Concluding Remarks

The whole issue of male sexual abuse is complex, to say the least. Many male survivors of sexual trauma either are not emotionally in touch with their trauma or choose to avoid facing it, at least in part because of the cultural bias toward seeing men as the stronger gender that doesn’t admit (or discuss) their victimization. The larger cultural blindness about the prevalence of male sexual abuse allows it to continue without sufficient intervention, and encourages males who might otherwise be willing to face their damaged emotional lives to ‘shut up and tough it out’. This attitude further traumatizes males, whose experience is already to have their pain ignored, and now undermines them through subtle and not so subtle messages that their abuse is not worth investigation nor intervention.

It is not my intention to argue that the experience of sexual abuse, rape, and incest of males is worse than the experiences for females; no matter what the sex of the child, sexual child abuse is traumatic, physically and emotionally violative, and highly disruptive of development into adulthood. Rather, my argument is that there are some cultural peculiarities that make sexual abuse for males different from the experience, in adulthood, of females; and that the culture, at large, has a greater tolerance for viewing women as victims than viewing men in a similar light. There are clearly insufficient mental health resources given the number of female survivors of sexual abuse; there are, however, almost no resources whatever for male survivors.

Male survivors have distinct problems when interacting with other other men and women, but it is particularly devastating for them in intimate relationships with women, because in this culture men are raised to expect emotional sensitivity from women, and often male survivors receive very much of the opposite reaction. And men’s experience of themselves is equally disruptive: since this culture teaches them to be self-reliant, independent, etc. and their personal experience predicates a reality quite in contrast to the cultural expectation, their self-worth is traumatically undermined, which makes the manifestation of intimate relationships with traditionally acculturated females particularly traumatic and painful. This is not the fault of females, nor am I attempting to assess such blame; rather my point is that we are all impacted by a cultural imperative that dehumanizes men, and male survivors are further dehumanized [and emasculated] by their sexual abuse. Their interaction with other members of the society is often less than satisfying and in many ways constructive of a life of loneliness and suicidal ideation, though no fault of their own and often in distinct contrast to their Herculean efforts to overcome the effects of the sexual child abuse.

Providing sufficient mental health services for male sexual abuse survivors is, indeed, a multi-leveled task and without it, men will not feel the safety to face issues which are having a widespread debilitating effect on the society. Men who are survivors tend to act out their pathology through dysfunctional behaviors which negatively impact themselves, their female and male partners, their spouses, their children, the workplace, and the environment. All too often in our society, the only male sexual abuse survivors who get distinct attention are sexual perpetrators; and by then it is too late, since many in the society want to write off males who act out their trauma as sexual predators. The great majority of male sexual abuse survivors who never become perpetrators are simply forgotten and ignored. This author would argue that that attitude of cultural blindness does males a great disservice and, given that males continue to be in dominant positions of power in this culture, allows their traumatized experience to adversely affect their families, their workplaces, and the larger society. We can only change this situation by increasing the availability of mental health service provision to male sexual abuse survivors, which presently continues to be one of the most ignored and underserved populations of mental health clients.

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Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute was founded in 2001

to help men become emotionally healthy.