.
Primarily, because that's where a lot of these influences are going to come from.
(41:25):
They're going to come from the internet. They're going to come from,
you know, if you don't have, if you don't have these conversations with your
kids, somebody else is going to, you just, that's kind of what it boils down to.
Yeah, they will. They do. They are stirring up the conversation.
Even if they do, it's never entered into your kid's mind. That's become so proactive.
(41:47):
It's actually sparring on the whole problem.
Absolutely. That's where the whole notion of a social contagion comes in. Yeah, definitely.
And so we're looking at that, we're seeing it all around us,
and we're thinking, I'll try that.
We're thinking, hey, maybe I should go and hang out with them,
or this is normal, and the kids are being sexualized, and they're entering into
(42:12):
and adopting fetishes and things.
I don't even realize there's nothing unhealthy, unnatural about it,
because we're being told that it's all very natural.
And I've had a friend of mine who's told me that her, that her son is being,
it was bullied at school for being a straight white kid.
You know, because he's not gender. He doesn't have any weird,
(42:35):
anything with his gender. He's not gay. It's just him.
And he's bullied for it. Like, I mean, I don't know about you,
Robert, but kids weren't too kind when I was in school about being gay.
And now it's like, you know, showing up to school in full Abercrombie, like, Yeah.
Well, to be honest, I kind of skirted through past, past a lot of that because
(42:57):
I didn't really come out until a little bit later in my school years and like right before I got done.
So, but yeah, it is obviously a much different environment.
We had the one gay kid, people were giving them problems and now it's completely flipped.
But the representation, it doesn't make sense, you know, whether it's on TV,
you know, Hollywood, it's like there is just such a great proportion of LGBTQIA
(43:23):
plus identifying individuals that are being cast onto us than there really are in our environments.
It's so disproportionate that people become overwhelmed and they become susceptible
to the idea that they need to conform or get in the groove if they want to,
you know, hang out with the cool kids and stay relevant. Right.
(43:48):
But the problem is, aside of the mental issues that are going to come along
with these sorts of influences,
namely confusion about one's own identity, gender expression,
gender identity, sexual attraction, all of these different so-called variables
that convolute a person's sense of self.
(44:10):
The problem is aside of the degradation
of the dignity of a person and
the confusion is that it's going to lead them into sketchy areas of life with
people very sketchy people who are managing and people that do not have your
best interests at heart you know and they're going to seem like it this guy
was very sweet he was he was he was very sweet but that's how grooming transforming begins,
(44:36):
you know, kind of like I said earlier, they find an in, they find where,
where the hole is in your armor.
And then it's always just a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.
And before you know it, you're, you can end up in a situation that really,
I mean, even as much therapy and everything as I've been through,
(44:57):
in a lot of ways, I'm still dealing with to this day.
In a lot of ways, I don't have normal, I don't want to say normal,
but I don't have relationships are difficult because my ability to trust someone
that intimately was taken from me at a very early age.
(45:18):
And that has a lot of later emotional and psychological consequences.
And it's getting better. It's been getting it's gotten better for years.
I had one major setback as an adult, but then I was able to find therapy resources
that deliberately treated trauma and that had me.
(45:39):
I'm a firm believer in cognitive behavioral therapy because I went through it.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy,
which is a wonderful trauma therapy that helps you to reprocess these traumatic
events in a way that's safe and develop different beliefs about them so that
the stress stored in your body is no longer...
(46:00):
They don't hold that same power over you.
These are fantastic resources that are out there to help deal with this.
There's great organizations out there. Ours is one of them.
You know, we have a lot available for parents on our radar website that they
can go and look at and, you know, to help them to determine if something is
(46:23):
safe, something is not, you know, if they should be cautious.
Our team has been really good about that. If somebody is struggling with sexual
abuse, sexual assault, and you haven't talked about it yet, you need somebody to talk to.
I had previously reached out to RAINN, R-A-I-N-N,
Rape Abuse Incest National Network, and they have a lot of resources on their
website to help people that are struggling with sexual assault,
(46:47):
sexual abuse, and intimate partner violence.
Yeah, great. I'm glad you mentioned all of them, and it will include links to
these organizations on the video description so you can follow up with them
if you are hearing this and experiencing the same issue.
What do you think, this has been one of my favorite questions for a little bit,
(47:08):
what do you think we're going to be 40 years from now?
What do you think our peer group right now is going to be looking like if the
current trends don't go back to how they were?
Yeah, my biggest concern right now is that in 40 years, we're going to start
realizing that some that a lot of that we've inflicted a lot of physical and
(47:34):
psychological harm on children.
Physical harm i mean we don't know ultimately yet
what the long-term results are of puberty blockers of hormone replacement therapy
of you know all of these things that are being done to kids we don't know the
psychological trauma yet from anyone who's had say top surgery,
(47:58):
at a young age and maybe one day they just realize well crap this wasn't actually the case.
