As Predicted, Sandusky Denies Sexually Molesting Boys

As predicted here yesterday, Jerry Sandusky (who is serving 30-60 years in prison for 45 counts of child sexual abuse) continues to deny sexually molesting those young boys and maintains his innocence.

It turns out the "interview" NBC's "The Today Show" acquired was actually taken from 3+ hours of filmed interviews by John Ziegler, a film-maker intent on clearing Joe Paterno's name and reputation. Based on the info in this CBS News article, Ziegler likely is not the most reputable guy around:

Ziegler said the interviews were conducted during three sessions, and told the AP on Monday that additional excerpts will be posted online over the coming days. The transcripts were posted by Ziegler on his site, www.framingpaterno.com.

He describes himself as an author, broadcaster, commentator and maker of films, including the 2009 movie "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted."

Along with the Sandusky interview material, Ziegler posted a piece about himself that anticipates critical media coverage of his background. As an example, he noted he has been "fired in radio lots of times for saying things which seem outrageous."

Penn State, which funded an investigation by former FBI director Louis Freeh that concluded Paterno and other top university officials covered up allegations against Sandusky in order to protect the school's reputation, issued a statement that said Sandusky's latest remarks "continue to open wounds for his victims, and the victims of child sexual abuse everywhere."

Attorneys for the boy whose assault was witnessed by Mike McQueary said their client -- identified as Victim 2 in court documents -- "have heard enough from Jerry Sandusky."

The lawyers -- Joel Feller, Matt Casey, Justine Andronici and Andrew Shubin -- issued a statement Monday saying Victim 2 and their other clients are focusing on "healing and holding Penn State accountable for choosing to protect Jerry Sandusky and themselves instead of protecting children from years of horrific sexual abuse."

In addition, Yahoo News reports that Ziegler is looking to acquire financing for a full-length documentary to clear Joe Paterno’s name. He was no doubt paid quite nicely for these "first time" clips of Sandusky. NBC should be ashamed for promoting this sensationalist shit, and for giving that slime-ball a public forum on which to deny the crimes for which he was convicted, the deny the trauma he put those boys through.

Apparently, attorneys for "Victim 2" have posted a couple of the voice mails Sandusky left for their client in the days leading up to his arrest, purportedly trying to exert some influence on him.

What follows below is part of statement the lawyers left on their website about the case against Sandusky and that they are also representing other victims.

Our client has to live the rest of his life not only dealing with the effects of Sandusky's childhood sexual abuse, but also with the knowledge that many powerful adults, including those at the highest levels of Penn State, put their own interests and the interests of a child predator above their legal obligations to protect him.

We have conducted an extensive investigation and gathered overwhelming evidence regarding the details of the abuse he suffered. This evidence includes numerous voicemails left by Sandusky in the fall of 2011 as the likelihood of his indictment became apparent. Today, we are releasing two of those voicemails. As these messages indicate, Sandusky was attempting to exert control over our client even as his arrest for child sexual abuse became imminent. They can be heard by visiting the Ross Feller Casey, LLP website at www.rossfellercasey.com. Due to the sensitive nature of the ongoing criminal and civil cases, we will not make additional comments at this time.

Author Barry Lopez Confronts Childhood Sexual Abuse

Barry Lopez is the author of Arctic Dreams, for which he received the National Book Award, Of Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist for which he received the John Burroughs and Christopher medals, and eight works of fiction, including Light Action in the Caribbean, Field Notes: The Grace Note of the Canyon Wren, and Resistance. He contributes regularly to Granta, The Georgia Review, Orion, Outside, The Paris Review, Manoa and other publications in the United States and abroad. His work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Best American Essays, Best Spiritual Writing, and the “best” collections from National Geographic, Outside, The Georgia Review, The Paris Review, and other periodicals. His most recent book is Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, a reader's dictionary of regional landscape terms, which he edited with Debra Gwartney.

One of my favorites from him is the two book collection, Desert Notes: Reflections in the Eye of a Raven and River Notes: The Dance of Herons. I also love his children's book, Crow and Weasel (illustrated by Tom Porht).

Enough about his writing, this is about Barry Lopez, the man. The man who, as a fatherless child was sexually molested for four years by a [fraudulent] doctor whom his mother trusted (sounds like the Sandusky tragedy, eh?), beginning was he was seven years old. The doctor told him there was something wrong with him, and that rape was the cure.

Here is a little excerpt from the Harper's story, which is behind a paywall.

After a while, Shier began dropping by the house in the evening, just as my brother and I were getting into our pajamas. He’d bring a tub of ice cream along, and the four of us would have dessert together. One evening he arrived without the ice cream. He’d forgotten. He suggested I accompany him to the grocery store, where I could pick out a different dessert for each of us. 

A few minutes after we left the house, he pulled his car up alongside a tall hedge on an unlit residential street off Lindley Avenue. He turned me to the side, put me facedown on the seat, pulled down my pajama bottoms, and pushed his erect penis into my anus. As he built toward his climax he told me, calmly but emphatically, that he was a doctor, that I needed treatment, and that we were not going to be adding to Mother’s worries by telling her about my problem.

Every time a man - especially a man with a public presence - can speak out about his sexual molestation as a child, the freedom for other men and boys to do so increases. For that I am incredibly grateful to Barry Lopez, as well as other men, like Gabriel Byrne (abused by priests), Tyler Perry (abused by a friend's mother and three other men prior to that), and New York Mets pitcher, R.A. Dickey (baby sitter), to name only a few.

In 'Sliver Of Sky,' Barry Lopez Confronts Childhood Sexual Abuse
January 10, 2013 5:00 PM

Listen to the Story

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Barry Lopez / David Liittschwager / Barry Lopez

Barry Lopez is known for writing about the natural world. His books include Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men, where he explores the relationship between the physical landscape and human culture. But in a new essay in the January issue of Harper's Magazine, Lopez writes that he was sexually molested by a family friend when he was a boy, and says the man was never brought to justice.

The abuse began when Lopez was 7 years old. The man, named Harry Shier, oversaw the alcoholism treatment for a relative of Lopez's mother at the sanatorium Shier supervised in North Hollywood, Calif. He presented himself as a doctor. Lopez writes that Shier said there was something wrong with Lopez, and that the rape was treatment for that problem.

"I was a child," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I was 7 years old, and the world of medicine and the world of treatment and the world of how we take care of each other was a tabula rasa for me. I knew that when I saw these degrees from prestigious institutions — all of which were fraudulent — on his wall that I was in the hands of somebody that I knew the adult world respected, and as a young person trying to learn the world, I was trying to understand things that were new to me, and that just fell into that category.

"I think one of the things that's difficult for adults to understand about pedophiles who really prey on children is that the child is not an adult, so the perspicacity and the insight and the intuition that an adult might have in a situation like this [to] sniff the fraud out before it takes on the scope that it did for me and for others — you can do that as an adult but you can't do that as a child. And a child can be manipulated 10 ways to Sunday. All the while, the child is trying to pay attention and trying to understand a foreign world, and this was just part of that foreign world."

