Survivors: Men on sexual life as children

For more information visit these links: Malesurvivor.org Crime Victims Treatment Center (New York City) William Alanson White Institute (New York City) Healing Alliance Childhelp USA Teen Victim Project SNAP (Victims of priests) Awareness Center (Jewish Coalition  Against Sexual  Abuse) Dr. Jim Hopper (Noted researcher) Featured participants: Merle James Yost LMFC (Therapist) Rommell Washington MSW, LCSW (Support group facilitator) Dr. Richard Gartner (Psychologist, author) Dr. Gartner Book Titles on Amazon: Memories of Sexual Betrayal Betrayed as Boys Beyond Betrayal John Oarc (Rape survivor, author) Oarc's Book Title on Amazon What Ever It takes God: The most difficult things for men to survive TO COMMENT on this story e-mail  publisher Jeffrey Allen Miller at  jeffrey@thinkandask.com

Sleepy Time,  Piano Lessons & Flag Football

John Oarc loved flag football when he was 9 years old and was eager to make new friends  at the beginning of his fourth grade school year. His recently divorced mother had relocated them before school began that year  so John was thrilled to meet a new  buddy who also enjoyed the game.  John was invited  for a sleep over at the boy's house. When it came time for lights-out, John and his friend were invited to sleep in the father's bed.

"We went to bed that night and everything was fine until his father began fondling my penis," said John, who is now 40 years old and lives in Louisiana.

The father held John closer to him in bed and worked John's hand around the man's penis. "I can't recall how long this went on, but the next thing I remember is, being pulled down in the bed and having his penis placed in my mouth."

The father ejaculated into John's mouth and then instructed him to use the bathroom sink and "spit it out."

Before  Jay turned  11 years old  his  normal nighttime routine had him tucked away in bed each night -- until  his uncle began a ritual, which lasted more than three years. Jay, now 41, said at first his uncle  exposed himself and then "things progressed...where he used to make me touch his erect penis.

"Eventually he started to turn me on my belly and forcefully penetrated me." Jay  had intercourse with his uncle while members of the household slept he recalled from Queens, NY. Sometimes the uncle anally penetrated Jay repeatedly during a given night. 

Brad is a 32-year-old gay man living in Jersey City, NJ. He said that when he was 12 years old his parents hired a piano teacher who was 32 years old at the time. Brad concluded that by having no friends in grade school, and being an only child in a two-parent career household, that he was in need of emotional attention.  His mother was working her way up the ranks of a Manhattan law firm, and his father was an airline pilot who was often based out of state.

The piano teacher fit neatly into the upper-class white Jewish family, but Brad already knew that his physical attraction to boys made him  different than  others in his Bronxville, NY, neighborhood. "I think I fell in love with [the teacher] as much as one can at that age. He  became my dad by proxy and best friend rolled into one," Brad said.

For the first few  weekly piano lessons in his family's  living room Brad said he recalled nothing unusual. "I just remember that  I was practicing and we were sitting at the piano  together and he put his hand on my leg." Before the lesson finished that day the piano teacher kissed Brad.

Early Arrival to Manhood

The Boys Who Answer Craigslist

"...The bigger (muscular) I got the more I felt others would not suspect I had been molested.  "I also tried to better myself and get my college degree. I believed that if I appeared to be in control or doing good for myself I could gain respect and just maybe become human once more." John Oarc from Louisiana

Different Routes to Recovery

Even though John was not keen on writing as a boy,  confronting his own childhood sexual assault taught him the skill of journaling and that led the way to publishing his book titled What Ever It Takes, God: The Most Difficult Things For Men To Survive.  He was living in an isolated town during his therapy process, but in writing his story to share with  other men he found great solace and companionship with male survivors across the United States. 

After his book was published, John found other male survivors on malesurivor.org. Online companionship and sharing of triumphs and struggles  helped John realize for the first time that he was not  alone.

"The guys there are very helpful and insightful, they're  like brothers to me."

He said he would have enjoyed being part of a face-to-face male support group, but he found malesurvivor.org furthered his recovery process remotely.

'It is not just boys being boys'

Groups and the Internet

Speaker,  author, mental health trainer,  and psychologist Dr. Richard Gartner is a past president of malesurvivor.org  and he said that male survivor support groups  are  a constructive and useful tool for men -- although such face-to-face groups are not always available.

