Male Survivors Are Speaking Up About Sexual Abuse. Are We Ready to Listen?
This article contains references to sexual violence and abuse.
When Baby Reindeer was released in April this year, few could have predicted the scale of its impact. But while many recent headlines have focused on the controversies around the true identity of the series’ semi-fictionalised antagonist, Martha, this clickbait-induced furore risks obscuring the important theme that is central to the story: sexual violence against men.
The show has had an incomparable effect on male survivors. The Manchester-based male sexual abuse charity We Are Survivors has seen an 80% increase in calls since the release of the series, with 53% of callers in that period referencing the show directly. Many of these callers are under the age of 35, which is unusual for the charity – their biggest demographic is men over 40.
Baby Reindeer is based on writer and actor Richard Gadd’s own experiences of sexual assault and stalking. In it, Gadd plays Donny, a struggling comedian who works in a pub by day. There, he meets Martha, who becomes obsessed with him, stalking him and sending him hundreds of emails. In one incident, Martha pushes Donny against a wall and gropes him.
Later, we see a flashback to the day Donny was plied with drugs and raped by a man he met at a comedy show. The series is an exploration of the impact this event had on Donny’s life, how it affected his subsequent relationships, his interactions with Martha and his sense of identity.
Duncan Craig, founder and CEO of We Are Survivors, is pleased to see that the show has compelled more men to open up about their own experiences. Craig is a survivor himself, as are many of the staff at the charity. As a child and young teen, Craig was groomed by an older man who later abused and raped him. It took Craig many years to acknowledge the wrongness of what had happened to him, and when he tried to seek help, he found there was very little out there, especially for men. He set up We Are Survivors in 2009 to fill that gap.
Violence against women and girls, and particularly sexual violence, has been a big media talking point in recent years. Major cuts to charities, safehouses and services have made it even harder for survivors to come forward and receive help, along with a criminal legal system that makes prosecutions near impossible, even when reported. Commonly cited causes include misogyny, untreated trauma and a lack of social support systems. ‘Men are the problem, and all men need to take responsibility,’ Craig affirms.
But these are often the same root causes of sexual violence against men, and play heavily into the reasons why many men don’t come forward: a patriarchal society that equates vulnerability with inferiority, and in which perceived homosexuality or queerness mark you out as ‘lesser’.
‘I think a lot of men take sexual abuse as a dent on their masculinity – because it is such a disempowering thing to go through,’ Richard Gadd tells Men’s Health. ‘Essentially men feel the need to stay silent so as to not admit something which they might deem a weakness to their character.’ Gadd experienced this himself, but also says that once he spoke out about it, ‘it fuelled me with a strength I was not even aware I had. I no longer think that the measure of man is keeping it all bottled inside. I think true strength is admitting how scared you can be, sometimes.’
In situations where the perpetrator is a woman, this is exacerbated. It can feel uncomfortable to think about women as perpetrators, and Craig acknowledges the complexities in this. But ‘talking about female perpetrators isn’t denying male perpetrators, nor does it deny victims that are women,’ he says. Failing to address the issue just because it’s uncomfortable does a disservice to all survivors of sexual violence – we must take all of it seriously in order to take any of it seriously.
There are other barriers faced in coming forward: inadequate mental health services; perpetrators instilling fear in those they harm; and a general lack of support structures for those who do speak up.
Culture, ethnicity and race can all add extra layers of complexity to the process of disclosure. A review by researchers at King’s College London highlights a number of factors that can make it even more difficult for Black and brown men and other men of colour to speak out about abuse.
The authors point to a cultural emphasis on family reputation and honour within some communities, as well as expectations of masculinity linked to the patriarchal values of some minority cultures where ‘admitting vulnerability through the disclosure of sexual trauma may be perceived as a sign of weakness’. There is also research that shows a higher propensity of BAME people to believe myths around sexual assault than Caucasian people.
Shame and Blame
Edwin Rothwell is a 35-year-old producer working in entertainment. At 18, in his first year of university, he was sexually assaulted. ‘People feel like if I say this thing happened to me, it’s going to change how the whole world looks at me,’ he tells MH. ‘It’s going to upset my partner, my job, my family – it's gonna affect everything.’