Shier, Lopez says, pretended to court his mother, who was recently divorced and struggling financially. And so, Lopez says, "[Shier] was extremely good at creating an atmosphere in our home where he would be highly regarded and appreciated by my mother and, you know, trying to control me was as simple as keeping a ... dog in a box. You're just a prisoner of something you can't understand."

Lopez, who lives in Oregon, says this piece is the hardest he's ever written.

"The advantage that I had," he says, "is that I've been a writer all my life, and I had somebody at Harper's — Chris Cox — who was an exceptional editor, who could do what I could not do, which is I could not find and hold the emotional distance that I needed from this material in order to write about it in the way that I thought I had to, which is, in the end it's not about me, it's about us."

Interview Highlights

On the difficulties of self-protection for young victims of sexual abuse

"This went on for four years, and during those four years I think I went through every scenario I could imagine as a child about how to protect myself, but I never found any path to follow where I knew somebody would intervene and protect me. ... Many of the children who end up in situations like this come from families where there is only one parent, and you are trying to figure out who you are when you're also dealing with this traumatic experience, and you're not old enough to frame the question that lets you go to an adult and say, 'I think something's really wrong here.' "

On what is lost to those who are sexually abused

"Certainly innocence is gone and sexual and gender confusion is introduced, but you can actually talk about things like that. What is taken that you can't talk about is the sense of your own dignity as a human being, and what's taken from you is the ability to articulate your meaning in the world. Everyone wants to mean something in the world, and without having to state it, to have it recognized by other human beings ... and that is part of what is set fire to you when somebody treats you like a rag doll. You have no voice, you have no physical ability to resist."

Read Lopez's Essay In Harper's Magazine (subscription required)
"Sliver Of Sky: Confronting The Trauma Of Sexual Abuse" by Barry Lopez

On what prompted him to write the story

"I've basically been silent about this all of my adult life, and one of the things that precipitated my decision to write the story. ... I wrote this piece before the Sandusky thing [the Penn State sex abuse scandal] broke so that it wasn't the newspaper story that compelled me to do something — I had become impatient with the cast of newspaper articles that suggested that in the legal pursuit of pedophiles what young men and women were most interested in was winning a financial judgment or in punishing, seeking vengeance. And it struck me that that was the last thing, really, you'd be interested in as somebody who had been serially molested. What had been taken from you was a sense of self-worth and dignity, and the only way you can get those things back is in open, unjudged relationships with other people, and then you ... have a chance to develop again a sense of self-worth. ... So what you really want, in the simplest terms, is for somebody to believe what happened, to take you at face value and not to manipulate you in a courtroom, for example, to seek justice."

On whether he blames his mother for not intervening or understanding what was happening

"The whole mindset of being a victim and pointing at somebody else and accusing them — that's not a very productive place to go, and it's certainly a terrible place to stay. We're all of us human, and we fail — we fail miserably in moments when we wish to show how we love. So I don't know what happened for her. All I really wanted from her was clarity. I wanted to be able to say to her, 'What happened to you during these years?' and 'Are you OK?' But couldn't, you know. She was dying of cancer in a hospital in Manhattan, and I sat with her off and on almost every day. And I asked her if she wanted to talk about what happened in California, and she didn't or wouldn't answer me. She just turned away and wept, and then she died."

On how the outside world has helped him cope with the turmoil of his inner one

"I know this: That when I was so compromised as a child that there was no zone of safety for me, no place was safe and especially adults weren't safe for me, the thing that felt safe in the sense that I felt that surge towards lyricism when ... I saw something outside myself, the world beyond the self ... and I felt this surge of lyrical pleasure in the way the wind sounded, for example, in eucalyptus trees. I knew that I could carry that with me. I could carry it as a memory, and I could carry it as a structure to help me build a safe place in the world."

Sugar Ray Leonard Talks About Sexual Abuse

Anytime a major public figure speaks about a topic that is often shrouded in shame and silence, the space for others to do the same becomes greater. Deep bow of respect to Sugar Ray Leonard for speaking out about the sexual abuse he suffered as a young fighter trying to make it the Olympics. This is a topic many men never even tell their wives or families, a topic where shame keeps men from seeking and getting help.

To all the men who have been too ashamed to come forward and get help:

• We believe you.
• It's not your fault.
• You are not alone.
• Help is available.    

Here is a national hotline number for Adults Molested As Children United (AMACU): 1-408-453-7616 and for The National Sexual Assault Online Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (which will connect you with a local agency), or use their online hotline through the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (RAINN).

Leonard's autobiography, where he first disclosed that he is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, is called The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring.

Let's begin with just a small section of an article from The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Sugar Ray Leonard comes forward as abuse victim

October 31, 2012 | By Don Sapatkin, Inquirer Staff Writer


Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard speaks with reporters after his speech on being an adolescent… (RALPH WILSON / Associated…)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Sugar Ray Leonard still hasn't told his parents or his 11-year-old son, and Monday was just the second time that he spoke publicly about being sexually abused as an adolescent. He had not written a speech, and he momentarily grasped for words.

During a 30-minute talk before a room full of experts and advocates, however, the boxing legend moved quickly from uncertainty to clarity - "I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse" - and then a declaration that surprised even organizers of the Pennsylvania State University conference.

"I'm going to be the poster child. I'm going to speak up. And speak out," he said.

* * * * *

Here is a longer article from The Huffington Post (via Reuters) that focuses entirely on Leonard's comments.

Sugar Ray Leonard At Penn State Conference: I'm The Sex Abuse Poster Child

Reuters  |  Posted: 10/29/2012 | Updated: 10/31/2012 

 

 

World title boxer Sugar Ray Leonard speaks to reporters after a speech regarding his personal experiences of abuse at the Child Sexual Abuse Conference in State College, Pa., Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Ralph Wilson) 

 

By Mark Shade

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Oct 29 (Reuters) - Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard recounted his own sexual abuse by coaches he trusted, telling a Penn State audience on Monday he hoped to encourage other victims to report abuse to police.

Leonard spoke at a sold-out conference on child sex abuse hosted by Penn State weeks after former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, 68, was sentenced to prison for 30 to 60 years for sexually assaulting 10 boys he befriended through his charity for at-risk youth.

Leonard, 56, who retired after winning world boxing titles in five different weight classes, said as a youth he was sexually assaulted by men he trusted as his boxing coaches.

"Trust is a very sacred thing, especially for young people, kids, or a young boxer, so I trusted these people, these individuals who impacted my life," said Leonard said. "They told me everything I wanted to hear, and more."

The former champion said he used drugs and alcohol to "numb" his shame of being a victim of child sexual abuse.

"I beat myself up for years," said Leonard as the two-day conference got underway with Hurricane Sandy quickly approaching Pennsylvania.

Now Leonard said he wants to step into the spotlight as a leader in the fight against child sex abuse in the hopes it will help other victims find the courage to report crimes to police.

