Why do so many male victims of sexual abuse remain silent?

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Content warning: sexual assault, suicide attempts

It took Léo-Paul 52 years to feel comfortable confiding in a friend about the sexual abuse he suffered. Mathieu waited 20 years before taking the first step towards healing the wounds he carried with him since his sexual assault. Their stories are far from isolated cases. In this article, we speak to Line Ouellet, social worker, psychotherapist, and for the past 20 years, head of clinical development at the Centre de ressources et d’intervention pour hommes abusés sexuellement et leur entourage (CRIPHASE).

Approximately one man in six will be sexually assaulted in his lifetime (Gouvernement du Québec, 2001). Of these, the vast majority do not disclose it for several years, if ever.

“Real men don’t experience abuse.”

“Around four out of five men who were sexually abused as children don’t admit it,” says Line Ouellet (Vaillancourt-Moral et al., 2016). She adds that one of the reasons for this is the way men are socialised.

“Traditional” masculinity dictates that men should not confide in others, that they should be emotionless and show no “weakness.” Ouellet explains that this is one of the reasons why men have difficulty seeing themselves as victims or talking about the abuse they have experienced. “According to CRIPHASE, men wait an average of 40 years before seeking help,” she points out.

She added: “There’s nothing weak about being a victim of sexual abuse. On the contrary, it’s very powerful to speak out and seek help.”

“It’ll be our little secret.”

Léo-Paul and Mathieu both sought help from CRIPHASE several years after experiencing sexual abuse.

Léo-Paul was born on a farm in the country. He went to a primary school with no more than 30 students, including several members of his family. In the 1960s, at the age of 13, he moved to Chambly to study at a classical college with a population of 600 students.

In those days, every student had a spiritual guide, a person who mentored them during their time at the seminary to make sure everything went smoothly and, as their professional title suggests, to advise them on their journey—an adult you could confide in and trust—the exact opposite of Léo-Paul’s spiritual guide. After four meetings, his adviser started kissing him and fondling him below the belt, claiming that this is the kind of thing children do with each other when playing. After a few meetings, Léo-Paul decided to change his spiritual guide.

“While more men today denounce their attackers, this was not at all the case in the 1960s, when religion was very important, and the only thing you heard about sexuality was the sins,” Léo-Paul explains.

He then spent his entire life, 52 years to be precise, trying to bury his secret by working 60 to 70 hours a week to try to forget. He experienced many periods of depression, including one for which he was hospitalized for several days before revealing his secret for the first time in 2003.

“You asked for it.”

Before coming out, Léo-Paul had lived his whole life struggling to manage and express his emotions. A similar story rings true for Mathieu.

Mathieu was 12 when he was abused by his childhood friend. Even today, he has difficulty remembering exactly what happened… it’s as if his brain is trying to forget to protect him. He does remember, however, that it happened several times.

The friend in question began by touching him in places that made him feel uncomfortable “just to play.” The last time this happened, Mathieu’s friend locked him in a room by blocking the door with a chair.

When Mathieu summoned up the courage to admit to his friend that he was uncomfortable, his friend began to blame, reject, and even intimidate him. This friend, who was part of the popular clique, spent all of secondary school bullying Mathieu after he tried to seek help from the school social worker.

“Because of that, for a long time, I associated ‘going for help’ with ‘they’re going to tell me it’s my fault and insult me’.”

Ouellet explained that many of the men she meets in her practice have found themselves in power dynamics from which they have repeatedly tried to extricate themselves. When they couldn’t, some of them ended up thinking they’d never get out. And when you think you can’t get out, it becomes harder to seek help from available resources.

Mathieu made several attempts at suicide during his time in secondary school because he could no longer cope with what he was going through. He has spent the last 20 years of his life wearing a mask in front of others, constantly questioning himself, his identity and his sexual orientation, and compensating through his intimate relationships. “I dated girls who needed me, and I became a bit dependent on their happiness because on my own, I didn’t think I deserved to be happy.”

After several unsuccessful attempts to find help (read: because there aren’t many resources for men, and even these can’t keep up with the growing demand), he finally managed to get some when he knocked on the door of CRIPHASE. One group and individual support session at a time, he is slowly learning to love himself again.

“You could have stood up for yourself.”

When I asked him what he would say to 12-year-old Mathieu if he had the chance to talk to him, Mathieu was quick to reply: “I’d tell him that I’ve tried as hard as I can to get my head above water and that even if it took a while, today I’m a person I’m proud of. That’s what counts at the end of the day: doing your best.

Ouellet points out that Mathieu and Léo-Paul are far from the exception and that many men who seek help are afraid of being seen as helpless children. What they forget is that they were children at the time of the abuse.

”But when the abuse occurs in adulthood, it’s not uncommon for men to be told that they could have defended themselves and asked why they didn’t“, she explains. The guilt many men feel as a result of this kind of stigmatising reaction is another factor that keeps them from talking about it—that and the lack of positive male role models who challenge traditional conventions of masculinity.

“The more that television programmes, series, and films depict men who counsel and confide in each other, who are comfortable sharing their emotions, the more men will feel comfortable doing so. They need role models,” says the social worker.

Today, men like Léo-Paul and Mathieu are those role models. And no, it wasn’t their responsibility to defend themselves.

Want to learn more about the circumstances surrounding male sexual abuse or the services offered by CRIPHASE? Visit their website today.