Is Sexual Harassment Different for Men? (Part 9 of 9)

“Some victimized children later initiate sexual abuse,” an article said, “so they can predict when it’s coming.” Those words from a well-known psychologist shocked me.

Some of us may have initiated abuse—after we became victimized. I question the reason was because we’d know what was coming. For me, I see it as habitual, learned behavior. We weren’t mature enough to know the difference between our need for love and the perp’s lust.

We help ourselves by remembering and focusing on our youth and innocence. Someone older groomed us and exploited us. Even if we sensed there was something wrong with what was happening, we had been carefully chosen and were easily convinced of the other’s love for us.

The analogy that comes to mind was my aversion to many vegetables when I was first married. My wife got me to eat a few Brussels sprouts. I didn’t like them. Over a period of weeks, she put one or two on my plate. Over time, I learned to enjoy them as well as cauliflower and other members of the cabbage family. Now they’re among my favorites.

Because we felt wanted and loved in our loneliness, why wouldn’t we sometimes initiate the abuse?

§ 

I started this series by asking if sexual harassment was different for men. My answer: The emotional results are much the same—lack of trust, doubting our self-work, afraid to speak, and the list goes on.

Perhaps we can form our own #MeToo movement to encourage more victimized males to speak up.

Be Kind

At the end of emails to good friends, I sometimes add these words: "Be kind to [their name] today." Occasionally I'll add, "[Their name] is someone I like very much and deserves your kindness."

Not everyone responds, and I don't write it to hear from them. I write the words because I mean them. I also write them because I've had to say them to myself many, many times to remind me. When I've messed up, said or done the wrong thing, feel low or lonely, that's when I decide to be kind to myself.

How do I show myself compassion?

My words go like this: "I like Cec; he needs me to support him and he deserves all the love and respect I can give him."

Be kind to yourself.

Say only positive, loving thoughts to yourself. If I occasionally hear myself bordering on negative and self-condemning words, here's what I say: "Cec, I'm sorry I felt that way. You don't deserve the harsh things I've said about you. I promise you that I'll be nicer."

Loving God, today help me be kind to myself.

And tomorrow. And the days after that.

This post is excerpted from Cec's book More Than Surviving: Courageous Meditations for Men Hurting from Childhood Abuse (Kregel, 2018).

Roger Mann's Response to "Excess Baggage"

The following is Roger Mann's response to last week's post.

* * * * *

There has been so much hurt and confusion in my life, and all of it has left its mark. Or maybe I should I say scar. Admittedly, I have not handled it well. To be honest, much of it was in response to my thrashing about trying to find a way to live with the confusion and sadness I carried from childhood disappointments that I never resolved. I hurt those I loved, and when you do that, it leaves a mark on you too.

So I guess I have a lot of baggage—a lot of excess weight that keeps me earthbound. I have walled off my heart from people, and God seems to be the only one I trust enough to allow His love to touch me. I don't want to hurt. That's a fact. But I don't want to hurt anyone else by allowing them to get close and then disappointing them. I overheard my wife ask our counselor, "Why am I not enough?" and I honestly could not tell her. I just didn't know.

Why do I get so sad some days? Why do I get so angry over such little slights? Why am I so insecure with her and so self-assured with strangers? People who don't know me well seem to love me. Those who get close discover a different person entirely. It's a lot of weight to carry around. It's a lot of balls to juggle and keep in the air. And it's similar to the personality of my father. Everyone loved Dad and loved to come and visit. Those of us who lived with him often wondered why he was so different with us.

I suspect there is a root belief somewhere deep that keeps this cycle going. I just don't seem to be able to find where it's located in that bag of mine and what form it takes.

I Deserve Compassion

I can now say the words, “I deserve compassion,” but it took me a long time to admit that. For years, I tried to be self-loving and self-forgiving, but a voice in the back of my head whispered, “You know all the wrong things you did. You’ve earned your pain.”

In one sense, of course, none of us merits anything good in life. (That sentence reveals my theological basis of everyone being a sinner.) What I failed to understand is that God loved me and forgave me. Once I truly accepted divine forgiveness, that led me to forgive others and feel compassionate toward others. Why couldn’t I love and befriend Cec the same way?

Although the process I went through is too complex to relate, for me, it came down to this. I didn’t warrant compassion until I saw myself as a beloved child of God. If that was true, I didn’t have to prove anything or do anything to make myself lovable.

I have three children and I love them very much. If I look at their lives, I can easily point to their flaws or take note of the ways they disappointed me. Instead, I knew I loved them and thereby I accept each of them as they are.

