[trigger warning: rape culture, internet creepiness, incest]

A few months ago, I added a little widget at the bottom of this page that lets you see the most recent visitors and where they are from (anonymously, of course). I did this because there were times when I would read the original site that inspired this one, and I would feel kind of lonely, but seeing that so many people visited, and often from all around the world, would make me feel a little better.

I’ve been keeping tabs on that widget for awhile now— it can be useful to see where i am getting visits from. There is one thing, however, that has been kind of weird (although not entirely unexpected)— creepy search queries.

That little widget also records when people find my site through search engines— specifically, it records what they put into the search field. I’ve gotten searches that range from funny, such as “is league of legends safe for a ten year old” in response to my post on internet safe spaces, to kind of awkward “who fucked his mom and then died” in response to my post on how the story of Oedipus is rape culture incarnate. This one time, someone visited this site from China, which really amazed me, because I know that talking about sexual abuse is even harder in Chinese culture. That it was from a direct link also surprised me, because it meant that someone told that person about my site and then they entered it into the browser themselves.

But then there are the really creepy search results, like “village fucking stories”, “brother fucking kid”, and a few others that are just too terrible to mention. And I understand if like, some people just have kinks (such as that village search query), but there are others that are obviously searches for really scary things. (Just as a note— all comments posted on this blog must first go through me, so please don’t worry about getting harassed here. I make sure that this is a safe space). 

I am not surprised by this— the internet is pretty open, and I allowed this blog to be indexed by search engines for good reason. I am only really intrigued, because this means that not everyone who reads this blog comes with good intentions, as a survivor, an ally of a survivor, or just a caring human being. It means that there are some potential abusers out there reading this, a direct result of what happens when children are sexually abused.

So I am curious— how do these people react to seeing this website? What happens when, instead of getting some twisted, gratifying fantasy, they get a very sobering account of personal struggle and pain? I realize that for some of us survivors (myself included), we struggle with trying not to become abusers ourselves; some of us have really fucked up fantasies and guilt over those fantasies. How do those people, searching for whatever, feel when they come across this page?

I don’t want to judge anyone, because I don’t know any of those strangers in the least. I just want to know how this makes them feel. Is this site changing the way they see things, or are they just surprised for a moment before they close the window?