Sexual Violence Thrives in Silence
Story by Allison Clowers | Design & Illustration by Katie Jo Stewart
Imagine spending 20 years of your life keeping a huge secret from everyone you love in fear of being judged or doubted. Imagine spending those 20 years aching inside because you are ashamed of what happened to you.
This is a reality for many men who have been sexually victimized and have not felt comfortable enough to report their experience. Feeling lost and alone because they have been violated.
In many discussions, it may seem like women are the most common victim in a sexual assualt or sexual harassment, and men are often times the perpetrators. While those are the situations that you may hear about more often, there are many other instances of sexual violence that we do not hear about.
Anyone can be a Victim
So, what qualifies as sexual violence? The Rape, Assault & Incest National Network (RAINN) defines sexual violence as an all-encompassing term that refers to crimes such as sexual assault, rape and sexual abuse.
An advocate at Aspen Advocacy Services in Ellensburg, Melissa Osorio, explains, sexual violence can be “harassment, inappropriate touching [or] inappropriate conversations.” Many people think of rape as the only form of sexual violence, but “it goes much deeper than just the rape aspect,” Osorio adds.
“Sexual violence is a crime that can happen to anyone, no matter their age, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic status, it’s pervasive throughout our society and it affects both men and women, and people who identify across the gender spectrum,” says Heather Drevna, vice president of communications at RAINN.
Anyone can be a victim.
“Sexual assault is equal opportunity,” says Jim Struve, executive director of Men Healing, an organization that provides help for male survivors of sexual violence.
“Sexual assault is really, in many ways, perceived as a woman's issue which makes it very difficult for men to come forward about their experiences of harassment and abuse,” says Laura Palumbo, communications director at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
Men Don’t ____.
“Men don't cry. Men don't complain. Men have to be strong,” Osorio says, as she explains the expectations society has placed on males.
One of the biggest reasons we do not hear about men being victims of sexual violence is because they do not report their cases as often as women. That may be because many men do not feel comfortable enough to come forward and speak out about their experience.
Assistant Professor of Counseling at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, Doug Shirley, explains, typically one in four to five men have experienced some form of sexual violence. She also mentions those numbers could be drastically inaccurate because they only represent the reported cases.
While the victimization and trauma are generally the same across all gender identities, “what's different primarily is the way in which men are socialized to respond,” Struve says. “It stays more invisible for men because we don't consider that men can be victims. All of the prevailing norms of masculinity are [that] boys and men can protect themselves. The idea of violation of males is kind of hard for people to get their heads around.”
The notion of masculinity that all men face in our society creates an unwelcoming environment where men do not feel comfortable enough to speak out about their experiences, and makes them think, “their inability to prevent what happened to them is somehow a reflection on their masculinity,” Drevna says.
“Men have been raised with a sense [that] to be powerful, to be dominant, is the way to be expressive, as opposed to being tender or vulnerable or hurt or sad or to feel shameful,” Shirley says.
Shame is an intense feeling that affects men every day, “shame is the orienting emotion for many men, meaning it's the thing that they wake up and put on every day,” Shirley says.
He goes on to explain that it leaves them feeling like they have been dirtied, defiled, broken and tainted.
“Their feelings of self-blame and shame can deter survivors from seeking help, or from reporting to authority,” Drevna says. Which is why it is an issue we do not often hear about.
“Having experienced harm, and not being able to talk about it, not recognizing it means that shame becomes the primary experience for that young man,” Shirley says.
Another reason men don’t report their cases is due to the significant lack of resources for male victims versus female victims.
“There has not been as much access to services because rape recovery and crisis centers began by just providing services to women,” Struve says.
“The world of emotions is seen as a women's world, so the resources that are out there for young men to go and get therapy and talk through what's happened, might seem like an emasculation,” Shirley says.
Because society has painted the narrative that women are the only victims of sexual violence, speaking out and getting help “is very limiting for men and it's limiting for so many other survivor populations,” Palumbo says.
Another consequence of men not feeling comfortable enough to speak out centers around their perpetrator.
“The fact that men face these barriers coming forward and are less likely to report also means that there are many individuals who are perpetrating sexual harassment and assaults that are never then held accountable or face any consequences for their actions,” Palumbo says.
Though a lack of accountability is a major issue, it can also create additional problems for the victims, specifically for individuals who know their perpetrators. Drevna explains that eight out of 10 victims know the person who has violated them.
Sexual violence is seen a lot within institutions and the perpetrators are often authority figures of some sort, which creates a different type of fear and betrayal in the victims than if it had been done by a stranger.
“You thought you trusted somebody, and they violated the trust, so it’s a betrayal,” Struve says. On top of the already traumatizing thing that happened to them, victims of institutional abuse have to deal with the feeling of betrayal and mistrust.
Anyone can be a Survivor
The biggest thing to remember is that “sexual violence thrives in silence,” Palumbo says. If there is no conversation about sexual violence in men, there is no progress.
“It requires the courage and the vulnerability of male survivors who have been getting help to make it safe enough to speak out,” Struve says. If more men speak out about their experiences, the more validating and welcoming the conversation will get, and hopefully that will lead more men to come forward and speak out.
He adds, “it used to be that … we didn't see women in that regard, and the more we had courageous women who spoke out … now we know about it.” It took a lot of courage for women to speak out about their experiences, and it will take that of men as well.
According to Palumbo, “there's still a lot of room for our society to break away from this idea of a quintessential survivor and to break away from this idea of a very limited narrative of who a survivor is, what they look like and what they've experienced.”
“No survivors should experience victim blaming or dismissiveness of their experiences of sexual harassment and assault, and our society will never be able to end sexual assault until we start taking the experiences that men have of sexual harassment and assault seriously,” Palumbo says.
“It makes people stronger when they get the courage, and actually decide to have this conversation, because it can completely change their outlook on life,” Osorio says.
Advocates and counselors are all around to help open this conversation up and support survivors in the best way they can. There are groups and organizations that are dedicated to helping people move past the trauma caused by sexual violence.
Struve works to organize healing retreats for male survivors to meet other male survivors which gives them an opportunity to “have friendships and community that gives them support that they didn't have before.”
Giving survivors a chance to share their story in a safe and judgement-free environment gives them a chance to feel like it was not their fault, that they did not do anything wrong in not being able to stop it.
Additionally, being able to share their story amongst a group of individuals who know what they are going through, gives them an opportunity to create a supportive community to help them through their trauma.
Palumbo says, “I think that there's a lot of room for our society to become a more welcoming and validating space for male survivors of sexual harassment and assault,” and adds, “we all can play a role in changing the assumptions and stigma that male survivors face by educating ourselves and changing our beliefs and attitudes.”
Knowing about the prevalence of this issue in men is the first step to being accepting of everyone’s experiences, no matter what gender they are. “It shouldn't be men versus women, it should be inclusive,” Struve says.
“For any or all of us who have experienced sexual harm, we can recover; we're not tainted, we're not defective, this doesn't get to define us. This can be an important part of our story, a part that we own and that we tell when the time is right, but it doesn't have to haunt us forever, and resilience is grown as we work our way through hard things,” Shirley says.