The hardest words I recall saying to myself were these: “I am loveable.” Although I said them aloud to myself daily, for almost a month I wanted to add, “because I . . .” and list my good deeds. Or I’d have to fight myself by adding, “But look at . . .”

I know I’m loved and worth loving.

I’m loveable;

I can show myself compassion.

Why Me? (Part 8 of 8)

I was targeted.

I was chosen by my perpetrator.

Those two sentences were so freeing to me. During the early days of my healing, I regularly repeated them.

I could now add:

• They were bigger and more powerful.

• They didn’t have the right to hurt me or take advantage of me.

• They were hypocrites. They tried to manipulate me into believing the lie that they did this out of love for me. Instead, they were doing it to meet their own addictive craving.

If my perpetrators were still alive, here’s something I would like to say to them: You kept saying you loved me, and I know it was a lie. Love never hurts or destroys another.

Why Me? (Part 3 of 7)

“Why did that person choose me?” I can’t tell the number of times an anguished man has asked that question. It usually comes in the midst of deep pain and often through many tears.

Although every situation is individual, I’m convinced of one special reason—which I touched on in the previous blog entry: We were needy kids. Those four words probably sum up everything.

We didn’t feel loved by our parents (or the parental figures in our lives). That doesn’t mean they didn’t love us; it means that we didn’t feel that parental love.

Like all children, we were born with the need to be loved and nurtured—that’s basic to any kind of emotional health. All of us were born with “skin hunger,” which becomes satisfied by being held, kissed, embraced, and patted. Those are normal needs, and most loving parents don’t need anyone to tell them to kiss their offspring.

We didn’t receive enough of those loving touches. That left us needy and, in our immature childhood, susceptible to anyone who treated us warmly.

We also yearn for the right words and spoken in soft tones. Each of us needs to feel we’re special to our parents. This doesn’t mean we’re the only ones they love, but we yearned to believe those parents brought us into the world to shower us with love. Discipline is part of that, of course, but most of all we need to hear those magic words, “I love you.” I’m not sure any of us hear them often enough.

Not once in my childhood did I ever hear either of my parents say those words to me. Did they feel loving toward me? Possibly—and that’s my way of giving my parents (especially Dad) grace.

I know why I was chosen: I was a child with unmet needs.

Our Perpetrators (Part 1 of 2)

I'm not a perpetrator, but I might have been. As I've examined my life and heard the testimonies of many abused men, I understand that some violated others because it was learned behavior. They tended to do to others what was done to them. They followed a pattern they learned through their own sad victimization.

Instead of remaining victims, they became the victimizers. I don't think it was an intentional, deliberate decision. It seems like a natural progression.

The injured boy grows up and practices what he knows as a form of sexual or emotional satisfaction. He copies what he observed and what was done to him.

He wouldn't think in those terms, but by reversing roles he becomes the person with power. He reaches for what he wants and he learns how to do it because he was once the prey.

Think again about ourselves as children. For a few minutes at a time we felt loved because we were needy boys who received physical intimacy. We had some awareness of what it felt like to be loved. It was false and transitory, but the experience was real. Those may have been the only tender expressions we experienced in childhood. At least for me, they're the only ones I remember.

I'm not trying to excuse exploiting children, but I am trying to understand those who do such heinous acts. It helps me to compare them with those who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. The honest ones speak of what it's like when they got high. They tell me they were free from worries, able to forget the misery of their lives, their lack of feeling loved, or the awareness of hating themselves.

I'm not excusing the behavior of perpetrators, but I've determined to understand. I want to open myself to forgiving those who hurt me. In doing so, I move further down my own healing path. I can't be responsible for their decision, but I can forgive them.

My perpetrators were victims of their own compulsions;

as I seek to understand their actions, I also seek to forgive them.

Why Then?

Why did I suddenly open up about my sexual assault at age 51? (And I've since learned that many men don't deal with their rapes until they're in their late 30s to early 50s.) I fit that pattern.

Perhaps it's because we reach a level of maturity that we no longer have to be afraid; maybe we're tired of being tortured with flashbacks and recurring dreams.

Early in my healing journey, I heard others speak about feeling safe. That's probably the best answer for me: I felt safe enough to open up to my wife and my best friend. Because they were safe—and expressed their loving support—that gave me the courage to speak out to others.

No matter when we open up and no matter how painful, it seems to be because of one of two reasons: We feel safe or we can't take the pain any longer. Or perhaps it's a combination.

