In the last issue of the HW Newsletter, we highlighted some of the responses to our previous piece on trafficked young people in Los Angeles, mostly girls being trafficked by men. One of our readers wrote to us that “repeated references to ‘male rape culture’ can feel exclusionary, particularly in spaces where heterosexual men are a minority.”
As the mother of an 18-year-old heterosexual boy, and as the founder of Hidden Water where we have had men in our Green Circles (for those who were sexually harmed as children) and had women in our Purple Circles (for those who have caused harm) from the very inception of this organization, I want to speak directly to that concern.
What many people don’t realize is that men and boys are also survivors of sexual harm, even if their experiences are often minimized or overlooked. Research suggests that approximately 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before age 16, though this likely underestimates the true scale due to stigma and underreporting. Prevent Child Abuse America. In adulthood, about 1 in 33 men in the U.S. report experiencing attempted or completed rape, a powerful reminder that men, too, live with these harms. RAINN
Perhaps most surprising to some is that many of the men who come into Hidden Water were harmed by women, including mothers or female caregivers, a reality that conventional public narratives rarely acknowledge. Although the majority of child sexual abuse perpetrators are male, research finds that around 10–11% of perpetrators are female, and female-perpetrated abuse can be just as serious and harmful as male-perpetrated abuse. Canadian Child Welfare Research Portal+1
Moreover, survivors who experienced female-perpetrated abuse report elevated rates of self-harm and psychological distress, highlighting that the impact of sexual harm transcends the gender of the perpetrator. ScienceDirect. These realities are often obscured by a cultural narrative that assumes all child sexual harm fits the stereotype of a stranger male abusing a prepubescent girl. That stereotype is not just incomplete, it can be deeply alienating to male survivors whose experiences fall outside the narrow version of what people expect abuse to look like.
Into this context, Scott Galloway’s recent reflections on the crisis facing boys and men are especially instructive. In Notes on Being a Man, Galloway highlights alarming trends in male wellbeing from educational and social disengagement to mental health crises where men account for a disproportionate share of “deaths of despair,” including suicide. Research underscores that men are about four times more likely than women to die by suicide, a statistic that speaks to the deep cost of unaddressed trauma, isolation, and cultural stigma around help-seeking. NSVRC
When we talk about preventing harm and promoting healing, we must build a narrative that acknowledges all survivors, regardless of gender or the gender of their harmer. Only then can we create spaces of genuine support where a man who was sexually harmed as a young person by a woman feels that his pain is seen, his experiences are valid, and his path to healing is respected at the same level as the rest.