It was both disturbing and refreshing to see the November 5 Oprah broadcast "200 Adult Men Who Were Molested Come Forward". Disturbing, of course, because of the horrendous abuse they recounted and how their families often either refused to believe them or chose to remain in denial about the abuse perpetrated upon their children. Refreshing, because of their courage and candor in being willing to speak openly about a subject that has, for too long, been ignored in America by the media, the public, and all too often, men themselves. It isn't easy for adult men to come forward and talk openly about being molested as children. Men, as I've noted in several of my blogs, aren't supposed to be victims. Never mind that the molestation often occurred when they were children and defenseless -- in our culture, men aren't allowed to admit that they were victimized. To "be a man" in our culture, you have to stuff your anguished feelings and 'tough up', face the world as an independent person who can take care of himself.
Except, of course, when you were sexually abused as a child and it impacted your ability to adequately cope with maturation. Under those circumstances, becoming someone who can, in any healthy way, grow into a person who has any idea, at all, how to take care of yourself, how to defend yourself adequately from further abuse, isn't really much of a relevant issue. So, you turn to alcohol and/or drugs to deaden the horrific shame that consumes your soul, you fail in one interpersonal relationship after another because you don't want to face your abuse (it's painful and even more painful to work through the shame to the other side where mental health lies), or you have no idea what 'intimacy' actually involves because being sexually abused was equated by your perpetrator with 'being cared for' (when in fact the abuser only cared about their own sick pleasure -- to them, you were only an object upon which to act out their perverse fantasies).
Life, under those circumstances, just doesn't feel worth living as you grow into 'manhood', as the stages of life past 12 years of age are so harshly termed. I say harshly, because no one seems to be concerned about allowing you to be human, only whether you fit into an extremely limited 'manhood box' that your society has constructed for you. This 'box' inherently crushes your ability to exhibit the full range of an emotional life, one that involves angst, joy, tears, laughter, inner turmoil, loving touch -- and, yes, anger as well. Not only rage, which is one emotion men are allowed, but all those other possibilities, the ones that constitute the 'infinity of shades of gray'.
But you rarely meet other people who can tolerate hearing about the pain and shame and terror that you experienced as a child, especially not female partners and just as rarely male partners and even more rarely your male friends. Stuff it, that's the message you hear from others, whether they say it openly or just let you know by refusing to listen. Your female partners might be willing to let you know about their angst, their emotional pain, but don't make the mistake of discussing your own. After all, you're supposed to "be a man" and men are supposed to not be emotional and definitely not talk about how their souls were crushed as children by 'caregivers' who had 'care' as the least of the emotions for which they took responsibility.
It's not that you never cross paths with such persons, rather that it is rare. We're all socialized by the same culture, whether male or female, and all too often people are looking for a 'specific kind of partner', and not especially individuals who are authentic about the anguish they experienced as children.
As the Oprah program pointed out, among other things, 90% of child molesters target children they know. We're not talking about guys in trench coats molesting random children in the park, though indeed that occurs and far too often; we're talking about biological fathers (and mothers, which is too often overlooked), stepfathers and stepmothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents. Those closest to us, the ones we should be able to trust, the people who we have no choice but to trust, because we are, as children, so highly dependent on adults, especially adults who claim to love us. Those are the people who molest young boys (and girls) most often, that molest the 1 out of 6 boys in America who are sexually abused as children. The monster isn't 'out there, lurking in the shadows', like Nosferatu, but 'in here', in our own homes, twisting the truth to serve their own twisted sexual desires. Or they are priests or teachers, who have authority over us, and whose supervisors (or bishops or school administrators) look the other way, even when they hear about the abuse and deny that it is happening.
Children can't be believed, they make up stories, they have great imaginations; this simply isn't true [or so the society wants to believe]. Mothers believe, in their hearts, that their husbands can't be raping their children, because 'men don't do that' and because the women don't want to lose their economic support. So they side with their sexual partners and say their children are lying, not even allowing for investigation or curiosity. Or fathers deny that their wives are molesting their children, because they don't want to risk emotional abandonment, or because they were molested as children themselves and haven't faced their own shame squarely or gotten intervention for it. Or either or both parents have no earthly idea how to obtain intervention for their children, even if they did believe them.
And children are 'taught' by the molester that they will only be allowed to survive if they keep the abusive 'loving' secret, that it's 'just between the two of us', or inculcate the belief in the children that "you caused me to do this to you", which far too many children willingly believe, because how could they know otherwise? This is their 'caregiver', this is an adult who, like all adults, is supposed to have their best interests at heart -- though we, the observers of this process, sitting outside the molestation mechanism, know only too well is not the case. Adults and only adults are responsible for their actions, not the children who are the object of their abuse.
We, as a culture, have slowly begun to be aware of the sexual abuse of children by the clergy, especially a portion of the population of Catholic priests. But hopefully Oprah's programs, which were inspired by her friendship with Tyler Perry and motivated by his willingness to talk about his own childhood molestation, will move the 'conversation' to the next level. As I've pointed out, in my blogs, and on my website since 2003, when I founded the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute, our culture is well aware (at least since the late 1970's) that females are victims of sexual abuse at the rate of 1 out of every 4 or 5 girls, but has only just started to admit that males suffer sexual abuse at more or less an equivalent rate. And for men, the issue becomes if I do come forward with the truth about my abuse, are there any services available to help me through this pain? That's the larger question: motivating males to come forward is a powerful first step, but if society doesn't fund programs that assist adult men with intervention -- and, just like with female survivors, intervention that is long-term -- then inspiring them to come forward will only lead to further frustration.
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