Rothwell has grappled with feelings of self-blame. Some years after his attack, he saw Craig speaking about sexual assault on ITV’s This Morning. In that segment, Craig made it clear that survivors were not to blame. It was the first time Rothwell had really considered this. ‘As soon as you stop blaming yourself, it all makes sense,’ he says. ‘All those things that you think as a man – why didn't you fight back? Why did you agree to meet him? – it’s so easy to blame yourself. But as soon as you think, hang on, he was 100% responsible for what he did, then it all makes sense.’
His message to others is clear: ‘If you're reading this, and you've been through something like that, stop blaming yourself. You are not to blame; the person that did it to you is to blame.’
Richard Gadd explains how some of the questions he’s seen since the release of Baby Reindeer have highlighted just how far we have to go as a society in better understanding sexual violence. ‘Questions like, “Why did he go back when he knows what will happen to him? Why does he keep making the same mistakes?” A lot of this comes from a lack of understanding. There is still this notion that an abuser is some person in a trench coat in an alleyway in the dead of the night, but more often than not sexual violence happens in intimate and complicated relationships. I think people need to see beyond abuse as an “act” and try to understand the psychology around it a little more. That way, I do believe society can reach a better understanding and empathy around abuse in general.’
Breaking the Silence
Callum Hancock is a scaffolder by trade and a professional boxer. When he was 10, he was raped by an older boy in his neighbourhood. He was in his mid-twenties when he first voiced what happened to him, and has since spoken about it on ITV News and the Victoria Derbyshire show.
It is precisely because of the ‘maleness’ of his work, and his involvement in the professional boxing circuit, that Hancock feels it’s so important to be an advocate for other survivors. He explains that his abuser convinced him that he wouldn’t be believed if he told the truth, and threatened to kill him if he ever spoke out. These fears stayed with Hancock through to adulthood. Added to that were the pressures of pride and ego. This silence, he says, is a perpetrator’s best friend, and freedom to him is not allowing his perpetrator to win.
Hancock came across We Are Survivors after deciding to upload his personal testimony to social media. Craig saw it and got in touch directly. Hancock now refers to Craig as ‘one of my guardian angels’. When Hancock eventually told his friends in the boxing community, he says their response stopped him in his tracks. ‘Let’s say I spoke to 10 people, at least five to seven people in return said, “Me too.”’
Hancock found that along with the feelings of shame, a shared concern was making their parents feel guilty for having not noticed sooner. It took a while for Hancock to tell his family, but when he eventually did, he says his dad gave him the best advice he’d ever received. ‘He told me I could either have been raped and take a bad path – revenge on my perpetrator leading to life in prison, drinking to oblivion – or I can have been raped, but also have so much to look forward to: kids, holidays, a good job, time with family and friends.’ He couldn’t change what happened in the past, but he could choose his future.
Not everyone has this same level of support. Many people who have been abused will live with the lasting impacts, which may include harmful coping mechanisms. There is no shame in this, says Hancock. What he wants is for others to have access to the kind of care and support that he received so they too have a chance to heal.
Cycles of Violence
Hancock also believes that more needs to be done to break cycles of violence, sexual or otherwise. He spent time in prison for assaulting a nightclub doorman, and it was after his release that he decided to speak out about his childhood abuse. During his time inside, he realised just how many people were carrying the heavy burden of pain and trauma. ‘I saw first-hand how much people were suffering inside and how they’ve ended up becoming a product of society through experiences in life that have led them down a path fuelled by violence, drink, drugs... Instead of speaking out, they were lashing out,’ he says.
Hancock took his perpetrator to court and he pleaded guilty to multiple sexual offences. He was sentenced to six years in prison. Convictions like this are rare – in the year to September 2021, just 1.3% of rape cases recorded by police resulted in a suspect being charged or receiving a summons. Rothwell has also endured his own legal battles, which remain ongoing. While both men encourage people to report their assaults to the police, there is widespread recognition of how difficult, long and disappointing a process it can be.
At the sentencing hearing of Hancock’s perpetrator, lawyers stated that he had himself suffered abuse as a child, and that this counted as mitigating circumstances. Hancock doesn’t feel this was fair, given there was no burden of proof of this assertion, but it does raise the issue of abuse and violence as cyclical.
