8. He told me ‘if I talked to anyone he would have to come back in the middle of the night while I was sleeping and kill my parents.’

“I was raped when I was five years old. I was in the hospital having my tonsils out. The night before the surgery a man came into my room and raped me orally and anally. He told me ‘if I talked to anyone he would have to come back in the middle of the night while I was sleeping and kill my parents.’ My 5-year-old mind read this as don’t talk to anyone anymore or my parents will be killed. I had the surgery the next morning and of course I couldn’t talk. So I just stopped talking to people and would only speak to my parents by whispering in their ear. I’m guessing my parents thought this change in behavior was because of the surgery. Throughout my life, I never told anyone what happened. One day I was driving along in the car and it suddenly dawned on me that I was 50 years old and I had never told anyone about that night. I turned to my wife and started telling her what happened, with tears streaming down my cheeks.

I realized I been following my rapist’s instructions for 45 fucking years!!! Well, now I do talk about it but only on rare and in appropriate situations. It’s a weird thing. I really don’t have any emotions about it, I don’t have any hatred, I don’t feel afraid but when I tell the story tears always come to my eyes because it makes me sad to think of it happening to me as a child. Sort of like seeing a family pet hit by a car, it’s just something you carry with you forever.
The experience of rape imprints a pain/sadness we wear for life. In my case I can’t say how it changed me because I’ve never known anything else. I only wish I was my attackers sole victim but I realize that’s not likely.”
—LinearLamb

9. I was assaulted by a grown man in a public pool shower when I was 12. He compelled his son, who was younger than me, to watch.

“I was assaulted by a grown man in a public pool shower when I was 12. He compelled his son, who was younger than me, to watch.

I mention these details because every single aspect of healthy male sexuality is scrambled for me, even now at 30. Things are better now, but if I’m too passive, or too horny, or too surprised by any sexual situation, my mind will flash back to that afternoon and I’ll either relive it through my own eyes or be terrified of resembling the predator did.

While I have benefited from sympathetic therapists, I can count the number of people I’ve told on one hand (and told nobody, to my unfortunate shame, until I was almost 20). The stigma of being a child rape victim as a man is a scourge—being seen as a potential sexual predator simply because I was targeted by one myself.”
—spareusername86