About eight years ago my doctor was, as usual, upbraiding me for my inability to deal with certain aspects of my life. After telling me he could see me dead within a few years he said “if you were a woman I’d be thinking you’d been sexually abused”. He did a double take at this point. He knew my history. Within days I was off to my town’s sexual assault counselling service. Even then I went there thinking I was the only one. To this point I’m still among the living.
At that time I was forty years of age. The rape I experienced at the hands of an aunt occured when I was eight, decades earlier. I’m an individual thoroughly embedded in politics and community issues – even rape activism in the early eighties – and have been since a very early age. How could I have got to that age still in denial of my experience and it’s impact on myself?
As I’ve learned more recently male victims tend to remain invisible. My “coming out” in my forties is the norm rather than the exception. Like myself most male victims only emerge when health issues make it imperative and denial is no longer an option.
Like James I have chosen to speak out rather than fester in silence. My good fortune is that child sexual abuse is generally taken seriously and I am able to occasionally find some traction. But I do encounter the same resistance to any acknowledgement that there may be some women who are predatory.
About six months ago I put together a brief examination of the social forces at work which marginalise male victims. There are a number of intersecting elements at play but the upshot is that male victims have no belief that they will be taken seriously and every expectation they will be pilloried. Thus they remain in isolation. In summary…
Western culture has always denied the possibility of the female sexual predator.
Feminist activism forms the basis of almost all advocacy on the issue of sexual abuse. Personally I understand their one sidedness as their targeted demographic is female victims who are almost exclusively abused by male abusers. It is consequently portrayed as a manifestation of the patriarchy(“rape culture”). The female offender is never acknowledged which feeds into and enhances the larger cultural denial.
Despite acknowledgement within the medical, psychological and counselling communities that boys are at least as harmed by the experience as girls our culture remains largely ignorant of this and, thus, indifferent. Widely held views are that boys should consider themselves lucky or even privileged. The general concensus seems to be that no harm is done.
The media refuses to give it it’s true name prefering to use terms such as “affair” or “relationship” in reporting these cases. They also tend to be far more forgiving of the female offender and frequently try to make their excuses for them.
Community standards, influenced by the intersection of advocacy, media and the judicial system’s lenient treatment of female offenders, have no encouragement to change.
While I wrote this with child sexual abuse in mind many of the elements still apply to the adult scenario. In some respects even more so. I had a similar experience to James during my mid twenties and while counsellors suggest it is more problematic than my childhood experience I remain reluctant to talk about it. I greatly admire James’ courage – YES COURAGE – in speaking out.
One of the great inhibitors to female rape victims reporting is their expectation that they will encounter scepticism. I would urge everybody to reflect on some of the comments here. Disbelief, blame, scepticism, shaming, even mockery is what male victims face. To some here I’ll make it simple. You’ve engaged in nothing more than pure, unadulterated cruelty.
