https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Male-victims-deserve-their-own-MeToo-movement-12842188.php
Male victims deserve their own #MeToo movement, state officials say
Studies estimate as many as 1 in 4 men have suffered sexual abuse at some point in their lives
Updated 6:18 pm, Tuesday, April 17, 2018
COLONIE — It wasn't until he saw his youngest son, watching TV upside down from his favorite chair in the living room, legs draped over the back, that Charles M. Blow learned to forgive himself.
"He was 7, and it just struck me like a load of bricks how small he was," he said.
The New York Times columnist was himself just 7 years old when his male, teenage cousin sexually assaulted him. He never spoke about it, not in any meaningful way at least, until he was 44 and published a memoir in 2015 titled "Fire Shut Up in My Bones." He shared the story again at a state-sponsored summit in Colonie Tuesday designed to raise awareness of male sexual assault.
"I lay there on my side, shocked and silent," he wrote of the moments after the assault. "I stared at the dim light shining through the crack beneath the door, thinking that my older brother lay just beyond it, thinking that had I screamed he would have come running. But what would I have told him? Surely I would have gotten in trouble. Somehow this was my fault. Surely I had done something awful to make him do what he had done."
Or worse, he thought, already awake to the homophobia guiding society's rules — maybe he wanted it, maybe that's why he didn't scream.
"To me, that was even more frightening than the first," Blow wrote.
The state Office of Victim Services invited Blow to speak at its summit, titled "Seeking Solutions: Starting the Conversation about Male Sexual Assault," as part of an effort to give male victims of sexual assault and abuse their own #MeToo moment, said director Elizabeth Cronin. About 200 people attended.
Joining in the movement — in which women nationwide became empowered to speak out about the sexual harassment, abuse and assault they had faced in their lifetime — were a number of men, including actors Brendan Fraser and Terry Crews, who decided to speak out about their own assaults. Most recently, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz revealed his story of childhood abuse, and its ripple effects on his life, in a New Yorker essay published last week.
About 14 percent of reported rapes involve men and boys, while one in every six reported sexual assaults is against a boy, according to the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Studies estimate that as many as one in four American men have suffered sexual abuse at some point in their lives. Many suffer in silence, Blow and experts contend, due to stigma and gender stereotypes.
"It's all about homophobia," Blow said. "Whether we call it that or not, that's what it is."
Despite science and research suggesting otherwise, the mythologies surrounding homosexuality and sexual abuse — namely, that one is a consequence of the other — remain rampant.
"If you are straight, nothing can make you gay, not even sexual assault," said Blow.
But societal norms and taboos play a huge role in whether or not a person speaks up, experts say. If men are to be masculine, then revealing yourself as a victim betrays that idea. And if society believes that male-on-male sexual contact (forced or consensual) predisposes one to homosexuality, and homosexuality is bad, then speaking up about even unwanted contact exposes oneself to judgment.
"It is in this lie, the lie that has sunken into countless men, that keeps many of them from ever telling what was done to them," said Blow. "They don't want to be viewed by society as being less than a real man. This is tragic because it means that homophobia is not just doing harm to gay men. Homophobia is then doing harm to straight men."
Statistics remain elusive, but there is a general perception among treatment providers and victim advocates that most male sexual assault occurs in childhood. Half of all juvenile victims of sexual assault are under 12 years old and, of this group, the most common age of victims is 4 years old.
The most likely perpetrator of that abuse is a 14-year-old boy. For male victims, this abuse is most likely to come from a family member or acquaintance, and is most likely to occur in the home.
Upsetting family dynamics is a major reason that children won't report abuse, experts say.
"A lot of parents make the mistake of saying around children, 'If somebody ever did that to my kid, I'd kill 'em,'" Blow said. "That is not reassuring to the child who has been abused. They think, I say something, this person is harmed. I say something, the family loves this person. I say something, all of a sudden it throws the whole family into chaos. I say something, this person can never come around again. It's an incredible burden on the shoulders of those kids."