"Some boys whether rightly or wrongly think their parents will judge them." "A parent's first reaction say...'Why did you let this happen?' is an inappropriate response for  12-year-old boy and places the responsibility for the molest on the boy." Dr. Richard Gartner, New York "...It is emotional. Men are classically good at burying their feelings, and yes, watching [Mysterious Skin] may upset them. "But so what? "It may give them the opportunity to seek the help they need." Merle Yost, LMFC, Oakland, CA

Gartner founded the William Alanson White Institute's sexual abuse program for men in New York City, one of two publicized male support groups in the city. The second support group is co-facilitated by social worker Rommell Washington, MSW - LCSW, at the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Crime Victims Treatment Center (CVTC.)  Washington's group offers free weekly male survivor support groups.  (Check CVTC's website for requirements, limitations,  and schedule.)

Male patients under Gartner's care  range in age from their  late 20s into their 60s and the fear of entering therapy is common with men he said so, physically experiencing a room of survivors at different stages of recovery provides them insight to how the process works and removes the stigma that the survivor is alone. For those without access to a group, Gartner suggested reading books on the process and visiting malesurvivor.org and other survivor websites.

Washington said that the Internet "becomes a channel for healing. Got to use whatever one can," he said, adding that malesurivivor.org is an "excellent  support group on the Internet."

According to Merle Yost, LMFC,  a licensed marriage and family counselor in Oakland, CA, the Internet has been helpful for breaking the silence. "I personally find it incredibly difficult to get groups going" in the San Francisco Bay Area, which was not the case pre-Internet world about 10 years ago. Yost believes the Internet has taken the place of face-to-face male survivor groups in many locations.

"The Internet  helps victims deal with a lot of shame and normalizes the experience, which allows for deeper understanding and validation," Yost said.

"It is not a cure for all. Awareness can be healing, but it depends on the type and duration of the abuse and impact," Yost said. "For some it might be enough to know 'I'm not the only one,' so that 'I can get on with my life now,' but I would guess that is 1 or 2 percent of the total."

With more that two decades in social work under his belt, Washington said he recognized a great need for male sexual abuse support about five years ago.

"We talk about trauma only as it pertains to  addiction" and Washington explained that  treatment for addiction does not  regularly seek the root cause with men, which can often be found in childhood sexual abuse.

 


Sexual Abuse and the Media

The sexual abuse of boys "is a societal problem that trickles down to the victims and survivor's lives as addiction, but it has never been a trendy media topic," Washington said.

Rape as a weapon of war and power (especially noted today in many countries in Africa  including Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as a topic Washington said can be lost by the public due to distance.  "I think we listen up a little bit" and did with the Catholic Church priest abuse scandal he said, but then the media moves on to other subjects.

The Amish school murders by Charles Carl Roberts IV, and the Mark Foley Internet scandal presented new opportunities to bring male sexual abuse forward as a topic in the United States.

Washington said that when news broke that some in the United States military used rape in Iraq prisons "to get the men to talk"  the opportunity was present to discuss male rape in the broader sense, but perhaps the topic was too fantastic due to the association with an increasingly unpopular war.

The public viewed Abu Ghraib prison abuse in the media,  and the war,  as far more dire than a man's little story about childhood sexual abuse, so "we never hone-in specifically on male sexual abuse," Washington said. 

In his observation Gartner concluded that more media reports address  the complexities of recovery when interviewing him, but in the case of priest abuse -- or the scandal that hit Mark Foley who as a boy was sexually abused by a priest--  the media can be too focused on how it affects the Church or the Republican Party  rather than the boys.  Gartner agreed that the case of Mark Foley presented an opportunity to discuss male sexual abuse, but unlike the Catholic Church priest abuse scandal, no male pages have come forward to say Mark Foley molested them as of press time.

Gartner has authored three books to date, the first book Memories of Sexual Betrayal: Truth, Fantasy, Repression, and Dissociation was published in 1998, he authored Betrayed as Boys: Psychodynamic Treatment of Sexually Abused Men in 2001, and co-authored Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life after Boyhood Sexual Abuse in 2005. 

The "watermark," according to Gartner,  of society's willingness to address male sexual abuse changed after the Catholic Church priest abuse scandal  broke in the media during the 1990s, but before that time "the issue wasn't taken seriously by the media or the general public...and even to a point within the mental health profession," he said. 

Some additional books on male sexual abuse recovery have been written by Mike Lew (author of Victims no Longer,)  Dr. Mic Hunter (author of Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse,) and Laura Davis (author of Allies in Healing, and The Courage to Heal.)

In a much more human way,  through simple story telling,  Yost said that no better media creative depicts the sexual exploitation of boys across physical and emotional boundaries --both inside and outside of the family--  than author Scott Heim's 1995 book Mysterious Skin.

Heim's novel takes the reader through sexual abuse of two 8-year-old boys in rural Kansas and graphically depicts, from the characters' point of view,  how being raped by the same baseball coach catapulted the boys' lives into opposite directions, but so too brought the two characters together later in an attempt to gain control of their lives.

