Not for men only - a place to discuss men's trauma issues (comments welcomed from all)

[Nuance]

I would agree we get driven into things in an effort to fit somewhere. The disassociation is so dramatic. It reminds me right now of Neo and "the architect" . The most pertinent question, "Why am I here"?

Interesting. I think it could very well be dissociation. It is always as if they were trying to embody the opposite of the unhealthy female archetype that hurt them to the core. It saddens me to see such an existential pain. Anyways, thank you for the exchange. ?

 

[bellbird]

I figure this is an appropriate place to discuss my anger about the most recent episode of the Bachelorette US that involved a game of "strip dodgeball" where the men in the team that lost each round had to strip off an item of clothing until eventually the losing team had to take a "walk of shame" home, completely naked.

I'm sorry, what?

The bachelorette, Clare Crawley, this season is supposedly all for female empowerment.

You don't achieve female empowerment through the objectification of men.

You wouldn't put a female cast of the Bachelor through the same thing.
Setting up a game of dodgeball where the women had to strip each round and the losers were forced to walk home completely naked?

Yeah, nah.

Quit perpetuating double standards: they're disgusting.

 

[Sideways]

You don't achieve female empowerment through the objectification of men.

Sheesh - haven't seen the episode you're talking about, but that sounds like more than objectification, and definitely humiliation and degradation.
On (inter)national tv.

I hope, like a growing number of reality shows here in Australia, the provision of professional counselling support, even after the show has ended, is available to all these contestants.

There are ways to celebrate the male form that are not degrading. Strip Dodgeball wouldn't be one of them.

 

[bellbird]

degradation

Degradation! (My brain had been searching for that word but never found it). It definitely was degrading for the men. Some even commented themselves they felt humiliated.

I'm pleased that some former female cast members of the franchise are speaking out about the double standard.

 

[Mee]

I spoke out against a similar theme of meme- not naked - but a ‘hot teacher’ meme ( teacher was a guy) .

i feel very strongly about this - when women like me are asking that society does better - we have to include women in that - my version of equality does not mean sinking to the lowest equal denominator but rising to a better , non damaging position that might not be the same but offers equal opportunity to all.

 

[coraxxx]

Hi there. Joining the discussion a bit late here. It's been a long time I find that the specific pressure men have to bottle up and do things by themselves... Just produces a lot of silent suffering at best, and ticking bombs at worst. And often I'm pissed reading comments about "men this, men that" without seeing we all, collectively, more or less voluntarily perpetuate these views.

As I'm coming from contemporary art and have quite an interest in filmmaking, I'm often deflated by the way men are depicted (how women are depicted is also highly problematic) in this heroism and static fashion. Actually they are, most of the time, somehow absent from a personal representation when they are "normal" people. There are the great men, and there are the mavericks. Not many models to follow, especially not loving ones. Gentle guys are depicted as feeble.

But in general as we're living a moment of social change in representation, where women of colour are naturally the ones that have to be the more compensated for having been invisible for so long, I sense the fear from white men and men in general to become invisible. And losing privileges feels like losing what is normally due. I think there must be a part of the change that shows alternative ways of manliness that include men in winning more comfort and safety and having a space. But not based on a model of control or domination as it's still the most widespread... gaining the right to be faillible, scared, lost and understanding there is courage too in these positions.

I often fantasised to take pictures of my boyfriend in an intimate but not objectifying or explicit way, just as fond memories of softness. Unfortunately I never managed to but I think it would be interesting.

 

[Lionheart]

I too am joining the conversation late and I have only read the first 2 pages of this thread so please forgive me if I am interrupting anything.

I have noticed that these days, there don't seem to be a lot of positive male role models out there. And I don't think that society as a whole understands what healthy men look like. Over and over, thru the media, we are presented with the old "hero" model: the stoic, unfeeling, angry, men who can single-handedly save the world or who prove their masculinity by objectifying and brutalizing women.

I think as a survivor of sexual child abuse, that we as a society need to reinvent for our children what it means to be male and female because we are socializing our children in such as way as to engender inequality and abuse. This is just my personal opinion. I think the way children are socialized is very important as to what type of men and women we become and it sets the stage for future interactions.

When men take the lead and stand up against child abuse, sexual abuse, rape, and social inequalities we begin to envision what a healthy man looks like. That is just my 2 cents, please take it for what it is.

 

[somerandomguy]

Thanks for joining the discussion, @ruborcoraxxx. One reason I stopped watching Hollywood blockbusters is that I didn't see any people, men or women, in those movies that I could relate to or would probably even enjoy hanging out with, which I think you get, @Lionheart . But so many people compare themselves to what they see on the screen (movie, TV, internet) and usually genders/sexualities are depicted only in the broadest tropes.

One problem that "men" have (and I dislike speaking in generalities, but sometimes it's useful) is that too much of the pressure to change is coming from outside. For example, if you pick up a book about men and how we have to change, the book 99% of the time has been written by a woman. That's fair; women should get a say about it, but when women are the ones weighing in to the exclusion of actual male voices, we have a problem. But I think that younger people understand why privilege needs to be spread around much more than older people.

We also don't live in a world where it is permissible for men to share their sadness, pain, or abuse stories, and this is enforced just as much by women as it is by other men. The onus, unfortunately, is on men to speak out anyway. I feel like it's starting to happen in a small way, but it'll probably take another couple of generations to really get going. I believe once men are allowed to be victims as much as heroes, we'll see empathy become a healthy masculine value.

 

[somerandomguy]

I'd like to write in this space about statistics and why they're so important to male survivors. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) is spearheading a bunch of online activities here in the USA around that. However, I and other male survivors feel very strongly that the NSVRC doesn't support male survivors at all and prefers to ignore us entirely in favor of female survivors.

