Crisis Center Consultant on Sexual Abuse of Men
Sexual abuse of men is rarely discussed: when it comes to sexual abuse, most of us automatically imagine a woman as a victim and a man as a rapist. This approach is dictated by the statistics itself: for example, according to the American organization RAINN, more than 80% of victims of sexual violence are women, but the situation is similar in other countries. The remaining 20% fall on men - and most often the victims are children, not adults. At the same time, there are still no sufficiently accurate data on sexual offenses in the world due to the fact that victims rarely report them to the police.
According to feminists and sociologist Anastasia Khodyreva, assistance to men who have experienced sexual violence in Russia is complicated by the way Russian legislation treats sexual violence. In the Criminal Code, rape means only man’s violence against a woman, and man’s violence falls under the heading “Violent acts of a sexual nature” - in this case, only a situation in which physical resistance was exercised was meant as sexual violence. In addition, the political situation of recent years does not allow open discussion of violence without blaming the victims.
In Russia, there are no separate crisis centers for men, but men and boys who have experienced sexual violence can contact the Crisis Center for Women for help in person, by telephone or via the Internet. Help can be obtained from the Sisters Center, as well as through the LGBT community (for example, the group or the Children 404 website). Nevertheless, in recent decades, first aid centers for men who survived violence have begun to appear in Europe and America, although they are much smaller than crisis centers for women. One such specialized organization is the Berlin Center for Sexual Abuse Men, Tauwetter. It emerged in 1995 as a self-help group at the Wildwasser Women's Crisis Center. Gradually, the organization has grown and is now engaged in counseling victims of violence and conducts educational conversations in schools. We talked with the center consultant Jörg Schu.
You have been working since the 90s, and your idea was borrowed from similar crisis centers for women. What is the difference between helping men from helping women?
Speaking of sexual violence, as a rule, they imply actions directed at women - including because the culture itself presupposes the aggressive role of a man and the passive one - women. Indeed, 90% of sexual crimes are committed by men. But men can be victims, but they have only recently begun talking about it - in the 90s or even zero. For a long time this topic has been tabooed.
It is much harder for men to talk about sexual abuse and even harder about the violence they suffered in childhood, for example from their father or mother (women also act as rapists, but less often). As a rule, it takes them a lot of time to realize that what happened to them was sexual abuse, that they now need help. In addition, many people need time just to realize that sexual violence against men exists.
In Germany, they started talking about this quite recently?
Certainly not earlier than in the 90s, if not later. But they seriously thought about it and started talking not so long ago - after a story that happened in 2010 at the elite college of Canisia, when several men from among the former students declared that they were raped by the then teachers and they still suffer the consequences. What was important was not only the recognition of the victims themselves that they were raped, but also the fact that they told about the suffering that caused them. It is important for men to realize that they have experienced violence and that they are still unhappy because of this.
According to the founder of the center, your clients, as a rule, are older than women seeking help, usually more than 30.
I would say, even older - more than 40. On average, they are 40-45; there are younger, but they are a minority. Boys tend to experience violence at a very early age - between eight and 12 years old, they need time to realize this. Very often they do not tell anyone about this and, of course, receive no help. Asking for help is "unmanly". Therefore, they find ways to get away from the problem: many are completely immersed in work and thus suppress or repress these experiences.
They tell themselves that they are too busy to think about their pain, that they need to work and feed their families. Then they burn out or they have a midlife crisis, and the memories float to the surface again. Others choose drugs - a way to escape from reality, where everything is very bad. Many victims of violence forget what happened to them - and they remember only after many years. For example, we once had a client, to whom memories came back when a policeman hit him with a baton at a demonstration.
It is important for men to realize that they have experienced violence and that they are still unhappy because of this.
I think this is quite typical for men brought up in European culture, both in Eastern and Western Europe. Often they have depression or alcohol addiction.
Many men who are treated for addictions often come to us. It can be people with alcohol dependence, and workaholics, and extreme sportsmen. Of course, I would never draw direct conclusions and suspect in every lover to drink a person who survived the violence. But an alcohol addiction can really hide an attempt to drown out the pain. Athletes who are trying to bring themselves to the limit, thus trying to push themselves, to make life go on.
It is very difficult for raped men to tell about their experiences, including because in reply you can hear dismissively: "Are you gay?" or "Well, you probably liked it." The latter is a common trick of the rapists. If they see that the boy has an erection, they say that he wants sex himself, that he likes it. Although in reality this bodily reaction may have nothing to do with real arousal. Of course, this only complicates the subsequent recovery, because shame is added to all painful experiences. Sexuality itself is often experienced as shameful, and sexual abuse is doubly so.
You talk about boys all the time. Adult men do not become victims of violence?
Become, though much less. If this happens, it is more likely with homosexual men: it can also be partner violence in a same-sex couple. In addition, sexual abuse can be part of homophobic acts. In addition, this can happen to patients of doctors who abuse their position. But most of our clients have experienced abuse in childhood or adolescence. Many victims of violence are subjected to it again - for example, for the first time in childhood, then in adolescence, and so on.
Do you work in schools?
Yes, since 2010 we have been working in two schools - Canis College and another school in the Schöneberg district. At Kaniziya College, we began working as part of their new student protection system.
You said that in 2010 a scandal broke out there: several graduates said they were raped. Have you been invited there after him?
Yes, because they do not want history to repeat. When it first became known about the violence, many teachers tried to leave everything as it was, saying that everything was in the past. We proceed from the fact that this can happen now, and this should be prevented. We need to explain to children what sexual abuse is so that they can talk about it with their school psychologist or even with the school principal. Children need to know where they can be helped.
Is it not more natural for a child to tell someone of his family about the violence?