"I'm going to be the poster child. I don't care," Leonard said to applause.

"I will be that leader. I will stand right there and say, 'Yes, something must be done now. Not later, now,'" Leonard said.

Without mentioning Sandusky by name, Penn State President Rodney Erickson told the audience in opening remarks that he hoped the silver lining of the abuse scandal is that more victims will come forward rather than keep the secret to themselves.

"I hope that even more survivors will take their first steps towards recovery with the confidence that their family, friends and community will believe and support them," Erickson said.

Erickson took office after Penn State's president, Graham Spanier, and legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who has since died, were fired in the wake of Sandusky's arrest last November. An independent report by former FBI chief Louis Freeh concluded that four former university officials - Spanier, Paterno, vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley - were alerted to Sandusky's abuse but did nothing to stop it or report it to authorities.

Since Sandusky's sentencing, The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, or RAINN, says the volume of calls to its sexual assault hotline has increased 47 percent. (Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Sandra Maler)

 * * * * *

This long story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentions Leonard at the beginning but then goes into facts and figures about abuse - not a bad tactic. Readers will look at the article because of Leonard's name recognition, then they will learn some things they may not have known.

Sugar Ray Leonard talks about sexual abuse

By Laura Olson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

October 30, 2012

Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard says it was trust that made him susceptible to sexual abuse by men in his life, a trauma that he kept hidden for years.

Those separate assaults by a coach and by another man as he trained for the Olympics was something he didn't speak about for years, turning instead to alcohol use.

"There was no manual. There was no pamphlet," Mr. Leonard said as Penn State University's Child Sexual Abuse Conference began Monday. "I never heard anyone talk about this. So to me it only happened to me. I was the only one who was victimized by abuse, sexual child abuse."

He now has been sober for six years and wrote about what happened to him in an autobiography. But he said Monday that when accusers came out against Jerry Sandusky, he cried as he thought about what they endured.

His message to victims and those close to them is to maintain a support system that lets children know it's OK to talk to others about what happened to them.

"The killer is silence," he said. "When you're silent, that eats your insides, it tears at your heart. … It's such a toxin, such a poison. It will never go away until you find it in your heart to speak up and speak out against it, or about it."

His story was among those shared as the two-day conference got under way in State College, where child-abuse experts and survivors offered their perspectives on how better to prevent abuse and help victims move forward.

The conference is part of the university's ongoing response to last year's criminal charges against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and two Penn State administrators.

Sandusky, 68, was convicted on 45 counts related to sexually abusing young boys he met through his nonprofit organization The Second Mile, a charity for at-risk youth. He was sentenced to at least 30 years in state prison. The two school administrators were charged with perjury and failing to report abuse and are scheduled to stand trial in January.

"Child abuse is a tragedy for children, for families and society," Penn State president Rodney Erickson told the more than 400 attendees. "And the time to step up the effort to stop it is now."

Much of Monday's session focused on the research that has been done on child sexual abuse and prevention strategies.

University of New Hampshire researcher David Finkelhor said efforts to boost public discussion of abuse have reached "a tremendous milestone," but said clear statistics on the issue are still lacking.

About 68,000 cases were substantiated by child protection agencies during 2010, he said, contrasting it with a federal study in 2006 projecting that 180,000 cases were reported to community professionals that year and another estimating that 1.6 million abuse incidents involving juveniles occurred last year.

"For the purposes of understanding and tracking, we really could do a whole lot better," Mr. Finkelhor said.

He also said communities like Penn State are not alone in dealing with incidents that can affect many more people than just victims and perpetrators.

"Sexual abuse does a lot of collateral damage that often goes unrecognized beyond the harm to the direct victims and their families," Mr. Finkelhor said. "I think it's not uncommon in the wake of sexual abuse for whole communities to lose their sense of trust and comfort and sense of ordinariness."

Looking forward, Keith Kaufman of Portland State University said prevention could be improved by finding creative ways to reach parents, encouraging school policies that foster positive relationships, and boosting research on both victimization and offender prevention.

While campus classes shut down early Monday as Hurricane Sandy barreled toward Pennsylvania, the conference is expected to continue today with some sessions being live-streamed at protectchildren.psu.edu.

Among the scheduled speakers is Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted as a child.

LA Times - Men Tell of Sexual Abuse by Scoutmaster Decades Ago

When the story was released that the Boy Scouts had covered up sexual abuse by scoutmasters over the organization's history (although they did keep an internal list to make sure these men were not able to go somewhere else and do it again), it was only a matter of time before some of the survivors would come forward and tell their stories.

The LA Times posted an extensive story this weekend on the impact the abuse had on the boys who are now grown men and still living with the PTSD sexual abuse creates.

Men tell of sexual abuse by scoutmaster decades ago

Memories of spending the night at Rodger L. Beatty's home in Pennsylvania are still fresh. Five boys reported their leader's actions to Scout officials and he was expelled, but the police weren't called.

Carl Maxwell Jr., reviews the Boy Scouts of America's confidential file detailing the alleged abuse he and four other members of Troop 222 were subjected to by Scoutmaster Rodger L. Beatty 

(Kim Christensen, Los Angeles Times / September 4, 2012)

By Kim Christensen, Los Angeles Times

October 20, 2012

NEWPORT, Pa. — Even after 36 years, Carl Maxwell Jr.'s thoughts leap to the rustic house at the edge of the golf course, and what happened there.

"It is so old, but it is so fresh," Maxwell said, recalling the many nights that members of Troop 222 spent at the home of their scoutmaster, Rodger L. Beatty.

He remembers the mattresses that covered the floor in the front room, the queasy anticipation that would set in among the five boys after Beatty said good night and went to his room.

DATABASE: Search for names, locations

"I remember the first time for me," he said. "The lights were turned off and the moon was out, and I could see it shining through a crack in the blinds. Then all of a sudden it got dark and then it got light again, and you could tell someone passed through the light."

It was Beatty, he said.

"He started at one end of the room and worked his way right down," Maxwell said.

Mike Kunkel also remembers being sexually abused at Beatty's place, and had long kept it to himself.

"I have been married for 20-something years and never said a word about this to my wife until tonight," he said, an hour after a reporter called and asked to stop by to talk about Beatty. "It was a big bomb to drop on her."

All five boys, ages 13 and 14, came forward in July 1976 to accuse Beatty in detailed written statements to local Scout officials. He was expelled from Scouting, but no one called the police. Beatty abruptly left town.

"It's like he ceased to exist after that day," Kunkel said. "Now I'm wondering: Where the hell is he? Is he in jail? Is he dead?"

Beatty, 66, is neither dead nor in jail.

The longtime University of Pittsburgh social worker, educator and AIDS researcher has been in a hospital intensive care unit since Sept. 28, when he suffered a massive stroke. His family asked David Korman, a Pitt colleague and friend of 20 years, to answer questions on his behalf.

