Continued: 7 Myths and 7 Facts About the sexual abuse of Boys recently published on Not the Life I Chose and on Wind Harp Tree:
7 Myths and 7 Facts about the sexual abuse of boys and the men they become
The following is adapted and expanded from an online piece by Kenneth Singer M.S.W. The list of myths and facts along with many more resources may be also be found online.
I have, before, focused on the 1 in 4 women who have been routinely abused and silenced because I am female and was researching and writing about my own personal story before I realized I was included in America's gender Apartheid. Although as forbidden as it is to talk about the incesting of females it is infinitely harder for males to speak out about their own experiences as molested children. While mothers reluctantly recognize that males molest female children society focuses on stranger danger.
As a society and as mothers we are far more reluctant to acknowledge that the present male power structure encourages bullying and protects bullies almost as a "male child raising" practice which in which mothers participate. Mothers too believe the myths of "masculinity" and are afraid their son might be made into a homosexual if raised wrong or if over-powered and molested. We see boys-will-be-boys behavior as the proving ground of male power, fitting victorious males to be Kings of the Hill, Titans of Industry, rich members eligible for membership in the 1%: venture/vulture/hedge-fund Capitalist and perhaps, like Mitt, even run for president of the ruling white classes, certainly a good catch for a submissive wife.
(Hence the cat calls of sissy-boy, the runs-like-a-girl taunts heard but ignored on every Junior High sports field. Hence the pressure to keep secret the long run of sexually molested males bullied, even gang-raped into submission to "masculine" opponents. Or more subtly, the devastating grooming of children by priests in power positions free to molest and then draw the cloak of secrecy over themselves while we still teach the sanctity of "Traditional Marriage," preaching submission as the only role for women and nuns. Such behavior is as endemic in "polite" society as in the church or Mitt's prep school. Since 2006, the archdiocese of Los Angeles has paid more than $700 million to settle clergy abuse law suits by hundreds of victims. A victim might sue a church but what male or female child victim can hope to successfully force change by suing the entire Patriarchal system?)
It is abundantly clear that 1 in 6 boys are routinely molested by adults. They are abused and silenced by Societal norms that deny that a "real" boy could be molested in the first place. To be molested a boy must already have been not "actually" masculine at all, must have been in need of a "Hair Cut" all along. Yet the perpetrators in my life were also molested as children. In the blog Not the Life I Chose which I now co-blog with Evie Pruett, Evie reveals that her ex-husband too reported being molested as a child after his arrest. But is being molested a free pass to sympathy or merely an inevitable destiny to secretly molest others? Traditional wisdom says: Once molested always a child molester? Once a child molester inevitably a child molester...and for always, cast with your family from membership in the "middle class" indelibly cast down into the fringes of society forever: an inevitable degression. Why would anyone ever dare report, ever ask for help? Ever speak truth aloud?
The great myth of inevitable digression persists: every male molested as a child shall grow up a perpetrator. Every woman married to a child molester, every family, every parent of a molested child shall be cast out if the truth be comes known. But the real truth is revealed in even a simple survey of the males in my family, reveals that the majority of those molested do not in turn molest others although they live with the fear others may reject them because they were molested. Women too molest children, I was molested. I do not molest children. But the fear persists and silences many male and female. While some children are so harmed by being molested that they make the choice to molest others, prejudice and punishment and silence, being unalterably tarred, is not an adequate response to rampant epidemic.
First the 7 Facts:
Fact #1) Boys and men can be used or abused and it has nothing to do with how masculine they are. (Just as my father claimed that it was my fault that as a 7 year old I "sexually attracted" his terrifying attentions, male children are told they somehow sexually attracted the "masculine men" who abused them.)
Fact # 2) If a boy liked the attention he was getting or got sexually aroused during grooming behaviors (grooming is termed "teaching her about sex"when focused on females) or even sometimes wanted the attention or sexual contact this does not mean that he wanted or liked being manipulated or abused.
Fact # 3) Sexual abuse harms boys and girls in ways that are similar and different, but is equally harmful.
Fact # 4) The sexual abuse of boys has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the abuser. (Evies husband's psychiatric evaluation (Not the Life I Chose) revealed tellingly that he was sexually attracted to no particular gender. My own father does not seem to have been focused in his abusing. He was a sexual omnivore focused not upon any other human being but upon himself and finding victims to gratify his own sexualurgencies.)
Fact # 5) A boy abused by a male is not necessarily gay nor has he been abused because he is gay, nor can the abuse make him gay. (although there are books and articles written by "experts" that persist in referring to male on male sexual abuse as "Homosexual." referring for example to the sexual abuse of alter boys in the catholic Church as "Homosexual" abuse. see Belief, What's Really Behind the Catholic Church's Sexual Abuse Problem? by Harriet Fraad who says since the sexual abuse of males makes then homosexual it "engenders a homoerotic internal culture that attracts homosexual men to the priesthood." .....
Please note: Although Ms Fraad does says that one quarter of those victimized are female, she does not go on to extrapolate from the myth that sexual abuse makes them females attracted to nunneries!)
Fact # 6) Girls and women can sexually abuse boys. These boys are not "lucky" but are exploited and harmed. (Mic Hunter's book Abused boys, the Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse is one of the few books I came across in my research that discusses the affects of a mothers abusing sons and females abusing boys.)
