My partner and his ex childhood friend are both survivors of childhood sexual assault (SA), but they initially chose to stay in a high school friend group that was both toxic and enabling. The group consisted of five boys: three who grew up together and two who joined within the last year. Despite knowing what happened to my partner’s friend—and potentially my boyfriend —the group made jokes about violating/sexually touching each other and circulating that stupid “lion” meme that had the word rape in it. My bf is 18 and in college now, but everything went down the senior year of high school

His old childhood friend is a chronic people-pleaser who fawns and seems scared of most things, which is understandable but deeply repressed. He was assaulted by a teacher when he was in elementary school, but often makes light of it.

My boyfriend has expressed feeling constant fear about his father, feeling “something terrible happened” his entire life, especially to his body. He has had dreams about his father SAing him several times, but he can’t remember what happened to him clearly. His father was his only parent while his mom was in prison, meaning his father was the only one he had to rely on. He randomly has memories of his dad humiliating him, his dad hosing him down with water after making him take off his clothes, and his dad talking about gross sexual topics to him while my bf was in elementary school. For him, his two childhood friends were the only escape he had; he could go over to their houses and finally be away from his father.

In high school, he made a friend his freshman year, who was bumped up into 9th grade at the age of 12. They became best friends, and my bf saw him as a little brother. Then, in senior year, this friend confessed to my bf that he had harassed his girlfriend over text, sending creepy messages. My bf accosted him, saying that what he did was disgusting and that they couldn’t be friends anymore. Everyone else in the friend group remained silent. My partner pleaded with everyone, especially his childhood friend, to block him, and he just hesitated.

This was one of the first fights of many in which my partner would leave the friend group, and then his childhood friend would plead with him to come back. My bf always felt bad and said he wanted to help him, considering his trauma, and that he knew he was a good person, that he just needed to help him past it. Despite my bf saying that what the friend did was unforgivable, they only took the friend off of the D&D campaign after my bf snapped at them. The friend group argued that his girlfriend had forgiven her boyfriend for the harassment, but my bf said that’s not something to be forgiven. He stopped hanging around the friend and told the others not to invite him to things.

The height of the problem was the circulation of a “lion rapes a small dog” meme to each other. They mostly focused on the other verisons, but my boyfriend and his friend still participated in these jokes while simultaneously hating them, which utterly confused me. I am ashamed to admit that a few times when he tried to leave, I convinced him to stay to support his childhood friend because I knew they grew up together and I related to him being the only Black kid in a small area.

He said that maybe he could try to convince his friends to be more aware and considerate, and I called my boyfriend out, telling him that the jokes weren’t okay just because he and his friends only did it to each other—that it was still wrong because of thr principle. He never said the jokes to me, but he still apologized and stopped finding it funny. He presumably talked to his friends because the jokes stopped, but sexual topics/news about the things happening in the world began to bother him more and more, but the friend group didn’t catch on nor care about his increasing sensitivity.

​A month later, while watching a horror movie where a character died via endoscopy, my boyfriend had a full panic attack. He kept saying, “I need a shower,” before breaking down and saying, “I think I was molested. It was probably my dad.” In my desperation to help, I called his childhood friend. It didn’t help; the friend was numb, shut down, and resorted to silence or humor. At the time, I didn’t know he was an SA victim, but since they were pretty much brothers, I thought maybe it could help. It did not help at all. He was numb and shut down. That was all he could do. I hung up and became frustrated.

The final nail in the coffin happened during my birthday trip. It was me, my bf, a mutual friend of ours and my bf’s childhood friend. A mutual friend revealed that another member of the group who had joined a little under a year ago, “S,” had been “irresponsible with a condom” with an ex. The mutual friend said it really casually, like nothing was wrong. My bf didn’t really hang out with S like that, and it was mostly a friend of a friend situation. My boyfriend started asking questions since he didn’t know that happened and then immediately realized that what S did was nonconsensual. We confirmed the story with the victim, who said that they hadn’t wanted to cause drama. My boyfriend was angry and made everyone block S before reassuring the ex that S had been cut off, and he realized the deeper issue. He went on a rant about how he couldn’t trust anyone, how he was starting to hate men, and realized how his friend group’s language contributed to this culture of harm. He finally said, “I have to stop hanging out with them. For good. I can’t listen to him anymore or let him guilt me.”

​It has been five months since he told them goodbye. He told them their apathy and enabling were things he could no longer tolerate and that he wasn’t the same boy who would go along with everything. Even though the friend group cut off S, they still hang out with the original harasser, and my boyfriend is in therapy.

​He has been becoming increasingly sad about the state of the world. He is still happy with me and has been trying to be active in his community, but it has become increasingly hard for him to make friends, especially with men, since he doesn’t trust them. He seems really disgusted with past actions and can’t seem to find it in himself to open up to others. He has friends still and still attends therapy, but I’m uncertain about how to properly support it. I’m been mostly keeping quiet and letting him figure it out, but I know he blames himself for what happens.