Boys suffer sexual abuse in silence

WHILE girl victims of sexual abuse/assault are, indeed, too many and require exposure/ correction/justice, there remains an outdated societal mentality, albeit perhaps subconsciously held: Men can take care of themselves, and boys are basically little men.

Over many years of news-media consumption, I have noticed that when victims of sexual abuse are girls their gender is readily reported as such; however, when they are boys, they are usually referred to children.

It is as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male.

Also, I have heard and read 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 revelatory of an already present gender bias held by the general news consumership, since newsmedia tend to sell us what we want or are willing to consume thus buy?

It could be the same mentality that might help explain why the book Childhood Disrupted was only able to include one man among its six interviewed adult subjects, there presumably being such a small pool of adverse childhood experiences (ACE)traumatised men willing to formally tell their own story of childhood abuse.

Could it be evidence of a continuing subtle societal take-it-like-a-man mindset?

One in which so many men, even with anonymity, would prefer not to “complain” to some stranger/author about his torturous childhood, as that is what “real men” do? (I tried multiple times contacting the book’s author via internet websites in regards to this non-addressed florescent elephant in the room, but I received no response.)