Yost's favorite version of Mysterious Skin was the stage play under the same name from 2003.   The book was made into a film in 2004 (and is available on DVD.) 

Think & Ask reviewed the book and film version of Mysterious Skin and asked Yost if the graphic, visual, and shocking exploitation of the boys (particularly in the film)  could cause a male survivor of sexual abuse unnecessary emotional trauma.

"It is emotional," Yost said. "Men are classically good at burying their feelings, and yes, watching it may upset them.

"But so what?

"The guys ask in the group, 'How many perps are hetero  or homosexual?'" "They want to know, and there is not enough research to accommodate their request." Rommell Washington, MSW-LCSW, New York

"It may give them the opportunity to seek the help they need," Yost said.




Translating Sexual Abuse as an Adult

All of the male survivors screened by Think & Ask reported that the pedophile was  someone they knew, and 46 of 48  described their perpetrator(s)  as a "mentor" before the sexual assault(s) occurred.

Gartner's personal observations in the Mark Foley case --from only what had been reported in the media-- can become an example of how a younger male might walk away (through inappropriate instant messages and/or e-mail in the case of Mark Foley) with the feeling of "betrayal by a trusted adult."

"I'm assuming these bright young people are hoping to make long-term careers in Washington DC, and they are likely to worship these people they admire.

"The betrayal by a hero has psychological ramifications that can be very subtle and yet very clear," Gartner said. Simply as an example he explained that even without physical contact -- a boy who processes the adult's action may lead the younger to think more cynically of  relationships involved in such cases as a political leader to a page or a teacher to a student.

Of 51 perpetrators,  reported by the 48 men surveyed, 82 percent were males older than 18 years of age and two of the perpetrators were females.

When an older man abuses a boy, Yost said, "that 30-year-old man creates more heat and energy than a 16-year-old boy. The boy can't tolerate or match that power. So, for him sex becomes all about power as an adult," to which expands across his adulthood relationships.

Boys who are molested by women (Yost roughly estimated 10-15 percent of his case load)  can develop an inflated sense of power and may "consider themselves God's gift to women -- it becomes a sense of disassociation and it is very difficult for them to come down. This makes the boy feel like he is the greatest conqueror of all time."

Just as Brad determined through therapy --as an adult--  that he didn't want sexual intercourse as a boy,  that revelation is often the case during recovery Gartner said.  The 14-year-old boy doesn't have the capacity to think through all the issues of sexuality as an adult, which can add to the confusion during recovery as the man questions  why he wasn't able to say no or defend himself. This circumstance is even more pronounced when the adult male concludes he gained something positive out of the relationship with the pedophile.

A  boy who is currently involved with a pedophile may determine that he doesn't or didn't want sex, but in this situation "he may feel 'I'll lose the closeness' he has with this relationship," Gartner said. But as that boy grows into adulthood he  translates  sexual activity into  exploitation Gartner concluded.  The same holds true for adult female to boy sexual abuse.  Gartner said that if a boy has a crush on an adult female teacher the boy is not relating that idea on the same level as would the female adult in pursuit of a boy for a sexual relationship.

Another issue Washington described is that he hears male survivors in group therapy asking for research data as part of their quest to understand sexual abuse in society.

The lack of statistics leaves many of the men's questions unanswered Washington said,  including statistics to confirm the scope of male sexual abuse, the number of male to female adult offenders, and heterosexual to homosexual pedophiles.  "The guys ask in the group, 'How many perps are hetero-or-homosexual?'"

"They want to know, and there is not enough research to accommodate their request," Washington said.

What men have learned by attending St. Luke's Roosevelt group sessions though is a bonding tolerance for each other through their grief and recovery. "They may come in with stereotypes" of race or sexual identity Washington said, "but they made that decision that 'I'm ready for the group process,' and that bond of childhood sexual assault makes these men extremely close" despite the background differences. 


Taking  Life Back

John said, "The most important thing I have gained from this experience, has to be the fact that I am now in control of my life.  I am responsible for the things I do.  The childhood trauma  contributed to my mixed-up life and that is where I placed the blame, that is where it belongs and I have left it there. Never to return.

"I am responsible for what happens next and that is powerful," John concluded.

In the broader issue of adult to childhood sex, Brad said,  "I definitely see that an adult should not be the one who brings a boy out of himself."

"I gather from what I've learned now, the ones who do this to boys are really the pedophiles. I was tricked into believing him. He did take advantage of me," Brad said.

"Gays are more likely to get married as a result of the cycle they encounter after the childhood abuse. "The longer they are in the marriage and realize nothing has changed, there is eventually a blow up which forces change...or they become completely withdrawn from the marriage and self." Merle Yost, LMFC, Oakland, CA

During the recovery process Gartner said,  "They'll experience a certain amount of reliving whatever trauma they had...certainly some moments will be difficult," but Gartner found that men are glad to have experienced recovery.  Many times Gartner is the first person the survivor has told of childhood abuse.

