A man raped me as a teenager and the homophobia that kept me silent must end

Devouring a bag of chips, I thanked a local community worker, Frank*, for buying them. 

Then 11, playing out in the streets was the norm when I was growing up in Manchester. In the 80s, we had no computers or mobile phones, and scarce parental supervision.

For many, having free rein to explore their youthful freedom is seen as a positive. Societal gender expectations mean boys shouldn’t feel scared to walk the streets, while girls are warned about personal safety. Men are painted as predators but, like it or not, boys can be just as vulnerable as girls. 

Back then, Frank befriending me seemed fine – everyone in the area knew him – so I thought nothing of his motive other than kindness. But Frank had started what we now call ‘textbook grooming’. 

Buying me cans of coke or secondhand records meant winning my trust and gratitude. I didn’t tell my parents about these gifts and the fact I kept it secret shows something inside me knew it wasn’t right. I didn’t know how to tell anyone – and, crucially, I didn’t want to get into trouble.

While I viewed Frank as a friend back then, he was in his 50s and I was not yet a teenager. He began play-fighting and tickling me, and I remember he’d painfully jab my ribs. He was testing boundaries, but I was just an innocent kid.

About a year later, Frank showed me a pornographic magazine featuring older women. Although the images were tame by modern standards, I felt shocked and embarrassed while he leered over them.

Feeling uneasy, I stayed silent and then one day he said, ‘Looking at these gives you a hard on,’ and started masturbating in front of me. 

Alarmed and scared, I froze, unsure what to do. In a way, I was intrigued. An adult man showing me, a child with no sexual experience, his penis was unusual.

I believed he was my friend and I trusted what he told me. Things escalated and, as I grew older, his actions – what I know now was abuse – became more adult.

When I was 14 he forced me to give him oral sex and when he raped me for the first time I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but it was horrific. 

My brain tried to block out the painful memories, physically and emotionally, to protect me. I never uttered a word about what was happening to anyone but my studies suffered and my personal relationships were affected, as well as my own sexual development. 

I felt what you might call ‘attraction’ to both men and women back then; both Boy George and Madonna were my idols. Addressing the core of my fear, I kept quiet because I was terrified someone would accuse me of being gay. 

I didn’t know anyone openly gay except an old man who lived nearby who’d had vile homophobic slurs shouted at him. I didn’t want that to happen to me, and I was frightened of the reaction I’d get if I confided the ‘stuff’ Frank and I had done to anyone.

At 17, I went to college and Frank wasn’t around anymore. I don’t remember a final conversation; he was simply no longer in my life. The ‘stuff we did’ became the past – a part of my childhood – and it wasn’t until in my mid-20s, when I was training to be a therapist, that I realised my past experience was far from ‘fine’.

I began with drug counselling; working with sex workers and addicts made me feel I was giving something back. I had always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives.

Hearing others talk about their abuse is tough, so I would see a psychologist myself to help process what I heard. I had never acknowledged what I had experienced as abuse until one day, I was speaking to a 16-year-old lad who confided that he had been sexually abused by an older man. 

In the days that followed I began having nightmares – flashbacks to Frank’s behaviour – and when I spoke to my clinical supervisor, I saw that Frank wasn’t ever my friend. He was a paedophile; a child rapist. 

The secret had been fuelled by my inner shame. He had never had to tell me not to tell anyone – fear had kept me silent. Only, when I sought specialist therapy as a male sexual abuse survivor, I found all doors were closed to me because I was a man.

Feeling lost and even more ashamed, I found support online from a USA charity and then one in Wiltshire even though I was living in Manchester. 

Rape support services – where they exist – are mostly targeted and organised around the needs of girls, with counsellors and support workers often not commissioned or prepared to engage with boys – they are there for females.

Determined to change things for men like me, I opened Survivors Manchester in 2009 to specifically offer help to male victims of rape and sexual violence. 

It’s a dangerous narrative to only think that girls aren’t safe from sexual crimes. Men being painted as perpetrators of sexual violence and never as the victims means that boys stay silent when abuse happens to them. 

This week marks the first international Blue Umbrella Day, initiated by the charity Family For Every Child. It’s to encourage better protections for all children worldwide but particularly boys, so that they receive better support when affected by sexual violence in all its forms.

Their CEO Amanda Griffith says, ‘Social norms around gender mean that boys often grow up under pressure to be brave, strong and independent. While these traits can be positive, too much emphasis on telling boys to be brave can mean they don’t turn to adults when they really need help.’

I couldn’t agree more. It’s estimated that at least one in six boys worldwide experiences sexual abuse and, while I’m painfully aware that girls continue to be the gender principally affected by sexual violence (estimated at one in four worldwide), the abuse suffered by boys can fall under the radar and this pattern cannot continue.

Until we tackle homophobia in the UK and beyond, male-on male sexual violence will continue. When a victim, female or male, is raped society asks ‘why didn’t you fight back?’. With men there’s an added suspicion that a victim didn’t fight because they were weak or that they must’ve enjoyed it – that they’re gay. 

This vile added layer of homophobia is the reality men face in prisons, in schools, the wider community and inside their families. 

Asking whether boys are safe in various situations needs to be as normal as asking it about girls. No one wants our youth too scared to live their lives, but the key thing is to make sure they are not too frightened to speak out if abuse happens and that they know where they can turn to for support.

I don’t share my own story for sympathy but to encourage other men to talk. Because Frank’s actions hadn’t registered as abuse with me for years, I never reported him to police.

I’ve since found out he’s now dead, which deep down I knew given his age. I felt relieved when I discovered this but also a fleeting moment of being cheated that I’ll never see ‘justice’ through the law – but that’s not important to me.

People can get closure when seeing their abuser jailed but while working through issues in therapy, I realised that justice has been achieved through my work.

Last year, I was awarded an OBE for services from HRH The Queen to Male Victims of Sexual Violence and Child Abuse, but I know my job’s only just begun.

I firmly believe sexual violence against females and sexual violence against males need to be treated as two separate but equally valid conversations. The protection of men and boys cannot be tacked on to the pledges made to protect women. If we don’t learn the necessary differences in approach to dealing with the issues, history will keep repeating.

But things are changing. Earlier this week, the SNP’s manifesto included a promise to establish a national strategy on ending intimate and sexual violence against men and boys, and I hope the UK Government are listening and will follow their lead. We must work to ensure men and women’s voices are heard, side by side – we can’t shout over each other or we’ll achieve nothing. 

I owe it to 11-year old Duncan to remain confident that, in the future, when sexual violence happens to young boys or men they will feel able to talk about it.

That they’ll know ‘bravery’ means speaking out about abuse.

That society will listen to them, without judgement.

And that men and women are working hard to build a safer world for boys like him.

*Frank is a pseudonym. 

If you – or a man you know – has been affected by abuse you can contact the Male Survivors Partnership or call the National Male Survivors Helpline on 0808 800 5005 for advice delivered by staff trained to work with male survivors.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing angela.pearson@metro.co.uk.

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