Fact # 7) Although nearly 16% of all boys are sexually abused most do not go on to sexually abuse others. (Just as although nearly 25% of all girls are sexually abused, most do not not go on to sexually abuse as adults.)
I have, before, focused on the 1 in 4 women who have been routinely abused and silenced because I am female and was researching and writing about my own personal story before I realized I was included in America's gender Apartheid. Although as forbidden as it is to talk about the incesting of females it is infinitely harder for males to speak out about their own experiences as molested children. While mothers reluctantly recognize that males molest female children society focuses on stranger danger.
As a society and as mothers we are far more reluctant to acknowledge that the present male power structure encourages bullying and protects bullies almost as a "male child raising" practice which in which mothers participate. Mothers too believe the myths of "masculinity" and are afraid their son might be made into a homosexual if raised wrong or if over-powered and molested. We see boys-will-be-boys behavior as the proving ground of male power, fitting victorious males to be Kings of the Hill, Titans of Industry, rich members eligible for membership in the 1%: venture/vulture/hedge-fund Capitalist and perhaps, like Mitt, even run for president of the ruling white classes, certainly a good catch for a submissive wife.
(Hence the cat calls of sissy-boy, the runs-like-a-girl taunts heard but ignored on every Junior High sports field. Hence the pressure to keep secret the long run of sexually molested males bullied, even gang-raped into submission to "masculine" opponents. Or more subtly, the devastating grooming of children by priests in power positions free to molest and then draw the cloak of secrecy over themselves while we still teach the sanctity of "Traditional Marriage," preaching submission as the only role for women and nuns. Such behavior is as endemic in "polite" society as in the church or Mitt's prep school. Since 2006, the archdiocese of Los Angeles has paid more than $700 million to settle clergy abuse law suits by hundreds of victims. A victim might sue a church but what male or female child victim can hope to successfully force change by suing the entire Patriarchal system?)
It is abundantly clear that 1 in 6 boys are routinely molested by adults. They are abused and silenced by Societal norms that deny that a "real" boy could be molested in the first place. To be molested a boy must already have been not "actually" masculine at all, must have been in need of a "Hair Cut" all along. Yet the perpetrators in my life were also molested as children. In the blog Not the Life I Chose which I now co-blog with Evie Pruett, Evie reveals that her ex-husband too reported being molested as a child after his arrest. But is being molested a free pass to sympathy or merely an inevitable destiny to secretly molest others? Traditional wisdom says: Once molested always a child molester? Once a child molester inevitably a child molester...and for always, cast with your family from membership in the "middle class" indelibly cast down into the fringes of society forever: an inevitable degression. Why would anyone ever dare report, ever ask for help? Ever speak truth aloud?
The great myth of inevitable digression persists: every male molested as a child shall grow up a perpetrator. Every woman married to a child molester, every family, every parent of a molested child shall be cast out if the truth be comes known. But the real truth is revealed in even a simple survey of the males in my family, reveals that the majority of those molested do not in turn molest others although they live with the fear others may reject them because they were molested. Women too molest children, I was molested. I do not molest children. But the fear persists and silences many male and female. While some children are so harmed by being molested that they make the choice to molest others, prejudice and punishment and silence, being unalterably tarred, is not an adequate response to rampant epidemic.
First the 7 Facts:
Fact #1) Boys and men can be used or abused and it has nothing to do with how masculine they are. (Just as my father claimed that it was my fault that as a 7 year old I "sexually attracted" his terrifying attentions, male children are told they somehow sexually attracted the "masculine men" who abused them.)
Fact # 2) If a boy liked the attention he was getting or got sexually aroused during grooming behaviors (grooming is termed "teaching her about sex"when focused on females) or even sometimes wanted the attention or sexual contact this does not mean that he wanted or liked being manipulated or abused.
Fact # 3) Sexual abuse harms boys and girls in ways that are similar and different, but is equally harmful.
Fact # 4) The sexual abuse of boys has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the abuser. (Evies husband's psychiatric evaluation (Not the Life I Chose) revealed tellingly that he was sexually attracted to no particular gender. My own father does not seem to have been focused in his abusing. He was a sexual omnivore focused not upon any other human being but upon himself and finding victims to gratify his own sexualurgencies.)
Fact # 5) A boy abused by a male is not necessarily gay nor has he been abused because he is gay, nor can the abuse make him gay. (although there are books and articles written by "experts" that persist in referring to male on male sexual abuse as "Homosexual." referring for example to the sexual abuse of alter boys in the catholic Church as "Homosexual" abuse. see Belief, What's Really Behind the Catholic Church's Sexual Abuse Problem? by Harriet Fraad who says since the sexual abuse of males makes then homosexual it "engenders a homoerotic internal culture that attracts homosexual men to the priesthood." .....
Please note: Although Ms Fraad does says that one quarter of those victimized are female, she does not go on to extrapolate from the myth that sexual abuse makes them females attracted to nunneries!)
Fact # 6) Girls and women can sexually abuse boys. These boys are not "lucky" but are exploited and harmed. (Mic Hunter's book Abused boys, the Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse is one of the few books I came across in my research that discusses the affects of a mothers abusing sons and females abusing boys.)
Fact # 7) Although nearly 16% of all boys are sexually abused most do not go on to sexually abuse others. (Just as although nearly 25% of all girls are sexually abused, most do not not go on to sexually abuse as adults.)
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