AVA:Decemeber 18 at Noon/Where the Boys Are: Understanding and Responding to Trauma when the Victim is a Male

You are all invited to our December 18th gathering. Bring your questions.

Our presenter ,Victor Vieth,  will also  talk about the role of toxic masculinity taught at a young age and the role this plays in keeping boys quiet when they are abused.

@Frank Sterle Jr. posted:

Over decades of news-media consumption I've noticed that, for example, when victims of sexual abuse are girls their gender is readily reported as such; but when they're boys they are typically referred to gender-neutrally as simply children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male.

Additionally, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17-year-old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’. Could it be that this is indicative of an already present gender bias held by the general news consumership, since news-media tend to sell us what we want or are willing to consume thus buy?

It's as though boys are somehow perceived as basically being little men, and men of course can take care of themselves. It could be the same mindset that might help explain why the book Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal only included one male among its six interviewed adult subjects, there presumably being such a small pool of ACE-traumatized men willing to formally tell his own story of childhood abuse.

It might be yet more evidence of a continuing subtle societal take-it-like-a-man mentality, one in which so many men will choose to abstain from ‘complaining’ about their torturous youth, as that is what ‘real men’ do.

Even in this day and age, male victims of sexual harassment, abuse and/or assault are still more hesitant or unlikely than girl victims to report their offenders. They refuse to open up and/or ask for help for fear of being perceived by peers and others as weak or non-masculine.

I recently read a New York Times feature story ('She Was a Big Hit on TikTok. Then a Fan Showed Up With a Gun', February 19, 2022) written by reporter Elizabeth Williamson who at one point states: “Teen girls have been repeatedly targeted by child predators” on social media.

Why write this when the fact is teen boys are also targeted by such predators? Does a collective yet mostly subtle societal mindset still persist, that real men can take care of themselves and boys are basically little men? And if mainstream news-media fail to fully realize this in their journalism, why would the rest of society?

Meantime, an otherwise normal and happy 17-year-old took his own life this year after being ‘sextorted’. An apparently attractive young woman on Snapchat compelled him to send her a compromising image of himself then soon afterward threatened to post it if he didn’t pay up. This tragic story lasted one day in the general mainstream news-media.

Another relatively short-lived story this past summer was that a Canadian center for child protection publicized their increased concern that “adolescent boys are being targeted primarily on social media giants Instagram and Snapchat as part of an ongoing sextortion crisis ... The offender will then threaten to report the victim to police, claiming they are in possession of child sexual abuse material.” ....

The social ramifications exist all around us; indeed, it is endured, however silently, by males of/with whom we are aware/familiar or to whom so many of us are closely related.

Meantime, according to psychologist, psychotherapist and author Tom Falkenstein (The Highly Sensitive Man, 2019, Ch.1), “numerous psychological studies over the last forty years tell us that, despite huge social change, the stereotypical image of the ‘strong man’ is still firmly with us at all ages, in all ethnic groups, and among all socio-economic backgrounds. …

“In the face of problems, men tend not to seek out emotional or professional help from other people. They use, more often than women, alcohol or drugs to numb unpleasant feelings and, in crises, tend to try to deal with things on their own, instead of searching out closeness or help from others. …

“While it is true that a higher percentage of women than men will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or a depressive episode, the suicide rate among men is much higher. In the United States, the suicide rate is notably higher in men than in women.

"According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men account for 77 percent of the forty-five thousand people who kill themselves every year in the United States.

“In fact, men commit suicide more than women everywhere in the world. Men are more likely to suffer from addiction, and when men discuss depressive symptoms with their doctor, they are less likely than women to be diagnosed with depression and consequently don't receive adequate therapeutic and pharmacological treatment.”