And those of us who have taken the step of telling others are the ones who truly find acceptance, understanding, and love.

Be Kind

At the end of emails to good friends, I sometimes add these words: "Be kind to [name] today." Occasionally I'll add, "[Name] is someone I like very much and deserves the kindness."

Not everyone responds to that and I don't write it to hear from them. I write the words because I mean them. I also write them because I've had to say them to Cec many, many times.

When I've messed up, said or done the wrong thing, feel low, or lonely, that's when I have to decide to be kind to myself.

How do I show myself compassion?

My words go like this: I like Cec; he needs me to support him and he deserves all the love and respect I can give him.

Be kind to yourself. Say only positive, loving thoughts to yourself. If you find yourself bordering on negative and self-condemning words, here's what I do. "Cec, I'm sorry I felt that way. You don't deserve the harsh things I've said about you. I promise you that I'll be nicer."

Doing It Alone

"What helped you the most in your healing?" a radio host asked me.

"Two people listened when I told them," I said without reflecting. "They didn't condemn or belittle me."

As I said the words, I knew they were correct, and I stand by that statement. Here's how I see it. As long as we keep silent and try to fix ourselves, we get nowhere. There is no resolution.

But once we open up to at least one person who hears and affirms us, we're on the healing journey.

We can't do it alone.

For me, the most significant reason was my need for compassion and understanding. I didn't know how to love myself. My thoughts condemned me and showed me no mercy.

I had to receive tenderness and acceptance as a gift from someone else. In my case, it started with my wife and my best friend. I'm not sure if it matters to whom we speak as long as it's someone who will show us kindness and sympathy.

We can't do it alone. We need others. A therapist, pastor, or friend. They can give us what we can't give ourselves.

We Were There

Many of us were groomed by our perpetrators by their showing interest in us and paying attention to us. They lured us by making us feel loved.

They deceived us.

Those who sexually assaulted us didn't see us with eyes of love and compassion. We weren't truly individuals to them. Despite their use of words like "You're special" or "I love you," they lied. We were targets for them to satisfy their lust or addiction.

If we hadn't been available, they would have found some other vulnerable child. That last statement is crucial to our healing.

We were there. We were needy and they took advantage of us. We weren't special. In fact, the statistic I've read in several places is that pedophiles abuse up to 200 kids in their lifetime.

We were there. We were available.

Now we have to learn to forgive those who targeted us and stole our innocence.

No Response to Love Expressed

(This post comes from Mark.) 

Over the weekend I had a childhood memory of trying to express love toward my dad by giving him Father's Day and Birthday Cards.

I would sign those cards "Love Mark". Our family never spoke the word "love". Yet, I used it in his cards. I remember struggling to get the courage to give him my cards. I usually would end up leaving them someplace where I knew he'd find it. Then I'd watch him as he opened and read it.

He did not respond. Did not express thanks.

That gave me the message that my love wasn't good enough. My love didn't matter.

I still struggle with wondering if my love is good enough to be accepted by others. To be accepted by God.

I am realizing that for a parent to consistently not acknowledge his child's attempts at expressing love is not natural. It's a rejection that boggles my mind. Men (and women) who live openly wicked and evil lives will respond to a child's innocent expressions of love.

My dad's lack of response to my love was not natural. My desire to love my dad and to express love to him, was natural.

The wound from that rejection of my love is yet something else that I need to forgive. And without God's help, I can't.

"Why Me? What Did I Do to Deserve This?" (Part 2 of 7)

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

"Why not you?" I've heard people say. That response lacks compassion.

None of us survivors deserved to be molested. It wasn't our fault; something dreadful was done to us. (The previous sentence is important and I say it often.)

We were needy—but again, that wasn't our fault. We didn't receive the love and affection we deserved and should have had. Our parents may have loved us but they didn't express it or we didn't feel their love.

If we didn't get what we needed from them, we became vulnerable and open to predators who treated us lovingly and gave us attention—but only as a means to take care of their own lust.

Here's an answer that helps me. I was a needy kid and was abused, but now that I'm well into my healing journey, I can help others on their path to wholeness.

I didn't deserve the abuse;
it wasn't my fault.

How Do I Love?

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

One of the saddest telephone calls I've ever received came from Joe, an Hispanic from the Chicago area. He said he was unable to love—he had known that. But worse, he was unable to receive love.

He emailed me and I gave him permission to call. He said he had met a young woman who claimed to love him and he assumed she did. "I don't hate her, but I can't feel any love for her—not for anybody."