And I worry for the mental well-being these of these kids I worry for their
physical well-being you know like I said we just don't know at this point so
(48:18):
I can't say well it's going to probably result in this or that we just plain don't know.
My primary concern, if we don't speak up, is that we, as the adults in the room,
are going to look back on this and say, what were we thinking?
We destroyed an entire generation.
World War I is often called the silent generation because so many people were killed in the war.
(48:45):
And I think we run the same risk of creating a generation that doesn't have the ability.
Psychologically to cope with decisions that they made or decisions that they
are influences that they faced when they were 10, 11, 12, 13 years old,
(49:05):
or that were forced upon them when they were that young.
And that's my primary concern.
Yeah. No, that's the, I think really in a big way, that's the crux of maybe all of this is,
you know, we can't be living with decisions
that were were made when we were
(49:26):
in an indecisive lost period of life and and that's the same thing of the trauma
which is enforced on people or you know if there's parenting styles of people
who want to like we don't know our baby's gender until they're 10 years old sort of thing you know,
you know it's there's the there's all sorts of crazy stuff that happens with
(49:49):
you know raising and gay kids and then the trans thing enters into the situation
and then the outside influences already and.
And then you add that the perverts are running around and kind of like a lot
of times running certain facilities that are designed to help these kids,
that parents want to trust their kids into their care.
(50:09):
And that's exactly where some of these pedophiles or groomers or whatever they
flock to. They know that's where they're going to find vulnerable kids.
Well, yeah, because they're always going to be looking for the easiest access
possible. I don't know that necessarily that's what happened in my case.
Maybe it was just a sheer circumstantial thing because I was the youngest person there.
(50:34):
But yeah, absolutely. They're always going to look for easy access.
It's going to be in any organization you can think of. I mean,
these things happen even the neighbor next door.
That's why I just want parents to play the most active role in their kids' lives
if they can. And of course, you know, I don't have kids.
(50:55):
So me giving parenting advice is probably sounds pretty hypocritical.
But speaking of somebody who had to deal with this down the line,
just plain talk to your kids.
That's all you really have to do sometimes. times, they're going to understand
that you care and that you're only doing this because you care,
even if it takes them to be 21, 22, 23, 33 years old.
(51:19):
They might come up to you and say, hey, you know that time where you checked
my phone and I was really mad about it?
And then they might say, you know, something happened to a friend of mine and
they were on an app or they were on the internet, they were on Twitter, they were on Facebook.
And this is what happened. So thank you, because I would have done the same
thing. yeah that's a great point.
(51:40):
Well, I think we really just, you know, went into this and I appreciate you
opening up about your personal experience,
you know, hopefully, you know, the whole, the community at large,
which already, you know, Gays Against Groomers is at odds with so many people
who feel like so many of the compromises that are being made for,
(52:02):
you know, towards children's safety in the name of LGBTQIA plus inclusiveness,
really consider the activities and what we talk about somehow be against, okay, children.
And it's not that, but we have to remember that, well, of course,
not everybody in these circumstances are always going to be like this. It happens.
(52:27):
We need to be aware of that. We need to be able to call it out what happens
and, you know, Not cover for it, not act like, oh, if that comes up,
then it makes the community look bad.
What makes the community look bad is covering it up, is allowing it to format
under the surface unaddressed.
And so we all need to be more aware that it's happening and it's underreported
(52:51):
and we have victims every day.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Cool.
Well, Joey, can you share your, any social media handles you'd like to connect with?
Yes. You can find me on Twitter primarily at Joey underscore Mackesy, my name.
My, my DMS are open. If anyone, if there are any, especially any men out there
(53:15):
that are struggling, maybe dealing with sexual abuse, sexual assault, please reach out to me.
I'll be there for you as much as I can. You know, if you're in California,
you want to go to police, I, and then I can swing it. I'll go with you if that's what you need.
You can find me also on Instagram. That's private, but I think they allow you
to DM me and I can look at the message requests.
(53:35):
You can find me at Radar1923 on Instagram.
You need help, please reach out. I'm here for you guys.
This is very hard for us to talk about. This was not easy for me to sit down
and talk about before we started recording Robert.
I told you, uh, I, I don't talk about this really.
And I went back and forth as to whether or not I was going to, but speak up, please.
(53:59):
You know, you're not the only one. You're not alone.
Absolutely. Well, thanks so
much. I know this is going to help a lot of people. So we appreciate that.
So if you're not already subscribed to The Dark Side of the Rainbow,
please go to Spotify or Apple Music or anywhere else amazing podcasts are had.
(54:20):
Like, subscribe, join us at GaysAgainstGroomers.com.
Donate there. If you want to become a sponsor of the show, please contact us,
podcast at GaysAgainstGroomers.com.
And this has been Robert Wallace and Joey McAseeb. And we appreciate your time. Have a great day.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com