One major reason we feel this way is because the NSVRC loudly proclaims in most of their materials that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men is the victim of a sexual assault rape. But the 1 in 71 statistic is completely and totally bogus - it's just that most people don't know enough about it to question it, and the NSVRC likes it that way. 1 in 71 men reports being penetrated against their will. The CDC defines "rape" as ONLY the act of being penetrated. However, we know that there are many more forms of sexual assault than being penetrated, and in fact if you use ALL forms of sexual assault against adult men, the statistic becomes 1 in 15. So in light of that, why would the NSVRC cite ONLY the LEAST inclusive statistic for victims of male sexual assault?

Because the NSVRC is trying to erase male sexual assault victims. But they can truthfully claim they're reporting on "rapes" against men, as if that makes it OK to erase all men whose sexual assault doesn't involve being penetrated.

I haven't even gotten into the fact that as many as three out of four sexual assaults aren't reported - and for men it's close to four out of four, as men report even less frequently than women. And if you add in child sexual abuse, 1 in three women and 1 in FOUR men is the victim of an unwanted sexual experience across their lifespans.

But most people don't know enough about these statistics to speak out against this kind of statistical cherrypicking, and the NSVRC gets to underserve men. Other groups use this statistic too, like the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and they also underserve men.

Those of us men who know what's going on are angry, and we are currently working with various experts and scholars to get the NSVRC to change. We consider this a real matter of life and death. As a man, "1 in 71" (especially as compared to 1 in 5) means that I'm pretty much alone. Why should I bother talking about it or getting help? 1 in 15 means that maybe I have a fighting chance.

Sorry for the mega quote, but I thought I would give an update. About one year after I posted the above, the NSVRC dumped the bogus "1 in 71" statistic entirely, replacing it with a bunch of infographics that, in my opinion, do a much better job of informing people the huge scope of the problem of sexual abuse among everyone, not just women and girls. I didn't notice until today.

I don't know how much of it was due to the fact that I started a one-man campaign against the "1 in 71" stat and got my research mentors at Yale to tell the NSVRC that they were erasing male victims. Frankly, I don't care. The stat has disappeared and now, perhaps, the better statistics will filter down to other, smaller organizations who still should know better.

Edit: Just sent a note to thehotline.org, the main anti-DV organization in the USA, asking them to remove that statistic from their stats page too.

 

[internal]

the idea of having statistics of abuse has always been frankly asinine to me. and from the scientific perspective. i understand that there is the need to quantify. and that if we quantify it correctly it will have benefits. because it will inform us of how much infrastructure that is really needed. and it will inform us how to interact with this space.

which we have discussed before in particular srg. and i think that if you discuss this with any person who works in the field of encountering abuse victims. that person will find it asinine as well. but in particular, for me, it is a little different. because those people are working with abuse victims who have disclosed. or who have needed help.

whereas i am working in a field that disclosure is almost irrelevant. because i encounter abuse victims that have never disclosed. and what i am seeing makes this 1 in 15, 1 in 6 thing look like a bunch of f*cking nonsense. and that is probably a pure ptsd response. that is an emotional reaction. "the science is not capable of keeping up with reality and ergo it's stupid!"

which i know is not very useful a contribution to have. but it just aggravates me that i don't see this being discussed anywhere. abuse is so much more pervasive and widespread than anyone has any awareness of. and it drives me up the wall. that people actually dare to assume that there is an inherent difference between the genders of human beings who get abused.

it's absolute bullshit.

 

[bellbird]

I've written to the organiser just now.
Here's what I wrote. Thanks all for the encouragement/suggestions.
I will let y'all know in November when the new questionnaire comes out if we've been able to facilitate a change. If not, I'll just try again :)

To Dr. Chris Sibley,

My name is bellbird.
I have been a participant of the NZAVS since 2014.

I have a suggestion regarding the following questions that featured in the 2018 questionnaire:

"We should invest more in educating women how to avoid physical/sexual violence from men."
and
"We should invest more in educating men to not be physically/sexually violent toward women."

Sexual assault is a topic that is very close to home for me; I am a woman, with PTSD, that has been primarily caused by sexual assault by a male perpetrator.

Throughout my journey with PTSD over the last year, I have been fortunate enough to develop friendships with men who are sexual assault survivors and who had female perpetrators.

From speaking with them, I have learnt about the huge gender bias in how sexual assault and domestic violence are portrayed, the stigma that they face as male victims, and how their experiences are so often and so cruelly invalidated simply because of their gender.

As a victim of sexual assault myself, I speak from the heart when I say that validation is immensely important.

I strongly feel that the wording of the above two questions from the 2018 questionnaire fuels the stigma that there are only male perpetrators and female victims in sexual assault. Which is completely inaccurate.

The focus should be on educating people to treat other people with respect and not assault them, and on educating people to assess the risk of being assaulted and what might be appropriate responses, irrespective of gender.

I sincerely ask you to address this bias in the 2019 questionnaire. I have seen the ways in which this global bias has impacted the lives of male survivors and how desperately change is needed in how we approach this topic.
I implore you, given the platform that you have of reaching so many New Zealanders, to be a part of that change.

Yours sincerely,
bellbird

It's been a while, but I wanted to follow up on this post to say that I just completed the 2022 questionnaire for the study, and those two questions were no longer in it. I do recall them also missing from the last round, but never wrote about it here.

I don't know if this is purely coincidental, or if my email several years ago had anything to do with it, but I'm chuffed they're no longer adding to the stigma around gender and assault.

Let's keep going.

 

[somerandomguy]

Bellbird! You did it. YOU did it. If no one had said anything, I have no doubt those questions would still be there.

This is how we change the world. And by that I mean, this is how WE change the world. Us. ANY of us.

Thank you so much for your advocacy