If Oprah Convinces Men To "Come Forward About Sexual Molestation", To Whom Do They Tell Their Story?

Last Friday, the second installment of Oprah's show focused upon '200 Men Come Forward About Sexual Molestation' was broadcast. The program was advertised as being an opportunity for the "spouses and partners of the male survivors, who have been listening backstage, to come forward and tell their side of the story." Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way. While the program was, indeed, another powerful evocation for informing the nation about the prevalence and extent of the sexual child abuse of males, there was very little focus upon the spouses and partners of these men telling their side of the story. In fact, only two women spoke on the program (though those two women told painful stories). Frankly, I was a bit disheartened by that, since both I and my intimate partner (who is a wonderful supporter of my work on this subject and who was hoping to see how other women and men faced issues similar to hers) were looking forward to 'hearing the other side' of the intimate relationship issues.

Now that Oprah has encouraged male survivors across America to 'come forward' and 'tell their stories of sexual child abuse', the overriding question is: to whom can these men safely tell their stories? As I've noted before, most people, whether they be heterosexual female or gay male partners (or the families of origin) of these men, are generally not equipped to deal with the information that would be presented. There are, though, a number of great books available to help in that process. For anyone needing resources, I would suggest starting with Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child by Laura Davis and If The Man You Love Was Abused: A Couple's Guide to Healing by Marie H. and Marlene M. Browne. (There are a host of other resources listed in the bibliography of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website.)

Whether your partner is willing to read these excellent guides is, though, a problematic issue. It both depends on the couple's level of mutual respect and intimacy, and your partner's willingness to hear the kind of deep male pain that most people aren't used to hearing from men and which, given the narrow cultural construct of 'manhood', leads many women to question their male partner's masculinity in spite of any amount of their otherwise active encouragement to display his more 'sensitive' side. [For a further exploration of this contradiction, see The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks]. Additionally, as I have pointed out in many of my blogs -- and will continue to do so until substantive change occurs -- there are very few social service or nonprofit agencies which have mental health services or personnel trained to cope with the special kinds of issues faced by male sexual abuse survivors (such as the cultural prohibition that 'males aren't supposed to be victims', etc.).

Nonetheless, the willingness of Oprah to present these programs on a major network channel is truly to be commended. Hopefully, funders will take notice. The kind of information that she conveyed, especially the statistics that approximately 1 out of 6 boys are sexually abused as children and that 90% of perpetrators are known by their victims, is the very kind of data that I have been trying to disseminate, since 2003, via the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website (www.mmwi-stl.org). Therapists throughout the nation should be heartened by these broadcasts and the associated links to Male Survivor, 1 in 6, Men Thriving, and other resources promoted on the program and on Oprah's website. My concern is not that there aren't some great websites to which male survivors and their partners can turn for assistance; rather it is that online information is only a start. One-on-one mental health therapy is the next quite important step that needs to be taken, and there is a profound dearth of those programs. Maybe [hopefully] this program will encourage other broadcasters to address this subject and funding for such mental health services will eventually be in the offing. However, until then, male survivors who have the courage to come to grips with their childhood sexual abuse will be, in many cases, left 'high and dry' when they seek out competent and affordable mental health services.

In any case, the programs did provide survivors and the general public with a view of 'the world around them' of which most citizens are profoundly unaware. Least we forget, the knowledge about the sexual child abuse of females is only a quite recent phenomenon; until the mid-1970's, many mental health studies had continued to perpetuate the myth that females were 'only sexually abused as children at the rate of one in a million'. So, even though there is a greater cultural allowance to seeing women as victims (which, though, doesn't in may respects help women, because such a viewpoint also continues to encourage the cultural view that very few women are -- or can be -- potential successes), this perspective, as it relates to females being sexually abused as children, is only of quite recent vintage.

Hence, it should hardly be surprising that the culture is largely unaware of the sexual child abuse of males, given the greater and more pervasive reluctance of the culture to view males, even male children, as potential victims, nor that it has taken so long for such a program, like what Oprah broadcast in the last couple of weeks, to appear on network television. This is profound emotional and psychic pain and its existence challenges many deeply held assumptions in our culture. That it will continue to be a while before sufficient social service and/or mental health agencies 'take notice' of this change in the mental health landscape should not surprise anyone.  It's one thing to be aware that some boys were sexually molested by some Catholic priests (or ministers or politicians); it's quite another to come to grips with the reality that such trauma is not an isolated dysfunctional 'acting out' behavior exhibited by a small percentage of the population, but a much more widespread problem.

Again, Oprah is to be commended on the hard hitting and no-holds-barred issues raised by the men who were interviewed, and by Tyler Perry and Dr. Howard Fradkin of Male Survivor. Next week, and in the weeks to come, I will continue addressing, more directly, some of the comments made by the male survivors on the Oprah broadcasts.