I also agree that, from a Christian faith perspective, we–abusers and abused–are broken image-bearers. My post here is on a book from a non-Christian psychological perspective dating to 1979; it is just one take on understanding incest. There are clearly many more. Indeed, I am familiar with the writings of Miroslav Volf. His book is on my shelf. His thoughts are interesting to read especially alongside those of Elie Wiesel, whom Volf is certainly answering in his book.

As a sexual abuse, assault, and incest survivor, I have had to accept that those who injured me are not going to take responsibility for what they did at this time. Perhaps at the judgement before Christ they will. So I have had to let go of “desperately needing” to hear an apology from them in order to move into another state of grace.

In my own thinking, I believe that I’ve moved beyond the “default her” you remark upon, though when I am representing someone else’s thoughts who has framed the discussion in gendered terms, I may reproduce the author’s language. Like you, I’ve come to truly value the concepts of trauma, PTSD, attachment disorder, and violation of the will as ways of understanding childhood sexual abuse. But more than that, I’ve come to value the love of God, the redemption of Jesus, and the healing power of the Holy Spirit specifically as they apply to my journey to total freedom from the oppression of past sexual violation. I hope that one day we will no longer compare scars, but victory-stories about overcoming sin and breaking through to joy!

Blessings on you and thank you for sharing your thoughts here.

Along with the need to view these abusers as people, particularly from a faith perspective, it is also time for the literature to ratchet down its description of victim as ‘her’ (even the default ‘her’)–as if gender adequately frames the issue. Sterotypes have done enough damage–can we please move beyond this to the anthropology of trauma, PTSD, attachment disorder, the violated HUMAN PERSON? Sexual violence, if it is to be redeemed from a faith perspective, is more than one of proportionality (and we don’t know the statistics on abused males); it must also be framed as broken image-bearers, crushed underfoot in their calling to extend the Creator’s mission. An excellent read on the human pathos of trauma is Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World (Eerdmans, 2006). In our disposition for ‘comparing scars,’ we may find we have missed key opportunities to ‘mend souls.’

Thanks for offering a forum for honest dialogue–what victims desperately need.

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International

I was able to identify the guy and the car he was driving. Although he was arrested and indicted, he never went to trial. His trial never took place because he was brutally beaten to death in Providence before his court date. 34 years later, no one has ever been charged with the crime.

In the time between the night of my assault and the night he was murdered, I lived in fear. I was afraid he was still around town. Afraid he was looking for me. Afraid he would track me down and kill me. The fear didn’t go away when he was murdered. Although he was no longer a threat, the simple life and innocence of a 14-year-old boy was gone forever. Carefree childhood thoughts replaced with the unrelenting realization that my world wasn’t a safe place. My peace shattered by a horrific criminal act of sexual violence.

Over the past 34 years, I’ve been haunted by horrible, recurring memories of what he did to me. He visits me in my sleep. There have been dreams–nightmares actually–dozens of them, sweat inducing, yelling-in-my-sleep nightmares filled with images and emotions as real as they were when it actually happened. It doesn’t get easier over time. Long dead, he still visits me, silently sneaking up from out of nowhere when I least expect it. From the grave, he sits by my side on the couch every time the evening news reports a child abduction or sex crime. I don’t watch America’s Most Wanted or Law and Order, because the stories are a catalyst, triggering long suppressed emotions, feelings, memories, fear and horror. Real life horror stories rip painful suppressed memories out from where they hide, from that recessed place in my brain that stores dark, dangerous, horrible memories. It happened when William Bonin confessed to abducting, raping and murdering 14 boys in California; when Jesse Timmendequas raped and murdered Megan Kanka in New Jersey; when Ben Ownby, missing for four days, and Shawn Hornbeck, missing for four years, were recovered in Missouri.

Despite what happened that night and the constant reminders that continue to haunt me years later, I wouldn’t change what happened. The animal that attacked me was a serial predator, a violent pedophile trolling my neighborhood in Lincoln, Rhode Island looking for young boys. He beat me, raped me, and I stayed alive. I lived to see him arrested, indicted and murdered. It might not have turned out this way if he had grabbed one of my friends or another kid from my neighborhood. Perhaps he’d still be alive. Perhaps there would be dozens of more victims and perhaps he would have progressed to the point of silencing his victims by murdering them.

Out of fear, shame and guilt, I’ve been silent for over three decades, not sharing with anyone the story of what happened to me. No more. The silence has to end. The fear, the shame, the guilt have to go. It’s time to stop keeping this secret from the people closest to me, people I care about, people I love, my long-time friends and my family. It’s time to speak out to raise public awareness of male sexual assault, to let other victims know that they’re not alone and to help victims of rape and violent crime understand that the emotion, fear and memories that may still haunt them are not uncommon to those of us who have shared a similar experience. For those who suffer in silence, I hope my story brings strenth, comfort, peace and hope.

My novel, Men in My Town, is based on my abduction, beating and assault and the unsolved brutal murder of the man who attacked me. Men in My Town is available now at Amazon.com. For insight into Men in My Town, please visit the Men in My Town blog at http://www.meninmytown.wordpress.com