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"So sexually speaking, do you see yourself as a pervert? Or what?" She said.

By

Granville js Johnson

Pervert! Pervert?!

The chant rang in my ears with the resonant power of Big Ben's chime. Though the words were being whispered just below my hearing threshold. I could just see their dancing lips, their snarling expressions. Their P's spat fear-blazed hatred of the air we shared. Their eyes chased me, rooted me, nailed and flailed me alive, piece by blooded piece.

 

The searing pain, so familiar yet strangely cold, burned my lungs with each tortured breath.

 

I could not hear my screams. The blood garbled in my throat, choking:  So hot, so very hot, please, please STOP!

 

My teeth chattered as I shivered in the night.

 

The dream, once again, has stolen my sleep. Robbed of any hope of rest, I rise to brew chamomile tea. Perhaps, yet to sleep, to rest, to hide from the past, alive, within hope of a new beginning in yet another new place, free of recognition. Recognition is the curse.

 

In the years during and following my abuse, I have been easily recognized as a victim of a sexual predator; not so easily recognized as a survivor of sexual abuse; even less often recognized as a male survivor of sexual abuse. The easiest, and in many ways the nastiest, recognition has been as a pervert: prodigy of predator, doomed to emulate and repeat the heinous crime upon another; seen, by the predator, as being less powerful, thereby less human, in a Dr, Jekyle / Mr. Hyde role reversal.

 

On this twin-edged battle-axe, my life has been lived.

 

"Pervert? Or What? She said. Not much of a choice between the evil and the enigma. Self-identification can be tricky when presented with such a loaded ultimatum. I'm not hedging a response, at least trying not to, yet the expected stare (Or was it glare?) that placed that inquiry within my gut, gave me great cause to pause mid-stream and little space to wiggle on the hook.

 

The question was particularly poignant due to the realization that our continued emotional and/or physical intimacy hinged upon my answer.

 

I was also acutely aware that the social stigma attached to one of the options encapsulated an old wound: My victimization, in a small community by a commonly accepted stereotype, the prejudicial expectation that the male victim of abuse will reenact his abuse by abusing the more vulnerable.

 

This social stigma is reinforced in off-handed clich-burdened euphemisms such as: Like father like son. Or, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Even, what goes around comes around.

 

These cliche's of programmed behavioral associations attributing like behaviors to possible parental (and other caregivers) origins, are meant to be light hearted attempts to characterize a child's personality traits by referring to his/her genetic and/or familiar exposure.

 

I am a male survivor of sexual abuse.

 

Being a survivor of that kind of abuse is an important distinction.

 

Being a male survivor of an experience that was once commonly thought of, as a "woman's" problem is even more significant, because a large segment of the global society still believes that it's a "woman's" problem.

 

Too many of us still hold that an abused child, particularly a male child, will abuse: The offended will offend and re-offend, given the opportunity until caught or stopped.

 

Unfortunately, for all male survivors of sexual abuse, that spiral into hellish depravity is, far too often the case, even the probability, unless there is some type of therapeutic intervention. The raped and abused will not assume the behaviors and roles of their predators if the problem is recognized and treated.

 

My treatment and subsequent road to recovery and reclamation of my emotional and psychological: health, life, self and spirit, began in 1966 with a major fight for my life, Viet Nam. Two tours, as a Medic, purging the demons caused by the four years of sexual abuse that caused a war within, and preceded the war without.  I jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Fortuitously, I survived both.

 

Peacetime, in many ways, has been riskier. Transcendental Meditation, formal dance training, drugs and professional counseling, helped.

 

Mid-life crises, 1989-92, ushered in the years of patient rediscovery and reconstruction. Denial died and acceptance  sprouted. Years of hard, hard inner work laid before me, a vast mine field, shrouded in fog. More drugs (a Prozac / Xanax  success story), hospitalizations (self admittance), counseling (out patient), prayer, meditation,  art, and more counseling specific, often, to the presentation of symptoms.

 

An onion with many, many layers, the problem represents a kaleidoscope of experience. Treatment is no less long, multi-leveled and comprehensive.

 

On the road to health, in the year 2001, I cope.

 

The coping skills, developed by we healthy survivors, are as individual as the circumstances of the abuse, and the unique resolution of the particular survivor.

 

I play djembe (African hand drum). I write poetry, short stories, and articles like this one. I talk about my inner landscape with those I trust, and sometimes with those I don't. I have accepted my inner demons as being just another part of me, no more, no less. I'm committed  to living life to the fullest. I place a high value on integrity and live up to it. I value and enjoy life by trusting my feelings, intuition and other internal barometers. I am afraid, but I don't let my fear control my actions or non-actions. I listen. I have fun, period.

 

I am a male survivor of sexual abuse. I have experienced the perversion and come out on the other side, whole and happy.

 

"So sexually speaking, do you see yourself as a pervert? Or what?"She said.

 

She said, Pervert? Or What?

 

I am not a pervert, sexually speaking, or, otherwise.

 

So I guess that makes me an "or what". I am an "or what" and joyful to be just that.

 

Peace.