What it is Like to Be a Sexually Abused Teenager and, What It Is like when you become an Adult and the Kinnelon, New Jersey Police Department Refuse to Arrest the Man Who Abused You

One cannot even turn on television today, without viewing a news program reporting about a new case of childhood sexual abuse. I was also once a victim of childhood sexual abuse when I was about thirteen years old. It was my dirty little secret and I vowed never to tell anyone.

Why did I keep this crime a secret for such a long time? Well, first and foremost, I was certain, no one would believe me back then.  After all, I was a rebellious 13 year old teenager, and my abuser was a highly respected man residing then in Kinnelon, New Jersey.  But most important was the matter of fact, Marty Teitelbaum, was my own father’s closest friend; and Marty’s wife was friends with my Mother too

I always thought as a teenager, if I ever told anyone about Mr. Teitelbaum sexually abusing me, I would be the one in trouble, and not him owing to the fact that I drank alcohol at Marty’s home that day when the initial sexual abuse he committed against me took place. Marty himself had pushed it (the alcohol) on me and I was afraid to say, “No!” A word, teenagers most times are just too frightened to tell someone when really need to.  Why is this? As an adult sociologist, I think it is due to our social upbringing and social learning about the word in and of itself.  I mean, as growing children we are programmed not to tell adults “No!”  And when we do say the word,  “No” to any request emanating from an adult we know, especially those closet to us, our parents, we know the result will be certain punishment and lecturing on our having bad manners at the very least. So I kept it all a secret until becoming an adult sociologist, graduating college in 1997 having returned to New Jersey from California.

One day after my divorce, I saw Marty’s Lawn Champ/Doctor (I forget exactly the name of his personally owned business now after so many years). But I knew Marty Teitelbaum’s  business truck (It’s logo) well having  seen it  numerous times as a teenager when being dragged to the, Teitelbaum’s, luxurious home located in , Kinnelon, New Jersey to have dinner with them. I never liked them and those visits became increasingly more difficult after Mr. Teitelbaum sexually abused me, because whenever I was at Mr. Teitelbaum’s home with my parents after being sexually abused by him, only the two of us knew about it. Every terrible time I had eye contact with, Marty, we both knew what had transpired between us that day.

He never threatened me not to tell anyone.  Marty did tell however tell me, never to tell anyone about what “we” did that day making me as a teenager feel and think,  I was complicit in his sexual pedophilic crimes against me. I never told anyone about it because Marty had also convinced me that I somehow wanted it to happen and I would be as severely punished for what happened between us that day as he would. Now let me get to what happened.

As aforementioned, I was a rebellious teen. I had already been in trouble because of my experimenting with drinking and smoking. I had even tried smoking pot. I needed money at that age and I was too young to work to continue along with my rebellious crusades so when, Marty  told me he would pay me to clean his Kinnelon  home one day, it was the only job offer I could get at that age; I wasn’t about to refuse it.

The day my father drove me to Marty’s home, everything seemed normal ‘enough.’ That was until he asked me to come into his basement; he had a full bar there. He asked me if I wanted a “drink.” When he said I could have anything I wanted to drink, I told him, “I‘d love a beer or something, but I know that it is illegal so I would only take a soda or something.” It was then Marty informed me, he was offering me any of his alcoholic  beverages as well. Since I was at that rebellious and experimental age, I  told Marty, I’ll have something  alcoholic. He opened a bottle of wine telling me it was one of one of his more expensive ones. I drank almost the entire bottle with him and he was drinking it along with me in the basement.  I wasn’t doing any house cleaning and I worried about getting paid. After all, this was the only reason I wanted to come to his house in the first place. He was an ugly old man. I was only there to clean his house a few hours for cash so I could use that money to go out drinking with my own friends later that evening. So I told, Marty, I had better start getting some housework done. He replied to me that I did not have to work at all, and told me that he would still pay me and more than expected. He then informed me that all I needed to do was allow him to take some naked photos of me, and he would not only pay me, he would pay more “more.”  

It took about two seconds for me to decline his offer! He was ugly and old and I certainly did not need a dirty old man assaulting me because I had enough boys my own age that wanted me. But I forget how much, but Marty offered me some ridiculous amount of money (what seemed a lot to me) and I became extremely drunk. Remember I was only 13 years old and already, Marty and I had drunk an entire bottle of his expensive wine. We all know how drinking removes our inhibitions; this is what happened to me that day. Marty kept making me more drinks of all types of liquors he had behind his  “taboo bar.”  He knew exactly what he was doing; and I was so drunk, I cared, but I was too drunk to care that much. I found myself in a situation in which Marty who at this point had an expensive camera out, was telling me how to pose half naked. He would come over and tell me how to put my legs  and body on his furniture and then he would snap all these photos of me. He would come over and touch my body wherever he wanted to but he was primarily excited at taking the photos it seemed to me at the beginning.