Joe emailed after hearing me on a radio interview about sexual abuse. "It was done to me," he said. ("It" was his constant expression for abuse.)

I don't know how much I helped Joe, but I was aware that his actions as a 22-year-old adult mirrored what he had lived as a child. His attitude seemed to say that he experienced only powerful or powerless relationships. If he didn't exert control, others would "use" him.

"I feel like a zombie," he told me.

I felt sadness for Joe. Being abused prevented him from developing the capacity to express himself. He said he had never been able to talk to anyone about how he felt. "I had to remain silent or get beaten by my older brother who did it to me," he said.

"I want to feel loved; I want to offer love."

Everything I said felt flat and weak to me. As I told a close friend, "My heart went out to him, but I wasn't sure my words offered healing."

Joe has become a lurker on this blog.

What can you say to help Joe?

Relationships?

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

I wonder how many men have written to me about their short-term relationships. They speak of anger, distrust, fear, and other significant issues.

I spoke to a man after a meeting in Grand Rapids. With tears in his eyes, he asked, "Will I ever find someone who loves me no matter what?"

I wish I could have yelled, "Certainly! Yes!"

He's suspicious of people and said it was a big risk for him to talk to me. "But you don't know my name and you'll never see me again, so I guess you're safe."

That's when tears came to my eyes. I understood his inability to trust, although his issue was certainly deeper than the matter of trust. As we talked he told me about his abuse and then hurried on to say that he had been in six relationships in less than two years. "At first, I was sure each one would last. I wanted each one to last—I really did."

"What happened?" I asked.

He shrugged. "They let me down. They betrayed me and told lies about me." He went into detail about his last affair. He wasn't able to acknowledge anything as being his fault. He was always the victim.

I could think of many things to say, and I started with a few suggestions. Occasionally he nodded; a few times he smiled. But whenever I paused, he said, "Yes, that's true, but. . . "

Finally I stopped. I had been speaking about practical things he could do but I realized that my words weren't what he needed. "May I hug you?" I asked.

He nodded and I warmly embraced him and held him for several seconds. "You don't need instructions," I said. "You need to feel loved and cared for, don't you?"

He pulled away, mumbled his thanks, and hurried away.

He was right: I didn't know his name. Most likely I'll never see him again. That evening I put him on my daily prayer list. I didn't have a name but I had a memory of a man with tears in his eyes. I've been praying for him daily for more than four months. I don't intend to stop praying.

I can't do anything for him.

But God can.

And God can use other people in his life. I wish I were able to be one of them.

Love Yourself

(This is an encore post by Cecil Murphey.)

I picked up a book a few weeks ago that proposed 75 things men could do to find healing from the pain of childhood abuse. Some of the actions and activities were practical. Some. But not many.

It wasn't that any of the suggestions were wrong; they were just too simplistic. For example, the title of number 17 was "Love Yourself."

I agree that's wonderful and much needed advice. What the author didn't say in the next two pages, however, was how to make self-love happen.

How do I learn to love myself? How does anyone?

Answer: I don't know.

The only answer I know comes from my own experience. Two people loved me without any demands on my behavior. The first was Shirley, my wife, and my friend David was the second.

They loved me and accepted me, even though I felt damaged and in pain. Neither of them insisted I go through a course of self-improvement or change my ways.

They simply loved me. That was the first half of the solution.

The second half was that I felt loved by them.

Once I sensed their irrefutable love, I was able to love that small, injured boy who lived inside me.

So it's true: If you want to be healed, love yourself. But don't tell anyone unless you're first willing to express that unrestricted love.

Questions and Answers (Part 3 of 7)

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

"Why do some boys become victims and others aren't?"

That's unanswerable, but I'll give you my observation. Some boys (and I was one of them) feel unloved and alone. Every person in the world needs attention and affection. Because they don't feel loved by their parents or other family members, they become susceptible to predators.

There are exceptions and other reasons, but think of it this way. The boy already has a relationship with a family member or someone in the community who is in a position of trust. They might be neighbors, teachers, church leaders, politicians, or a store clerk—anyone whom the boy looks up to, admires, or trusts.

The point is that the perpetrator already has some connection. That authority figure befriends the boy, giving him needed attention. The boy feels wanted, accepted, and perhaps loved. The perpetrator has gone after the innocent boy and destroys his childhood.

The Terrible Burden of Secrets

(This post comes from an anonymous reader.)