"I'm just shocked by this," Korman said. "His reputation on the campus is truly outstanding.... I think everyone here will be stunned."

Korman said Beatty is unable to communicate.

"The only person able to answer the allegations is unable to answer," he said.

Boy Scout files

The accusations that bind the Pennsylvania men's lives are detailed in the Boy Scouts of America's confidential files, a blacklist the organization has used for nearly a century to keep suspected molesters out of its ranks.

Beatty's is among nearly 1,900 such files the Los Angeles Times has reviewed in recent months. Hundred of suspected molesters, many of them respected members of their communities, were never reported to authorities, the records show.

Much of their long-buried history was cast into public view Thursday, when 1,247 of the files, including Beatty's, were unsealed by order of the Oregon Supreme Court, two years after a jury considered them as evidence in a landmark sex-abuse lawsuit against the Scouts.

The Times first attempted to contact Beatty in early September, more than two weeks before he fell ill. He did not respond to repeated email and phone messages.

The newspaper also sought out the former Scouts he was alleged to have abused. Of the five, two have since died and one could not be reached.

Like many other incidents of alleged abuse described in the files, those involving Beatty played out in a small town, where Scouting was a big part of boys' lives.

Maxwell, now 50, said Newport was a great place to "swim in the cricks" and fish in the Juniata River, a few blocks down the hill from the small duplex where he and his sister grew up and where he still lives much of the year. It is about 25 miles from the capital, Harrisburg, and many of its 1,500 residents are state employees. His late father, Carl Sr., worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

"I wouldn't have wanted to grow up any other place," Maxwell said, sitting at the kitchen table. "You know how you hear people say you can leave the doors unlocked? Well, this was that kind of neighborhood."

Sponsored by a local church, Troop 222 was led for three years in the mid-1970s by Beatty, then a county drug-and-alcohol counselor in his late 20s. He met some of the boys, including Mike Kunkel and his stepbrother, J.P. Culhane, while helping their parents with alcohol abuse or other problems.

"My mom and dad were having problems, and they started seeking therapy through the county," Kunkel said.

Kunkel said he and Culhane were "loose cannons" at that age and Beatty suggested that they'd benefit from Scouting's structured environment. So they joined his troop.

Beatty took a special interest in some of the boys, Kunkel said. He'd take them on camping trips and to events such as the Klondike Derby, where Scouts test their skills. They always had plenty to eat and lots of fun.

"He taught us how to drive a car," Kunkel said. "He drove a stick ... so we drove a stick."

Beatty eventually began inviting Kunkel, his stepbrother and three other boys, including Maxwell, to group sleepovers at his house "out in the middle of nowhere," near a quarry.

"That's where we would stay on a Friday night, say, if we were going to a Klondike Derby or something the next day," said Kunkel, now 50.

Much of the alleged abuse occurred at the house, but it happened on camp-outs too.

"I woke up and found Rodger in the tent," one of the boys wrote in his statement. "He already had my pants unbuckled, so I tried to get away and he got my pants down and he had sexual intercourse again."

In retrospect, Maxwell and Kunkel said, it's hard to explain why the abuse went on for so long. It probably had to do with being 13 and naive, they said, and with Beatty's position as their trusted leader.

"I look back at it and say, 'You're a victim,' but back then it was like, hey, he was my scoutmaster," Kunkel said.

Maxwell said the repeated abuse took its toll. His good grades fell. He spent more and more time alone in his room.

"I started to close down," he said. "My parents didn't know what was going on. In fact, there toward the end they were ready to send me to a shrink.... I thought, 'I need to come clean with my mom and dad here.' "

Maxwell said that the boys seldom spoke among themselves about the abuse, but that he and his best friend, now deceased, decided they could not put up with it any longer. All five then decided to come forward, he said, and he told his parents.

"My father wanted to kill him," Maxwell said.

Local Scout officials sat the boys down, one by one, to write out what happened. Their accounts, which left little to the imagination, were given to the top local Scout official and the Boy Scouts' national office.

Beatty resigned immediately, citing increasing job demands in a July 1, 1976, letter to Scouting officials. Aware that the five boys had accused Beatty of molesting them repeatedly, Arthur Lesh, the church's troop representative, wrote back.

"Thank you for the time and effort you have expended for us as Scoutmaster," he said, noting he accepted the resignation with "extreme regret."

In his 70s and living in the same town, Lesh said in a recent interview that "a lot of what happened and who it happened to" eludes his memory. But he did recall Beatty and the allegations against him. And he said he believed the boys who made them, in part because "there were so many of them."

He and others affiliated with the troop were shocked and embarrassed by what happened, Lesh said, and no one considered calling the police.

"Nobody wanted to discuss it publicly," he said. "Nobody was too proud that it even happened, or was allowed to happen."

Lesh never heard from Beatty again.

Building a career

Beatty went on to earn a graduate degree in community psychology from Pennsylvania State University and a doctorate in social work from the University of Pittsburgh, according to a 2011 resume and his Pitt biography.

He has worked for more than three decades in public health programs, some geared to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. He had several jobs with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and since 1998 has been an assistant professor at Pitt, in the Graduate School of Public Health's Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology.

"Dr. Beatty's research focuses on HIV prevention, particularly as it relates to substance abuse and sexual minorities," his Pitt bio states.

Beatty's friends and colleagues say they can't reconcile the man they know with the serial molester portrayed in the Boy Scouts' file.

"I have done lots of work with Rodger," said Michael Shankle, a friend and research associate who has known him for 15 years. "I have never seen anything that would lead me to believe anything that would even come close to that. I am so flabbergasted."

Shankle described Beatty as "a well loved community activist and leader." Beatty's resume lists more than half a dozen honors beginning with the National Jaycees' "Outstanding Young Man of the Year" in 1981 and ending with the 2009 "Red Ribbon Award" from an AIDS-prevention organization.

Beatty has been on a ventilator, according to recorded updates by his family, and he has opened his eyes and moved his arms, legs, fingers and toes. Since his stroke, scores of people have wished him well on Facebook.

"Rodger, you mean so much to me and to many other people whose lives you have touched," one wrote. "I am praying for you and thinking a lot of you every day."

Kunkel, one of the five boys Beatty allegedly abused, has been thinking of him, too.

"My first thought is ... I hope he dies and rots in hell," Kunkel said.

'It was vile'

After high school, Kunkel spent eight years in the Marines and then 19 in the Army National Guard, including a tour in Iraq. He married a hometown girl, Shawn, had two daughters now in their late teens and works as a produce merchandiser for an independent grocer.

After he and the others reported Beatty to the Scouts, he never again talked about it with his stepbrother J.P., who died in a traffic accident years later.

"I wasn't proud of it. In fact, I was embarrassed about it," Kunkel said. "It was something that happened. It was vile, it was foul, but it was something you don't talk about. You move on."

He decided to talk to a reporter, he said, because it might help someone else.

Kunkel said he does not think the experience has had "debilitating effects" on him.