Thanks for your important, well reasoned and well documented response. This only emphasizes the need for the AVA webinar. While the massive sexual abuse "scandals" of the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts primarily affected hundreds of thousands of young boys, the resulting pervasive societal impact of this trauma has not been adequately explored in public discussion. Re-enforcing many of your observations, there is a marked asymmetry in the discussion of sexuality whether healthy or disturbed in our culture which is infused with an acceptable "macho" dominant model and complimentary "misogynous" perspective. This extends far beyond family violence and sexual abuse of individuals and results in such massive social effects as a nationally accepted (and ratified by the Supreme Court) gun culture and a pseudo-religion induced government control over women's bodies (as manifest in the anti-abortion movement again ratified by the Supreme Court).

In regards to empathetic, sensitive, humane emotional issues our country is on full tilt!

Over decades of news-media consumption I've noticed that, for example, when victims of sexual abuse are girls their gender is readily reported as such; but when they're boys they are typically referred to gender-neutrally as simply children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male.

Additionally, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17-year-old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’. Could it be that this is indicative of an already present gender bias held by the general news consumership, since news-media tend to sell us what we want or are willing to consume thus buy?

It's as though boys are somehow perceived as basically being little men, and men of course can take care of themselves. It could be the same mindset that might help explain why the book Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal only included one male among its six interviewed adult subjects, there presumably being such a small pool of ACE-traumatized men willing to formally tell his own story of childhood abuse.

It might be yet more evidence of a continuing subtle societal take-it-like-a-man mentality, one in which so many men will choose to abstain from ‘complaining’ about their torturous youth, as that is what ‘real men’ do.

Even in this day and age, male victims of sexual harassment, abuse and/or assault are still more hesitant or unlikely than girl victims to report their offenders. They refuse to open up and/or ask for help for fear of being perceived by peers and others as weak or non-masculine.

I recently read a New York Times feature story ('She Was a Big Hit on TikTok. Then a Fan Showed Up With a Gun', February 19, 2022) written by reporter Elizabeth Williamson who at one point states: “Teen girls have been repeatedly targeted by child predators” on social media.

Why write this when the fact is teen boys are also targeted by such predators? Does a collective yet mostly subtle societal mindset still persist, that real men can take care of themselves and boys are basically little men? And if mainstream news-media fail to fully realize this in their journalism, why would the rest of society?

Meantime, an otherwise normal and happy 17-year-old took his own life this year after being ‘sextorted’. An apparently attractive young woman on Snapchat compelled him to send her a compromising image of himself then soon afterward threatened to post it if he didn’t pay up. This tragic story lasted one day in the general mainstream news-media.

Another relatively short-lived story this past summer was that a Canadian center for child protection publicized their increased concern that “adolescent boys are being targeted primarily on social media giants Instagram and Snapchat as part of an ongoing sextortion crisis ... The offender will then threaten to report the victim to police, claiming they are in possession of child sexual abuse material.” ....

The social ramifications exist all around us; indeed, it is endured, however silently, by males of/with whom we are aware/familiar or to whom so many of us are closely related.

Meantime, according to psychologist, psychotherapist and author Tom Falkenstein (The Highly Sensitive Man, 2019, Ch.1), “numerous psychological studies over the last forty years tell us that, despite huge social change, the stereotypical image of the ‘strong man’ is still firmly with us at all ages, in all ethnic groups, and among all socio-economic backgrounds. …

“In the face of problems, men tend not to seek out emotional or professional help from other people. They use, more often than women, alcohol or drugs to numb unpleasant feelings and, in crises, tend to try to deal with things on their own, instead of searching out closeness or help from others. …

“While it is true that a higher percentage of women than men will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or a depressive episode, the suicide rate among men is much higher. In the United States, the suicide rate is notably higher in men than in women.

"According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men account for 77 percent of the forty-five thousand people who kill themselves every year in the United States.

“In fact, men commit suicide more than women everywhere in the world. Men are more likely to suffer from addiction, and when men discuss depressive symptoms with their doctor, they are less likely than women to be diagnosed with depression and consequently don't receive adequate therapeutic and pharmacological treatment.”

RSVP  https://www.avahealth.org/what...ions-gatherings.html