On the one hand, yes, relatives are the closest people. On the other hand, about a third of all sexual abuse takes place in the family. And in this case, it is important for the child to be able to tell this to someone outside of it - at school, or to a friend, or the parents of a friend.
Do you tell children on your trainings what to do if their friend has been abused?
Of course, we tell children what to do if their friend complained about sexual abuse in the family or, for example, the sports section. We say that it is important to simply support, in any case not to express doubts, and at the same time a friend is not obliged to go with the story to the police. It is important to just be there - play football, eat ice cream together.
In other countries, victims of pedophiles may not be able to report to the police, because the term of the crime expired after the prescription of years. How are things going in Germany?
According to the laws of Germany, a person who was raped as a minor, has time before he turns 30 years old, and in some cases even 20 years old when he reaches this age, to report to the police. However, I want to note that for many of our clients, an application is not the most important thing. Some find the strength to tell the police: they do not want other people to suffer, they want the abuser to understand what he has done. Many rapists may not understand this - while their victim continues to suffer.
In Britain, a study was published recently that resulted in a very large percentage of children of school age being victims of various forms of sexual violence. it's not just about physical abuse, but about things like name-calling like a "whore" or "fagot." However, many children may not understand what they are dealing with. Do you explain this in your classes?
Yes, we are discussing what can be considered sexual abuse. And that this is not necessarily a stranger who will put you in the car and take it to the basement. It all starts with violations of borders - with such insults. Under this may be a demonstration of pornorolikov child under 14 years old - in Germany it is a criminal offense: adults do not have the right to show children pornography. And here is also a difficult situation, because, for example, today a child can easily open his father’s laptop and go to a porn site, and then his father will be punished.
By the way, in our classes we discuss what pornography is. She teases the imagination, and the teenagers who see her can decide to show the video to others in order to provoke them. This also includes obzyvatelstvo or minor harassment, such as dragging a gum bra from the front of the sitting girl and the like. Provocateurs thus check the boundaries of the people around them: what will be the reaction? What get away with and what not?
Do you explain such things to elders, such as teachers or parents? Older people may not understand this.
Yes, we work with teachers and trainers of the same section in Berlin. We tell, for example, that the coach should not be in the shower room with the children, unless, of course, they threaten to smash everything there. The coach has nothing to do in the shower with the children, and even more so he should not wash with them, because it will already be a violation of their personal boundaries. We explain to parents that the child has the right to refuse their hugs and kisses. That they should be proud if their child can refuse them, because it is much harder than saying no to a stranger. This means that he is able to defend their borders.
In the patriarchal family, children are taught from childhood that everything is allowed for adults
This is a very interesting change in culture, because the patriarchal family does not give the child any opportunity to refuse an adult anything.
Exactly. In the patriarchal family, children are taught from childhood that everything is allowed to adults. All this rests on the topic of children's rights. Non-violent upbringing is very difficult for some parents - and this is despite the fact that in Germany any violence against children was completely prohibited by federal law as early as 2000.
You work in Berlin, a very multi-ethnic city, did you notice cultural differences between people of different backgrounds? For example, German and Eastern European.
Back in the 90s, a lot of Russian Germans came to Germany, carriers of other cultures. And there have been cases in our practice when men from this diaspora called us and were subjected to domestic violence, but at the same time they were afraid to talk about what happened to them, for fear of losing contact with their family. I would say that in this environment - as well as among immigrants from the Middle East - the internal relations are very strong, which put pressure on its individual members and make it impossible to remove dust from the hut. The same behavior is also characteristic of elite schools, of which we spoke: members of these communities are often afraid to bring the discussion of violence to the public for fear of losing the support of the collective.
How do outsiders respond to complaints of abused men? Are they facing charges of provocative behavior like women?
With men, the situation is different. First, they are even less likely to believe, and the first reaction to complaints often happens: "Well, no, it cannot be, he's such a good person!" or "But he's not gay, he has a family," "Don't be silly!" Then they begin to accuse them of not defending themselves, that they are not courageous enough. And finally, the very fact of injury can be denied - and the person who survived the violence will hear that "there was nothing like that" and "everything is not so bad."
Your last words remind me of a recent Moscow story: in early September, in one of our elite schools, there was a scandal when it turned out that the teacher was sleeping with high school students. During the discussion of this scandal, many said that the girls did not really suffer because they were old enough.
Of course, talking about sexual abuse in school is still largely taboo. We worked in our center with several men, graduates of one elite British College of Art. These men cannot say the name of the teacher who hurt them, because he has world fame and connections, and they are either at the beginning of their careers or are still learning and do not want to lose their scholarship. However, there is another way out - for example, in one college in Berlin the concept of protecting students from sexual violence was developed. Upon admission, all students and teachers receive a brochure stating that intimate relations between teachers and students are unacceptable under any circumstances. If they still fall in love with each other, then the teacher cannot continue to teach this student.
In recent years, Germany has begun to talk more about injury as a consequence of violence. Of course, not every episode of violence leads to severe injury - and here mental injuries are not very different from physical ones. If a fresh wound is immediately sanitized, it will not fester and heal, but if this is not done, it will hurt for a long time. The patient may need serious treatment - from medical ointment to surgery.
When new clients come to us, first of all we are trying to give them the opportunity to somehow streamline their lives. We tell them that they are no longer small children, victims of violence, but adults who can get out of this difficult situation. At the same time, it is more typical for men in our culture to express their pain through aggression, anger - it can be anger or aggressive driving on the road, it is, after all, just dangerous for others. We say to such clients that the most important thing is not to give life to completely crumble and find a source of positive impressions, some use of one’s own powers, for example, sports or music, which will allow them not to think about what happened to them for several hours a day. You can't let a rapist define your life.
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