"But in the back of my mind it's always there that people like that are out there," he said.

He recalled his reaction when a man thought to be a child molester kept riding past on a bicycle to "eyeball" his young daughters years ago.

"I told him, 'If you stop in front of my house one more time and look at my kids, I will take you out, '" he said.

In a recent interview, Maxwell's retelling of an abuse incident was nearly identical to the statement he'd written 36 years ago — and hadn't seen since. He also had a vivid recollection of Beatty.

"I can still see his face like it was yesterday," he said.

Like Kunkel, Maxwell rarely talked about what happened once Beatty was gone.

"I wasn't going to let something like that hold me down," he said.

After high school he attended photography school in Philadelphia, then moved to New York City and worked as a bartender until about 10 years ago. He is retired now, with a heart condition, and spends part of the year in a camper on the Delaware shore.

He had coped well with his memories, Maxwell said, until the child sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant football coach at Penn State broke last year.

"With this Jerry Sandusky thing, all of it just came flooding back — terribly, actually," he said.

His own childhood experience affected his ability to trust people, and for that he blames his scoutmaster. Looking back, Beatty "should have been led out in handcuffs," he said.

"All of us boys — two of them's dead now — but all of us were scarred, and scarred for life by that. I'm sorry, but that's not something a 13-year-old boy puts out of his mind," he said. "And he got away with that."

DATABASE: Search for names, locations
FULL COVERAGE: Inside the 'perversion files

Sandusky Must Serve at Least 30 Years for Sexual Molestation Conviction

I meant to post this yesterday, after the sentencing hearing was completed, but I did not have any time last night to get it done. In my opinion, even though this is essentially a life-term for the 68-year-old Sandusky, I think it is too little for the crimes he committed and the lives he derailed (the maximum sentence possible was 442 years).

Perhaps this makes me a bad person, and it certainly makes me a bad Buddhist, but it feels that the "justice" he will receive in prison is much more appropriate than the sentence he received from the judicial system. From USA Today:

At trial, Pennsylvania prosecutor Joseph McGettigan referred to Sandusky as "the predator." In prison, says inmate safety consultant Larry Levine based in Los Angeles, the former coach will become "the prey."

The potential risk for sex offenders in general is very real, Levine says.

Four inmates have been killed in Pennsylvania prisons since 2010, including one sex offender. It is not known whether the slain inmate's rape conviction was the reason for the killing, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton says.

In California, six sex offenders have been slain in state prison this year. The number includes the murders in May of at least three prisoners convicted of sex offenses involving children. California Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton says it was not known whether all the inmate victims were targeted because of their offenses.

"But those inmates who have offended against children are targeted more often than not," she says.

In one of the highest profile killings involving a child sex offender, John Geoghan — a main figure in the Boston priest sex scandal — was killed in prison in 2003 by a fellow inmate who specifically targeted the priest.

Levine, who served a 10-year federal prison sentence for narcotics trafficking, weapons possession, obstruction of justice and securities fraud before he began teaching prospective inmates survival techniques, says child sex offenders are often more despised in prison than even informants.

The likelihood is that if Sandusky is not kept in protective custody, or killed pretty quickly, there will be some very scary men who will want to play "tickle monster" with him in the showers - so he will probably get what he gave. Prison rape is very common, but child molesters are nearly always targeted for this form of retribution.

It bothers me that I am not at all bothered that Sandusky will be assaulted in prison . . . . .

This article contains a lot of responses from the victims or their families, but see this piece, too - Victims angrily confront Sandusky at sentencing - for additional insight into how this horrific situation impacted the boys and young men Sandusky victimized.

Sandusky gets at least 30 years for child sex abuse

By Josh Levs and Laura Dolan, CNN

updated 6:17 PM EDT, Tue October 9, 2012

 

Bellefonte, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- After spending years of his life sexually abusing boys entrusted into his care and recent years denying it, Jerry Sandusky is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail. A judge sentenced the 68-year-old former Penn State assistant football coach Tuesday to at least 30 years in prison.

He had faced a maximum of 400 years for dozens of charges stemming from his sexual abuse of 10 boys over a 15-year period. Sandusky was convicted in June.

After an emotional hearing in which victims detailed the horrors they endured -- and Sandusky still maintained his innocence, portraying himself as a victim -- Judge John Cleland ruled that the "dangerous" Sandusky will not be eligible for parole for 30 years. His maximum sentence is 60 years.

The once-beloved coach, whose abuse triggered a scandal for one of the nation's most storied college football teams, was given credit for 112 days served.

He will also have to cover costs of the prosecution, Cleland said. The amount was not immediately known.

"All the qualities that make you successful concealed your vices," Cleland said. "This, in my view, makes you dangerous."

He noted the long-term damage Sandusky inflicted on victims: "This crime is not only what you did to their bodies but their psyche and souls."

Despite the mountain of testimony that convicted him and a plea from a victim Tuesday that Sandusky finally admit his guilt, Sandusky remained stalwart. "I did not do these disgusting acts," he said repeatedly.

His attorneys have 10 days to appeal the judge's decision. They have already vowed to appeal his conviction. After the sentencing, defense attorney Joe Amendola insisted that if the team had had more time to prepare for the trial, Sandusky would have been acquitted.

Cleland designated Sandusky as a sexually violent offender, which will partially determine where he will be housed in prison and which programs he will be required to participate in, according to Jean Casarez of HLN's "InSession." Sandusky told the judge he did not oppose the status but maintained his innocence.

One of his attorneys said before the hearing that Sandusky's legal team would not contest the classification but would stipulate that they disagree with it.

Across the country, victims of sexual abuse and organizations that represent them hailed the downfall of the notorious abuser.

"Now that Sandusky will be locked up and unable to harm more children, our hope is that even more survivors will take their first steps towards recovery -- with the confidence that their family, friends and community will believe them and support them," said Scott Berkowitz, president of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.

But the most emotional words of the day came from Sandusky's victims. Some spoke at the hearing, pushing for a harsh sentence, while one and the mother of another offered written impact statements read by the prosecution.

"The pain is real, and it will be inside me forever," said a man identified as Victim No. 5.

He added that he will never forget the image of Sandusky "forcing himself on me and forcing my hand on him."

"He took away my childhood the day he assaulted me, and he should be sentenced accordingly."

Another victim, No. 6, described the "deep wounds" that left him praying for help.

"As I put the 1998 incident in the shower into focus, I think about how you manipulated me," he said, adding that Sandusky "called yourself the tickle monster so you could touch me."

Victim No. 4 assailed Sandusky's refusal to acknowledge what he had done. "Rather than take responsibility for your actions, you attacked us," he said.

"My only regret is that I didn't come forward earlier."

In her written statement, the mother of Victim No. 9 said, "Words cannot describe the pain and impact on my son and family."

"Because of you, we had to move four times," she said.

"I had to endure two attempts from my son trying to take his life. ... You caused him a lifetime of sorrow and suffering.

