i know. That’s why I made it.
When I was 12, I was helping at my church during the “coffee hour”, not in my normal role as “the kid that does anything to help out around there” (because I was that kid), but in my role as a Boy Scout.
So I proudly wore my shirt and shorts, being both the regular “church kid” helper *and* a proud Boy Scout no top of it.
Now this was 1984. Boys shorts were STILL short-short super short.
Everybody left the common area to go up to church and I finished cleaning up myself which would normally not be a problem.
But some guy I only saw sometimes at church started talking to me which was fine. Next thing I know he puts his hand up against the wall in such a way that I was cornered in a little closet area holding a sink and fridge.
I was polite. Cornered but polite. No way for me to scoot out without brushing past him.
After being polite feeling more and more claustrophobic, he shifted a little, I ducked down and scooted over to the other side of him.
I said “I’m sorry I have to lock up the kitchen closet now. Could you move your hand?”, and I closed and locked the little area he had me cornered in, made a polite excuse and left to find a youth leader I trusted to let him know about that guy.
Whole time he kept moving from eye contact to staring down at my short shorts – which I’d slightly outgrown and were a little tight, which made it worse.
So, no argument that blames clothing ever held sway.
For all the adults I’d served coffee to that morning, only one did that. So the problem wasn’t my shorts. The problem was the guy with a problem.
*addendum; he was known I found out later as “Chester”. The adults kept an eye on him most of the time but from a distance. One Boy Scout pancake breakfast, he went from the largest Boy Scout to the smallest Cub Scout as they sat eating pancakes after a hard morning of serving and asked if they would come over to his house for yardwork.
I could see it from the kitchen. Everybody could. When he got to the smallest of boys ,three men from the church walked over to him and whispered in his ear. I saw them go to the back of the room and talk to him, sat him down. His head in his hands, blushing. Nodding his head.