Stolen Innocence – How Society Sexualises Our Children – Part 5

Survivors Speak — The Real Cost of a Sexualised Childhood

“I thought it was normal.”
“I thought it was love.”
“I didn’t know I was being groomed.”
We hear this again and again. And every time we ignore the warning, more children are lost to this pipeline.

I’ve sat in conversations with predators. I’ve sat in conversations with survivors. I’ve written exposés where the system failed — not once, not twice, but daily, everywhere, beneath the surface.
And I will tell you this: the sexualisation of children is not a cultural debate. It is the modern frontline of child harm.

The predators know it.
The survivors know it.
And every click, every algorithm, every corporate hand that feeds this pipeline knows it too.

The Pattern Survivors Know Too Well

From the voices I’ve published on The Grooming Files to the private messages that flood my inbox, the pattern is chillingly consistent:

Childhood sexualisation through media and online culture.
Early porn exposure shaping self-worth and consent.
Groomers stepping in with validation and “love.”
Abuse reframed as empowerment or choice.
A lifetime of shame and trauma — and an industry profiting at every step.

“If we’d had today’s internet when I was being groomed, I’d never have survived it. Today the culture grooms you before a predator even speaks to you.”
— Survivor, UK, The Grooming Files message archive

Voices We Cannot Ignore

“He told me it was normal. That girls liked it rough. That’s what I’d seen in porn, so I thought I had to agree.”
— Survivor, interview, Three Days With a Predator

“I was in a room full of grown men. I thought I’d done something wrong. But I’d been led there — because everything told me this was just what happened if you were wanted.”
— Survivor, UK — The Generation the Internet Groomed — And the System Forgot

“I told my teachers. They told me maybe I misunderstood. That’s the culture now — if a girl dresses sexy or talks older, they think it’s her fault.”
— Survivor testimony, UK, 2024 inquiry submission

“I watched a man on camera tell me he wanted to teach me things. I was 12. I thought I was special. No one told me what grooming looked like — porn had told me I should be flattered.”
— Survivor, global, The Grooming Files submission

The Psychological Fallout

Survivors are paying in ways society refuses to face:

PTSD and flashbacks triggered by ordinary online content
Hypersexualisation followed by deep shame and isolation
Addictions rooted in trying to “reclaim” bodily control
Relationships shaped by early porn scripts and abuse cycles
Suicidal ideation and lifelong mistrust of adults

“I can’t walk into a classroom to pick up my child without seeing the same body language, the same media that led me into abuse. We are setting these kids up and calling it freedom.”
— Survivor, UK, The Grooming Files

What Professionals Are Now Seeing

Safeguarding professionals, teachers, and therapists are seeing a tidal wave of harm:

“We’re seeing eight and nine-year-olds acting out porn they can’t possibly understand. We’re seeing boys who think consent is an optional part of sex. And girls who think their value lies in performing.”
— UK safeguarding lead, private interview

“I deal with young men on probation for sexual harm who tell me they thought they were copying what everyone else did online. The culture is doing the grooming now.”
— Probation officer, England, 2024

“Our children are in classrooms where they learn about kinks before they learn about self-respect. This is not education. This is laying a red carpet for predators.”
— Safeguarding teacher, UK, 2025

The Survivors’ Warning

“You will not undo this damage by being polite about it. We need people screaming from the rooftops. We need journalists who will say: this is not liberation. It is mass grooming, and it is funded and deliberate.”
— Survivor, global, The Grooming Files

“We fight our way back from this. But the next generation? They are being thrown in younger and younger — and the adults are too scared to call it what it is.”
— Survivor, UK, The Generation the Internet Groomed — And the System Forgot

Every voice in this piece could be your child’s voice in 5 or 10 years — if we don’t fight now.

They will tell us:
“I thought it was normal.”
“I thought it was love.”
“I didn’t know I was being groomed.”

How many more times will we hear it before we listen?
Because the ones profiting from this will not stop. The survivors are begging us to.