"I question every decision I made as a parent," she added.

"Shame on you, Mr. Sandusky, for your narcissistic and selfish acts.

"Whatever comes to you I hope it is tenfold for what you did to my son and others."

Victim No. 1, in his statement, said of Sandusky, "There is no remorse ... just evil."

Lead prosecutor Joseph McGettigan said Sandusky is among "the most insidious and depraved of criminals."

Sandusky founded his charity for young people, Second Mile, to help children but used it to identify victims, McGettigan said.

"He inserted himself into the lives of children, deceiving their mothers."

A touch became a grope and "too often a penetration," McGettigan said.

"No deceit was too shameful for him," the prosecutor added. "He relied on shame to silence his victims. ... He treated his victims like sexual property, which he used as he saw fit."

McGettigan also slammed Sandusky for whining about "his own pain" in an audio statement Monday night.

Sandusky, speaking for about 13 minutes at the hearing, called his situation "the worst loss of my life."

"I will cherish the opportunity to be a candle for others," he said, adding that "somehow, some way, something good will come out of this."

His wife, Dottie, had tears in her eyes.

Cleland addressed the victims: "The fact that you were assaulted is no cause for shame. ... It is for your courage that you will be remembered." And, he said, they will heal.

Sandusky entered the courthouse Tuesday wearing a red jumpsuit with a bullet-resistant vest underneath. Though he was handcuffed, he clutched a manila envelope and smiled briefly as he got out of a police vehicle. His wife arrived in the parking lot moments earlier.

In his audio statement Monday, Sandusky said, "They could take away my life, they could make me out as a monster, they could treat me as a monster, but they can't take away my heart."

He accused the judge of bringing the case to trial too quickly, the victims of conspiring together and the attorneys of trying to make money in future civil suits -- which an attorney for Victim No. 5 called "preposterous."

It has been nearly a year since the Penn State scandal erupted, leading to the firing of iconic head football coach Joe Paterno and the ouster of the university's longtime president, Graham Spanier.

Jurors determined in June that Sandusky, who retired from Penn State in 1999, used his access to university facilities and his foundation for underprivileged youth to sexually abuse the boys.

On June 22, Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse, ranging from corruption of minors to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, which were laid out in graphic testimony by his accusers over the course of the less-than-two-week trial.

During the trial, which garnered national attention and cast a shadow on Penn State's heralded football program, the 23-year-old Victim No. 4 testified that he was only 13 when Sandusky sexually abused him in a university shower.

That account is separate from a 2001 incident that Mike McQueary, a former Penn State assistant football coach, testified about, saying he saw the former coach pressed up against the back of a boy in the shower room of the Lasch Football Building.

McQueary filed a whistle-blower lawsuit last week against the university, according to a court document from Centre County, Pennsylvania.

Less than a month after Sandusky's conviction, former FBI Director Louis Freeh released his university-funded report that blamed Paterno, Spanier, suspended Athletic Director Tim Curley and ex-Vice President Gary Schultz for taking part in a cover-up to avoid bad publicity.

Freeh also said Paterno could have stopped the attacks had he done more, though neither McQueary, Sandusky nor Paterno -- who died in January -- were interviewed by his investigators.

Attorneys for Spanier blasted the review, calling it a "blundering, indefensible indictment" and "a flat-out distortion of facts" that was "infused with bias and innuendo."

In July, the NCAA imposed sanctions against Penn State, including a $60 million fine, scholarship reductions, the vacating of 112 wins of the football team, five years' probation and a bowl ban for four years.

After the sentencing decision was announced, the university's president released a statement.

"Our thoughts today, as they have been for the last year, go out to the victims of Jerry Sandusky's abuse," Penn State President Rodney Erickson said. "While today's sentence cannot erase what has happened, hopefully it will provide comfort to those affected by these horrible events and help them continue down the road to recovery."

CNN's Laura Dolan reported from Bellefonte; Josh Levs reported from Atlanta. CNN's Susan Candiotti, Jason Carroll, Ross Levitt and Ed Payne contributed to this report

 

Boy Scouts Covered Up Sex Abuse of Boys

It was bound to be exposed at some point, and now the LA Times is reporting that it has obtained voluminous documents detailing confirmed or alleged child molesters within the U.S. organization that were not only never reported to authorities, but also show efforts to help the molesters hide their crimes.

This situation is no more surprising than the Catholic priests scandal - any place where there young boys there will men who want to molest them. That's not a blanket statement that all Scout Masters are sex offenders, but it acknowledges that offenders go where their victims are easy to be found.


The Scouts currently face 50 pending child sexual abuse cases in 18 states.

Boy Scouts Face Release Of Damaging Child Sex Abuse Files

Reuters  |  Posted: 09/16/2012



By Chris Francescani

Sept 16 (Reuters) - The Boy Scouts of America could face a wave of bad publicity as decades of records of confirmed or alleged child molesters within the U.S. organization are expected to be released in coming weeks.

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported the organization failed to report allegations of sex abuse of scouts by adult leaders and volunteers to police in hundreds of cases from 1970 to 1991. In some cases, the Boy Scouts helped the accused "cover their tracks," the paper said.

The story was based on a review of 1,600 internal Boy Scouts case files the newspaper said it obtained that detailed accusations against confirmed or alleged child molesters within the youth organization.

About 1,200 "ineligible volunteer" files dating from 1965 to 1985 are set to be publicly released under a June order by the Oregon Supreme Court, including some already reviewed by the newspaper.

Those files played a key role in a 2010 civil trial in which an Oregon jury found the Boy Scouts liable in a 1980s pedophile case and ordered the organization to pay nearly $20 million in damages.

The files will be released within three to four weeks, said Paul Mones, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiff in the Oregon case.

In the wake of revelations about systemic child sex abuse within the Catholic Church and the recent Penn State sex abuse scandal, the files threaten to damage the reputation of one of America's most trusted institutions.

Mones said the allegations revealed in the Oregon case are not necessarily comparable to the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal.

"In the Catholic Church there were overt cover-ups, and I don't think you see a lot of that here with the Boy Scouts," Mones told Reuters on Sunday.

The Boy Scouts of America said in a statement on Sunday that while it regrets past incidents where scouts were sexually abused, its current policies require even suspicions of abuse to be reported directly to law enforcement.

"The BSA (has) continuously enhanced its multi-tiered policies and procedures, which now include background checks, comprehensive training programs and safety policies," the statement said.

The organization said it has maintained an internal "ineligible volunteer" file since at least 1919 to prevent suspected or confirmed child sex abusers from joining or re-entering its ranks.

Boy Scouts of America officials and attorneys have said the files represent only a fraction of the adults who participate as scout leaders each year.

The Boy Scouts have annually counted between 3.5 and 5 million scouts and more than 1 million adult leaders and volunteers among its members since the 1960s, a spokesman for the organization said.

The organization is facing more than 50 pending child sexual abuse cases in 18 states, according to Kelly Clark, another plaintiff attorney in the Oregon case.