"Sometimes he'll tell a  girlfriend, and then she'll be the one who suggests he seek therapy," Gartner said.

When hunting for a professional therapist, Yost said, the man "should find someone with the experience of dealing with men." A therapist who helps women recover from sexual abuse may not have the experience a man needs. Yost said he has treated men who sought therapy for sexual abuse, but were not taken seriously by the therapist, "which compounded the shame and wounding already there."

"He must feel intuitively safe" with the therapist and ask how many men the therapist councils on sexual abuse recovery.  He suggested too that the man seeking help ask the potential therapist to explain their feelings and philosophy about male childhood sexual abuse.

What is also a difficult part of recovery for both heterosexual and homosexual males is that in many cases sexual abuse has a degree of pleasure associated with the event Yost explained. In therapy that  pleasure must be differentiated with the "abuse and power" of the predator over the boy so that the male victim can regain pleasure in his adult life.

Boys who are gay take the lion's share of abuse, Yost concluded. Gay males are more likely to be sexually abused because they are more socially "isolated, they are usually a loner, and more of a target."

"Gay boys are easy access and may be looking for a role model or for someone to pay attention to them. They get the disproportionate amount of male sexual abuse," Yost said.

If a boy or teenager is unclear about his sexual identity at the age of abuse, "it can dramatically impact the abuse especially for gay men," he said.

Gartner trains other mental health professionals on how to cope with and assist male survivors of sexual abuse. Some years ago, "I often asked how many people they were treating for sexual abuse. I'd get a couple of hands," he said. "Then I'd ask 'How many of you have ever asked?'

"People didn't ask," Gartner said. "I don't get that anymore -- most of them do now ask," which is a positive for the male survivor community.

Gartner said that with the breadth of support within the psychological community for treatment has grown in recent years, even if a man locates a therapist who has not yet assisted a sexual abuse survivor that therapist has an option to seek professional consultation in working with the male survivor and gain the working knowledge to assist the patient through recovery.



Helping Parents and Partners

Jay offered a stern warning for  parents of a boy they suspect may be a victim of sexual abuse.

"They must seek out immediate psychological help," and to boys Jay said, "He's got to tell his parents or an adult so that he can get the help and attention he will need as a result of the abuse."

Parents have to educate themselves on the signs, Yost suggested.  "If there is a sudden change of behavior, or if they are getting to close with someone of inappropriate age, you need to investigate why," Yost said.

Bed-wetting, anorexia, and violent outbursts, were also signs that that "something is going on," he said.

"It is not just 'boys being boys.'

"Too much behavior is written off because they are boys, and parents are not looking at the cause," Yost said.

Boys need the opportunity to express who they are, and to tell what is going on around them he said.

In Gartner's experience there are many boys who do tell their parents when inappropriate adult behavior makes the boy uncomfortable or involves sexual activity. Those who tell often have the sense already that their parents will be receptive and will not judge the boy.

"Some boys whether rightly or wrongly think their parents will judge them," so the boy will keep the trauma secret. The parents' reactions can be more difficult to size-up. "A parent's first reaction say, 'Why did you let this happen?' is an inappropriate response for  12-year-old boy" and places the responsibility for the molest on the boy.

The boy too can take it upon himself to keep silent in order to protect the adult if he fears a parent might kill the adult, or if the boy has ambivalent feelings towards the adult molester. "They may not want to get the person in trouble, perhaps a great deal of the relationship is important to him, even if he knows he doesn't want sex," Gartner said.

"Support for survivor's loved ones is not addressed enough," Gartner said. "Spouses are often left high and dry" in understanding the recovery process. 

Gartner suggested parents and partners read the books for survivors  to get a sense of what happened in the abuse cycle and  what happens in recovery therapy. He suggested joining  malesurivor.org  discussion forms, ask questions of the members, read what men have posted, "all of this can be done anonymously. It can be a scary process," he said, but in the end the parent or partner makes contact with the issues in order to provide encouragement to the survivor. 

"Make themselves available for him to talk to, be supportive, but don't be pushing him or pressing him to move faster," Gartner concluded.

Some of the aftermath behavior is difficult for the spouse to understand, and Gartner suggested that the spouse, or parent or loved one may also find it helpful to find or form a group of support.

Myths, Marriage, Men

• Rape or molestation is only related with stranger danger;
  
• Victims are inherently prone to abuse others;
• A boy was lucky to have sexual contact with an older woman;
  
• Boys enjoy all sexual contact;