I connected with Dan on twitter he’s @bibledude and his blog is http://bibledude.net/. Recently I did a series on Men and Sexual Addiction on my blog and at my website http://theramsnetwork.ning.com/ and he’s doing something similar on his blog. He’s connected with another group The Idea Camp https://www.theideacamp.com/ who are doing a really in-depth look at sex and things associated with it (porn, sexual abuse, gender, orientation, slavery and family). The stuff I wrote on sexual addictions, he was kind enough to include in the discussion on porn. He e-mailed me and let me know what he was doing and let me know if I had anything else I wanted to contribute to it I was welcome to do so.
For those readers that have followed my blog, you will know that I have touched on being sexually abused. I decided it was important to hear from a man’s perspective what it was like. We hear lots of stories about women surviving, but men rarely speak about it, so as I generally do I write a lot of stuff on a subject that is dear to me.
This is my story about my experience. Just a warning, I tried not to be to graphic, but it may be difficult to read, so proceed with caution.
I was first exposed to sex when I was in kindergarten. One of my friends on the school bus ride home threw out “show me yours and I will show you mine”. Since we were the only 2 left on the bus I moved over to his seat and we showed each other our stuff. I remember not feeling so great about that and getting off the bus and not sure about what just happened, I was left with mixed emotions and didn’t say anything to my parents but kept it inside.
Another year or so later I was at another friends of mine staying over night and we were playing around and looking at books and he came up behind me and started rubbing up against my backside and grinding on me with his clothes on. I didn’t say anything again. Later that year, his brother started molesting my sister in front of me. One time while we were out in the field playing he got 6 other neighbor boys together and got my sister to take off her clothes in front of them. Somehow by the grace of God my mom came and discovered it and made them all leave. She talked with us and we let her know what he had been doing and then called his parents and we tried to confront him on it, but he lied about it. Nothing more ever came out of that, we just never did anything with them again. I ended up being ostracized by the neighbor boys; they called me a pussy and liar and wanted nothing more to do with me. When they would see me riding my bike or walking they would throw rocks and other things at me and tease me. On a couple of occasions they chased me, luckily I got away from them.
I was in 5th grade when it really started. It was over Easter weekend, my family had driven up to my aunt’s, and she owned a hotel and a bunch of other relatives were gathering there for the weekend. My cousins and I were left alone to play and hang out and we weren’t monitored. An older male cousin I had always liked and looked up to asked me to come into the bathroom. I came inside and he closed the door and started talking to me about sex and what happens when a guy goes through puberty, something my parents and I hadn’t yet discussed in great detail. He then proceeded to show himself and he was hard. He showed me how to masturbate and encouraged me to try it on myself and then do it to him. He also showed me how to perform oral sex by doing it to me and then having me do it to him. I remember thinking this doesn’t seem right and we shouldn’t be doing this, what if someone comes in, but no one did, and oddly enough I also thought it felt good. Suddenly feelings I hadn’t experienced before were now starting. This continued to happen throughout the weekend while we were there. At nighttime we laid next to each other in our sleeping bags on the floor. There were about 12 of us lying all over the floor in a hotel room. My mom was asleep in the bed when everyone else was asleep; we continued these actions well into the night.
From that time off, every time my cousin and I go together we had ended up having sex. At first he tried to convince me it was okay to do. I was confused, feeling extremely guilty and knowing what was happening was wrong. I liked having the attention and as puberty had started to kick in it felt good, but that seemed so wrong to think that, this was my cousin, things like this shouldn’t be happening, but it was happening to me. When it first started I didn’t want to do it, however after he decided to punch me and threaten me I quickly changed my mind. He made it very clear to me if I told anyone I would get the shit beat out of me and he punched me a few more times to prove his point. This continued and I learned to either initiate it or get hit and have it happen anyway. It continued to happen and along the way another male cousin who was older than me got involved in it. Whenever we got together over the holidays I basically ended up having sex with both my cousins. It got to the point where I just initiated it to reduce the risk of anything else happening to me from them. It stopped when they graduated from high school, left and moved away.
It was at that point my life turned. Prior to this initial event occurring, my greatest desire and dream was to grow up and get married and have a family. Suddenly this goal of mine was being taken from me. 5th grade was a pivotal year in my life. I began struggling in school, I kept my secret hidden and told no one about it. My parents had no clue and weren’t really clued into me as it was. My Dad was a truck driver and was gone for months at a time, he came home for a few weeks and then left again. Even when he was around he wasn’t involved in my life. I wanted him to come and rescued me and take me away from all of it, yet he had no clue what was happening since he wasn’t around. That same year we started going to church and I got baptized. I still find this incredibly fascinating as I was making a statement of my belief in God; the devil was changing my life.