Mones said he did not expect many new lawsuits to result from the upcoming release of the Scouts' files, predicting that statutes of limitation on sex abuse charges in most U.S. states would prevent victims from successful civil or criminal prosecution of alleged molesters. (Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Eric Walsh)

Penn State Fined $60 Million, Four-Year Bowl Ban, Forfeits All Wins from 1998-2011

The NCAA has levied the harshest punishment imaginable without simply terminating the Penn State football program (the "death penalty"), and deservedly so. Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State defensive coordinator, was found guilty in June on 45 counts of sexually abusing young boys, several times in Penn facilities, for which there were witnesses who reported what they saw, only to have their reports ignored or covered up.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh investigated the case, at the request of the school, and released his report on July 12, finding that Joe Paterno, who died in January, former Penn State President Graham Spanier ,and athletic director Tim Curley, were among several top officials at Penn State who helped cover-up, failed to report, or lied under oath about their knowledge of  the accusations against Sandusky.

Yesterday, the statue of Joe Paterno was removed from outside of Beaver Stadium on the Penn State campus.

Penn State Punishments:

• $60 million fine, representing approximately one year of football profits. [The money must be paid into an endowment for external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund such programs at Penn State.]
• 4-year bowl game ban.
• Scholarship reduction, cap lasting four years. [A loss of 20 scholarships per year over four years, from 85 to 65.]
• Any entering, returning football student athlete can transfer immediately. Presuming academic requirements are met, these potential transfers can play immediately.
• PSU vacates all wins from 1998-2011. The loss of 111 career wins drops Joe Paterno from atop the all-time wins list to 12th.
• PSU begins a five-year probationary period, with the NCAA reserving the right to implement further punishments.

Penn State and those named officials still face criminal and civil lawsuits that could bring more fines for the individuals and pay-outs by the University for compensation to the victims.

In reality, there is nothing that can compensate the survivors for what they have been through. No amount of money removes those scars or stops those nightmares.

When Men Can't or Won't Talk About Sexual Abuse

As a trauma therapist working with survivors of rape, abuse, and/or molestation, I was deeply troubled that former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was able to sexually molest boys, including his own adopted son, for more than 35 years without anyone coming forward to press charges until the parents of one young man reported Sandusky to police sometime in or before 2009.

Until the Grand Jury investigation began, not a single young man felt safe enough or strong enough to come forward and tell someone what had happened to him. This silence is much more common in boys and young men than it is in girls and young women. We have created support and safety for female survivors to come forward, but this is missing for males.
 
Based on research, we know that 1 in 4women experience rape, sexual abuse, or molestation before the age of 18 - and we know now that the numbers are not much lower for men, at 1 in 6 (Finkelhor, David, et al.  1990. "Sexual Abuse in a National Survey of Adult Men and Women: Prevalence, Characteristics, and Risk Factors"). Some research indicates 1 in 5 boys experience sexual abuse before the age of 16.

When we can't or won't talk about this reality, it goes on and more boys are victimized. I can't remember which site I found this statistic on, but it was not lost on me that pedophiles who prefer boys will molest 120 boys before being caught (on average), while those who prefer girls will molest 85 or so before being caught. Maybe if our boys felt safe to report these things, the numbers would not be so skewed.

Survivors of abuse face a lot of challenges. According to the World Health Organization (2002), victims of sexual assault are:

• 3 times more likely to suffer from depression.
• 6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.
• 26 times more likely to abuse drugs.
• 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide. 

With these likely outcomes from sexual abuse in childhood, it saddens me that there are so many myths and stigmas for men who survived sexual abuse. The excellent site, 1in6, offers support and resources - and the most useful piece is exposing facts and myths around male survivors.

Young men should be exposed to this information as part of all sex education programs, and in church programs, and in the Boy Scouts, or sorts teams. This should be common knowledge.

Before addressing the myths, let’s review some key facts:

1. Boys and men can be sexually used or abused, and it has nothing to do with how masculine they are.
2. If a boy liked the attention he was getting, or got sexually aroused during abuse, or even sometimes wanted the attention or sexual contact, this does not mean he wanted or liked being manipulated or abused, or that any part of what happened, in any way, was his responsibility or fault.
3. Sexual abuse harms boys and girls in ways that are similar and different, but
   equally harmful.
4. Boys can be sexually abused by both straight men and gay men. Sexual abuse is the result of abusive behavior that takes advantage of a child’s vulnerability and is in no way related to the sexual orientation of the abusive person.
5. Whether he is gay, straight or bisexual, a boy’s sexual orientation is neither the cause or the result of sexual abuse. By focusing on the abusive nature of sexual abuse rather than the sexual aspects of the interaction, it becomes easier to understand that sexual abuse has nothing to do with a boy’s sexual orientation.
6. Girls and women can sexually abuse boys. The boys are not “lucky,” but exploited
   and harmed.
7. Most boys who are sexually abused will not go on to sexually abuse others.

Myth 1 — Boys can’t be sexually used or abused, and if one is, he can never be a “real man.”

Everyone absorbs the myth that males aren’t victims, to some extent. It’s central to masculine gender socialization, and boys pick up on it very early in life. This myth implies that a boy or man who has been sexually used or abused will never be a “real man.” Our society expects males to be able to protect themselves. Successful men are depicted as never being vulnerable, either physically or emotionally. (See How It Can Be Different for Men and How Being Male Can Make It Hard to Heal.)

Whether you agree with that definition of masculinity or not, boys are not men. They are children. They are weaker and more vulnerable than those who sexually abuse or exploit them – who use their greater size, strength and knowledge to manipulate or coerce boys into unwanted sexual experiences and staying silent. This is usually done from a position of authority (e.g., coach, teacher, religious leader) or status (e.g. older cousin, admired athlete, social leader), using whatever means are available to reduce resistance, such as attention, special privileges, money or other gifts, promises or bribes, even outright threats.

What happens to any of us as children does not need to define us as adults or men. It is important to remember that that 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before age 18 (see The 1 in 6 Statistic), and that those boys can grow up to be strong, powerful, courageous and healthy men. Examples are found on our website (see Other Guys Like Me), and there are many others out there.

Myth 2 — If a boy experienced sexual arousal during abuse, he wanted and/or enjoyed it, and if he ever did partly want the sexual experiences, then they were his fault.

Many boys and men believe this myth and feel lots of guilt and shame because they got physically aroused during the abuse. It is important to understand that males can respond to sexual stimulation with an erection or even an orgasm – even in sexual situations that are traumatic or painful. That’s just how male bodies and brains work. Those who sexually use and abuse boys know this. They often attempt to maintain secrecy, and to keep the abuse going, by telling the child that his sexual response shows he was a willing participant and complicit in the abuse. “You wanted it. You liked it,” they say.
But that doesn’t make it true. Boys are not seeking to be sexually abused or exploited. They can, however, be manipulated into experiences they do not like, or even understand, at the time. (See Guilt and Shame.)