I felt unloved by my mother; I was unloved and unwanted by my stepfather. “You’ll never amount to anything,” he said. I believed I was worthless. I was rejected at home but at the same time I wasn't allowed to participate in sports, or to join in Scouts. I never had the male companionship that every boy needs and longs for.

The first sexual abuse that I remember was at age five. After that, I told my mother that I could hit my “willie” and it would get stiff; and if I kept hitting it, I would feel good. Shortly after that, they had me circumcised. In those days, many parents believed it stopped masturbation. I don’t remember masturbating again until about 13 when a neighbor boy took me behind our garage and showed me how. That activity became my comfort.

In my mid-teen years, I was enticed by a man. An adult male wanted an unwanted boy. I would have done anything he suggested. And it warped how I saw myself for decades. I had kissed my girlfriend before that, and that had been my most electrifying experience until the same-sex encounter. From then on, I wanted to be a heterosexual man, but I was drawn repeatedly to same-sex encounters.

In my 30s, I married a woman who loved me unconditionally. But I couldn't bring myself to tell her my secrets. How could I survive if she left?

After she died, I comprehended the depths of her unconditional love. I found a folder of poems and letters that she’d written to me when we were dating but had never mailed them. As I read them, I knew she would have been by my side through anything that enabled me to be rid of secrets.

The biggest part of my burden was guilt over my cruising parks where I could watch same-sex activities. I told myself, Watching isn't as bad as participating. Afterward, my guilt was as dreadfully damning as if I’d participated.

As a result, for the last years of our marriage, I was impotent. Had I trusted my wife and let her share my sorrow, we could have had joyful sex.

I finally trusted my pastor enough to tell him some of my story. He sent me to a counselor to whom I told everything. Both pastor and counselor accepted me as a man of worth. They gave me hope.

Secrets are terrible burdens. They can destroy us.

A Second Post from Joseph

(This is the second of three posts from Joseph.)

I gave my counselor the following list at my session this week.

What I’ve Learned/Concluded about Myself

1. I didn’t deserve the childhood psychological abuse or the adolescent sexual abuse that happened to me.

2. I didn’t have a father who loved, nurtured, and protected me; but all the time, through the years, God, the truest Father, was loving, nurturing, and providentially protecting me.

3. Through the years, I avoided fellowship with men because I was afraid I would act unmanly and they would think I was a pervert. I realize that in doing that, I was avoiding the very men who could have affirmed my maleness.

4. It takes a real man to look past abuse and personal failures in the eye and with the help of a counselor gain assurance that you didn’t start the abuse. Next admit and accept the resulting sins and failures, but then turn around and face the future with your head up. I have; I am a man!

5. This year has been the best year of my life because God has brought a change in me. I know how Scrooge felt on Christmas morning!

6. I cannot use the past tense and say, “I am recovered,” but I can with confidence use the continuing present tense and say, “I am recovering.”

"What We Didn't Get"

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

I wrote an email to a hurting friend, who suffers from the effects of terrible things he's done to others. I'm sorry for his pain, but delighted he's facing himself. It takes courage to look at ourselves and admit that we committed acts we condemn in others. (In fact, condemning others for those very acts is often the way many try to cope with their issues.)

When I faced my childhood physical and sexual abuse, I learned an invaluable lesson. I don't know if I read it, someone told me, or if God whispered it to me, but here's the lesson: What we don't receive in childhood, we spend our lives seeking—usually on an unconscious level.

Like most people I focused on the symptoms—not doing things I knew were wrong. Years ago while visiting an AA meeting, I heard the term "dry alcoholic" and that sums it up for me. Dry alcoholics no longer drink but their behavior doesn't change.

I figured out that "unacceptable behavior" (a nice term to cover compulsive problems) is a painkiller. My dad and brothers killed their pain with beer. The most notorious gossip I've ever known died recently. Many times I've thought that carrying the latest news (true or not) gave her a sense of feeling significant, perhaps even important. The "medicine" each of them took for temporary relief usually worked temporarily.

Because of a loving God who worked in my life through my wife and my best friend, I was able to accept, struggle, and to have those needs fulfilled.

I was a lonely kid who felt different from those around him. When I was 18 months old, a dog attacked me and left terrible scars on my face. Plastic surgery took care of most of the visible scars, but the invisible ones remained for years.

The worst part of my childhood is that I never felt loved. As I ponder some of the things I did which made me feel guilty and ashamed, I now say to myself, "It was my way of searching for what I didn't receive as a child."

I'm probably no different from some of you, so I repeat the sentence that pushed me to face reality: What we don't receive in childhood, we spend our lives seeking—usually on an unconscious level.