Being abused does not automatically mean that a survivor will commit the same harm, nor are all perpetrators of sexual violence survivors themselves. However, research does show that a disproportionate number of people in prison will have experienced adverse childhood conditions (ACEs) compared to the general population.
ACEs include verbal, physical and sexual abuse, emotional and physical neglect, and growing up around mental illness, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse and incarceration. In a Welsh study, of the 468 men from one prison who were surveyed, more than eight in 10 reported at least one ACE, and nearly half reported experiencing four or more, compared to just over one in 10 in the general population.
A 2021 Canadian study found that 44% of male prisoners had been subjected to a non-consensual sex as children, and 42% had been sexually assaulted as adults. The data doesn’t specifically look at how many of those prisoners are inside for sexual offences, leaving us with little understanding of the connection, but what we can see through the available research is that many people who have committed harm have been harmed themselves.
This connection became stark for Craig when he was approached by a prison in Rochdale, where the death of ex-Lib Dem MP Cyril Smith, a serial paedophile who had abused many boys in the area, was on the news constantly. When Smith died in 2010, it was revealed that there had been missed opportunities to prosecute him and a coverup by social services, education departments and staff at a residential school where Smith targeted many boys.
The prison called Craig to say that many of those boys were inside and were deeply disturbed by the news. We Are Survivors began offering one-to-one and group therapy within the prison, and they now carry out similar programmes in 15 prisons across the Northwest of the UK.
Seeking Support
Kevin, who’s asked us not to use his surname, is a 42-year-old househusband. In 2000, aged 18, he was raped by a stranger after knocking himself unconscious on a night out. When he decided to tell mental health professionals about what had happened to him, he was met with doubt and a minimisation of his experience. The first NHS senior psychiatrist he came into contact with told him, ‘Well, you sound like you’re okay with it because you can talk about it, so don't worry about it.’
Later, when he tried private therapy, one therapist said to him, ‘It all sounds a bit rote, are you sure it happened the way you said it did? You seem very casual in the way that you’re saying it.’ When the people who are supposed to support you don’t, it can leave survivors feeling hopeless. Fortunately for Kevin, he continued to seek support, but it was a long and difficult road. When he eventually made contact with We Are Survivors, he described it as transformative. He was met with kindness, openness, and was surrounded by people who understood what he’d been through, even if their situations were different.
Sometimes, though, these differences gave Kevin pause. When he heard from men who had been abused continually as children, or suffered a particularly violent experience, he sometimes compared theirs to his and felt that his just wasn’t as bad. However, he also acknowledges that such analysis is unhelpful. ‘I know it’s had the same effect on my life as it’s had on other people’s, and that’s what it’s about,’ he says.
There is no one ‘correct’ response to sexual violence. The impacts are vast and varied. Rothwell spent the rest of his time at university in a deep depression and still struggles with intimacy and relationships. After his assault, Kevin turned to hard partying, drinking and taking drugs. He was later also diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which he continues to manage. With two young boys of his own, Hancock worries about their reactions in the future. ‘I hope that when they get older, they’re not embarrassed about me or ashamed. That’s part of my own journey and what I’ve got to go through and process,’ he says.
It’s worth noting that the survivors we spoke to for this piece were all white; survivorship can play out very differently for marginalised and minoritised people. An already difficult process can be made even harder by structural inequalities that seep into personal and familial life. The men we spoke to were also abused by other men. It is difficult to find male survivors whose perpetrator was a woman, and who are willing to speak about it publicly. Some of the reasons for this are perhaps obvious, relating to ideas around masculinity, gendered based power dynamics, and the shame that Rothwell, Hancock and Kevin all shared.
At We Are Survivors, no one is ever judged for the circumstances of their abuse. There is also no pressure to disclose any information that men aren’t ready to divulge. The main thing that Craig and other survivors encourage is that men take that first step and talk about what’s happened to them – whether that’s to a friend or family member, a therapist or to a support service.
Richard Gadd’s message to survivors emphasises this same idea: ‘When I did Monkey See Monkey Do [his hit Edinburgh Fringe comedy show] in 2016 it was practically unheard of for a man to talk about these things. But that show started my slow recovery period of coming to terms with what happened and eventually seeking proper help – years after it happened. I sought help with We Are Survivors. It was life-changing. So, if you are reading this and going through something similar, do give them a shout.’
You can find out more about We Are Survivors and access their support services here.
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