There are many situations where a boy, after being gradually manipulated with attention, affection and gifts, feels like he wants such attention and sexual experiences. In an otherwise lonely life (for example, one lacking in parental attention or affection – even for a brief period), the attention and pleasure of sexual contact from someone the boy admires can feel good.

But in reality, it’s still about a boy who was vulnerable to manipulation. It’s still about a boy who was betrayed by someone who selfishly exploited the boy’s needs for attention and affection to use him sexually. (See Sorting It Out for Yourself, which discusses feeling like you (partly) ‘wanted’ it then but now seeing it as an unwanted experience, in terms of it being part of your life and having continuing negative effects.)

Myth 3 — Sexual abuse is less harmful to boys than girls.

Most studies show that the long term effects of sexual abuse can be quite damaging for both males and females. One large study, conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, found that the sexual abuse of boys was more likely to involve penetration of some kind, which is associated with greater psychological harm.

The harm caused by sexual abuse mostly depends on things not determined by gender, including: the abuser’s identity, the duration of the abuse, whether the child told anyone at the time, and if so, whether the child was believed and helped.

Many boys suffer harm because adults who could believe them and help are reluctant, or refuse, to acknowledge what happened and the harm it caused. This increases the harm, especially the shame felt by boys and men, and leads many to believe they have to “tough it out” on their own. And that, of course, makes it harder to seek needed help in the midst of the abuse, or even years later when help is still needed. (See How Unwanted or Abusive Sexual Experiences Can Cause Problems and How Being Male Can Make It Hard to Heal.)

Myth 4 — Most men who sexually abuse boys are gay.

Studies about this question suggest that men who have sexually abused a boy most often identify as heterosexual and often are involved in adult heterosexual relationships at the time of abusive interaction. There is no indication that a gay man is more likely to engage in sexually abusive behavior than a straight man and some studies even suggest it is less likely. But sexual abuse is not a sexual “relationship,” — it’s an assault. The sexual orientation of the abusive person is not really relevant to the abusive interaction. A man who sexually abuses or exploits boys is not engaging in a homosexual interaction – any more than men who sexually abuse or exploit girls are engaging in heterosexual behavior. He is a deeply confused individual who, for various reasons, desires to sexually use or abuse a child, and has acted on that desire. (See Why Do People Sexually Use or Abuse Children?)

Myth 5 — Boys abused by males must have attracted the abuse because they are gay or they become gay as a result.

There are different theories about how sexual orientation develops, but experts in human sexuality do not believe that sexual abuse or premature sexual experiences play a significant role. There is no good evidence that someone can “make” another person be homosexual or heterosexual. Sexual orientation is a complex issue and there is no single answer or theory that explains why someone identifies himself as homosexual, heterosexual or bi-sexual.

It is common, however, for boys and men who have been abused to express confusion about their sexual identity and orientation, whether they identify as straight, gay or bi-sexual. Some guys who identify as heterosexual, fear that, due to their experiences as boys, they must “really” be homosexual. They may believe this would mean that they can’t be a “real man,” as defined by the larger society. Even men who clearly indentify as heterosexual, and men who project very traditional heterosexual traits , may fear that others will “find them out” as gay or not real men. Men who identify as gay or bi-sexual may wonder if their sexual orientation was influenced in any way by the abusive experience or may even be the cause of their orientation. (See How It Can Be Different for Men.)

Also, many boys abused by males wonder if something about them sexually attracted the person who abused them and will unknowingly attract other males who will misuse them. While these are understandable fears, they are not true. One of the great tragedies of childhood sexual abuse is how it robs a person’s natural right to discover his own sexuality in his own time.

It is very important to remember that abuse arises from the abusive persons’s failure to develop and maintain healthy adult sexual relationships, and his or her willingness to sexually use and abuse kids. It has nothing to do with the preferences or desires of the child who is abused, and therefore cannot determine a person’s natural sexual identity.

Myth 6 — If a female used or abused a boy, he was “lucky,” and if he doesn’t feel that way there’s something wrong with him.

This myth, like several of the others, comes from the image of masculinity that boys learn from very early. It says not only that males can’t be sexually abused, but that any sexual experience with girls and women, especially older ones, is evidence that he’s a “real man.” Again, the confusion comes from focusing on the sexual aspect rather than the abusive one – the exploitation and betrayal by a more powerful, trusted or admired person (who can be a child or adult).

In reality, premature, coerced or otherwise abusive or exploitive sexual experiences are never positive – whether they are imposed by an older sister, sister of a friend, baby sitter, neighbor, aunt, mother, or any other female in a position of power over a boy. At a minimum, they cause confusion and insecurity. They almost always harm boys’ and men’s capacities for trust and intimacy.

A gay man who experienced sexual arousal when abused by a female may wonder whether it means that he is actually straight or wonder what it means that he was chosen by a woman or older girl.

Being sexually used or abused, whether by males or females, can cause a variety of other emotional and psychological problems. However, boys and men often don’t recognize the connections between what happened and their later problems. To be used as a sexual object by a more powerful person, male or female, is never a good thing, and can cause lasting harm.

Myth 7 — Boys who are sexually abused will go on to abuse others.

This myth is especially dangerous because it can create terrible fear in boys and men. They may not only fear becoming abusers themselves, but that others will find out they were abused and believe they’re a danger to children. Sadly, boys and men who tell of being sexually abused often are viewed more as potential perpetrators than as guys who need support.

While it is true that many (though by no means all) who sexually abuse children have histories of sexual abuse, it is NOT true that most boys who are sexually abused go on to sexually abuse others. The majority of boys do not go on to become sexually abusive as adolescents or adults; even those who do perpetrate as teenagers, if they get help when they’re young, usually don’t abuse children when they become adults. (See Am I Going to Become an Abuser? What if I Already Have?)

Believing these myths is understandable, but dangerous and harmful, and needs to be overcome.

• These are myths that everyone absorbs growing up, and continues to hear as adults, usually without even thinking about it. So of course some boys and men will, at least for a while, believe them and suffer the consequences.
• So long as societies believe these myths, and teach them to children from their earliest years, many men harmed by unwanted or abusive sexual experiences won’t get the recognition and help they need.
• So long as boys or men harmed by unwanted or abusive sexual experiences believe these myths, they will feel ashamed and be less likely to seek whatever knowledge, understanding and help they need to achieve the lives they want and deserve.
• So long as boys, men and society as a whole believes these myths and males don’t get the help they need, males are more likely to join the minority who end up hurting others.
• And so long as these myths are believed, it increases the power of another devastating myth: that it was the child’s fault. It is never the fault of the child in a sexual situation – although some people are skilled at getting those they use or abuse to take on a responsibility that is always, and only, their own.

For any man harmed by unwanted or abusive sexual experiences – and anyone who wants to support him – becoming free of these myths is necessary to overcoming the effects of the abuse, and to achieving the life he wants and deserves.

Adapted and expanded from an online piece by Ken Singer.