When I was 10, my mom's friend was babysitting me and my brother. In the middle of the night, I was woken up by a man - the babysitter's son - carrying me to his room. I spent the next several hours crying and praying to any and every god that would listen to please, please make it end. I would give anything if only they would let it end. The levels of fear I experienced were enough to make my chest hurt. The level of pain I experienced was enough to make me unable to explore my own area for the next decade. It wasn't violent per se. He never hit me. I froze and I cried and what happened, happened.
At some point, his mom woke up and noticed I wasn't in my bed. She found us, carried me out of the room and asked me what happened. I told her. She said okay, told me to go back to bed and get some more sleep, and that was that. She didn't act like what had happened was terrible. She acted like it was no big deal. She never told anyone.
I stopped eating regularly. I stopped hanging out with my friends. I stopped taking care of myself and barely left my room. I started experiencing panic attacks, especially if I encountered a large man. I developed an intense fear of the dark. I couldn't eat Wendy's anymore because while it was happening, through his window I could see the Wendy's sign lit up. I stared at it for hours that night while the most traumatizing thing I had experienced up to that point in my life unfolded. I fell into a depression that, over 20 years later I still haven't come out of.
I didn't tell anyone else until 3 years later, when my mom found out I was becoming intimate with a guy. We were fighting about it and she asked if I'd ever had sex before and I screamed yes and told her about that night. It was not until she stopped, completely, burst into tears and wrapped me into the most protective hug I'd ever felt that I realized that I wasn't the only person in the world that thought it was wrong that that had happened. And I hated the attention that followed. I hated the sympathy and the pity. The therapists and the police and every adult in my life suddenly trying to convince me that it wasn't my fault, that I'd been victimized.
A few months later I attempted suicide. Many years later, now, I'm STILL fighting the belief that sex is purely for the man's pleasure, that men generally see women as no more than an object with a few holes they can stick their dick into any time they want. None of that came from society. It all came from what happened that night, and my own thoughts and feelings about it.
Our children must be protected. An adult having sex with a minor is soul destroying. Whether society thinks so or not.