School wasn’t fun either, the boys that lived out in the country by me had rejected me as well as most of the guys I went to school with. They were two different sets of guys and none of them wanted anything to do with me. I was lonely, scared and afraid, feeling guilty and ashamed and yet no one was there to help me. I got called all sorts of names, but mostly it was fag and a pussy. This continued until I graduated high school. We lived out in the country and the school I went to, most kids started kindergarten and graduated together. Everyone knew everything about you. The names stuck all through school and I am convinced that most parents believed I was gay and that would be how I lived my life.
I was lonely and miserable growing up. I never felt like I fit in anywhere. I had no role models or men who played a good role in my life. I was scared at school that guys would force me to have sex with them if they ever got me alone. When I wasn’t getting called names, I was getting hit and kicked at school by various guys, just to prove they were stronger and could beat the crap out of me if they wanted. I never fought back for any reason. I just took what they said and believed all of it. During my Freshman year in high school during the home-coming game, it was half-time and 2 guys decided it would be funny to throw me in the garbage dumpster and throw trash on top of me. They did this as parents walked by and did nothing. That next week I had enough, I decided I couldn’t go on this way, I attempted to kill myself by taking a whole bottle of Tylenol, I called a friend to say good-bye and she figured something was up and I ended up having a neighbor come, take me to the hospital and was made to throw up and empty my stomach. I ended up going to a counselor for a bit and I told him briefly a couple of things about my cousins but nothing ever came of it.
When I graduated I wanted to move and get away, as much as I tried to make that happen it never did until after college. I was incredibly confused about who I was as a person. I thought I was gay, even though deep down inside of me I wanted to still get married and have a family, I felt like I wasn’t worth it, the only thing I was good for was being used to get guys off. I didn’t trust guys and was scared of them. I stopped talking to them for the most part and only hung around girls and had them as friends. I was convinced anything a guy wanted from me was to have sex with him. I didn’t want to be gay, what little I knew of it didn’t seem appealing to me. I wanted desperately to be loved for me, a woman to find me attractive and desirable, but the older I got I just believed that was impossible. Many nights I cried myself to sleep because I knew I would never find a woman who would want me, I was used garbage and had too much junk to deal with and they would think I wasn’t worth it.
I finally moved and I did meet a woman and slowly I told her little by little, but left a lot of things out she never knew. We got married and started a family. All my insecurities were still there, but I believed in my mind that getting married would be the cure for all of it. This was just another lie I believed.
What had started out with my cousins had so many far-reaching effects on me, deep scars and emotional wounds. This is a part of what led to my sexual addiction and my distrust of men. I had developed very few relationships with other men, I acted standoffish and aloof towards most men and most of the time wouldn’t even give them the time of day.
I nearly destroyed my family as a result of it and keeping things bottled up inside for years and years and never having anyone to really talk to about it. On our 10-year anniversary after drinking quite a bit I got the nerve up and confessed everything to my wife. Needless to say she was blown away. However telling her all of my dirty secrets and all my evil, wicked choices brought about a huge freedom, I had never experienced before. When they say the truth will set you free, for the first time in my life I actually understood what that meant. I started by confessing it all. I called the few guys I had been friends with and told them the truth and apologized for not being honest with them over the years. Thankfully they responded with love and forgiveness, something I never expected to get.
I researched and did a lot of work, I started meeting with counselors and pastors, going to FMO (For Men Only Groups) and worked through my past. It has taken many years of hard work, but the darkness and shame that once held me it gone. There are times I still feel like I am not a man, or manly enough when I am around other guys, but I always try to remind myself I am just as good as any of them. I have been able to develop real, honest relationships with other men and they are incredibly important to me. I now try to live my life as an example to other men of what is possible. I don’t want other men to have to experience what I have gone through, it’s been horrific to say the least, but when you have men who love you, believe in you and are willing to walk through the process with you it makes all the difference in the world.
I am incredibly blessed with the most amazing wife. She was willing to give me another chance. She did and still does see how much I have changed and how much I want to be the husband and father that are needed in my family. My wife has been so loving and patient with me and a huge part of my success if due to her. My wife shares a similar background with being molested and the evil it has done to her life. We both find it fascinating how God put us together and we see the reason why.
I am not the same person I once was. God has peeled back the many layers that I once used and built up to protect myself. I have exposed all the lies and countered them with truth. While I wish this wasn’t the way my life went I know I can’t change the past, I can only move forward towards the future.
I can only speak from my own experience, but a guy being molested by other men shakes you to the core. It challenges everything inside of you. There are 3 other guys I know who have had the same thing happen to them and they have shared similar feelings as mine. The far-reaching effects it has on a man are more than I can write about here. It’s difficult and hard to work through, but it is possible. I am living proof of it. If you need help keep looking until you find it. You will be able to experience a full life, guilt, fear and shame will stop holding you back once you bring it out in the open.
