Was It a Boy?

Guest post by Kirk Daniel. 

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The words scream at me from the news feed on my smart phone.  Almost daily.  Another man is arrested for the sexual abuse of a child.

Was it a boy?

This inquiry is automatic and immediate.  I open the story and scan past everything until I get the answer.

Was it a boy?

To me, it is the most important question.  It is nonetheless horrific if a girl was abused.  I don’t mean to imply that it isn’t.  All sexual abuse is awful, inexcusable.

But, was it a boy?

I have often wondered why I have to know this.  Is it a morbid curiosity?  Is it an obsession?  What does it matter if the child was male or female?  Shouldn’t that detail not matter?  Shouldn’t the only concern be that the perpetrator was caught and is facing justice?

Is it even healthy to be interested in it at all and dizzy myself with the scrutinizing self-interrogation that always follows reading those sad, gut-wrenching details?

Was it a boy?

I was a boy who was sexually abused by men.

As a man, I am trying to make sense of it.

I am trying to grasp, in my own feeble way, how a man can find pleasure in the body of a child of any age.  How trust can be abused.  How the grooming process is so coldly calculating, the end justifying the means in the perpetrators mind.  How it is all done for the fulfillment of sexual release without thought for the well-being of the victim.  (You will forgive my coarseness when I say that this last point really irks me.  Sexual release for males is generally a swift process. It can be accomplished in other ways that do not involve children. And, as quick a cheap thrill as it is for the abuser, its effects haunt the mind and heart of the victim for the rest of his life.)

Not a fair deal.  Not an equal exchange.  And no, it is not love.  I am sick unto death to hear of groups promoting pedophilia as normal and helpful if it is mutual.  It’s a bald-faced lie.

Was it a boy?

The question haunts me.  In those articles where the gender of the child is revealed to be male, I try to ascertain the age.  Sometimes the news reports it, and sometimes they don’t.  I always wonder, however, what was the boy thinking?  Did he experience guilt like I did?  Was he groomed?  Given money?  Told he was loved and beautiful?

Was it a boy?

I must know.  I must ask myself over and over again how this could happen.  How can a grown man do this to a boy?  How can he take sexual pleasure in a boy of any age?

I confess, I haven’t found the answers.  I don’t think I ever will.  It is like reading about the Holocaust.  One reads the dreadful accounts and looks at the pictures repeatedly, because the enormity of the whole thing cannot be grasped.  No comprehension can take it in.  You pursue to understand it, but cannot.  It is a puzzle that frustrates.  A seemingly endless equation with no solution.

Oh, there are reasons to male pedophilia being promoted out there.  Psychologists try to reassure us that it is not about homosexuality.  Even heterosexual men sexually abuse boys sometimes, so it is about power and not sexuality, they reason.  Nor is it a result of doing what was done to them.  Most victims of abuse do not go on to abuse others, they say.  On the other side of the coin, there is the mindset that insists it is absolutely about sexuality, or repeating what one has learned in his own childhood.  To be honest, I find both of these inadequate and beside the point.  They don’t answer the why.

They don’t explain anything.

And they focus on the perpetrators, not the victims.

Was it a boy?

I know that the real reason behind anything evil in this world is sin.  That makes a whole lot more sense to me than trying to figure out an abuser’s motives or sexuality.  Sin is a subtle thing, a mystery of iniquity working in the hearts and minds of people.  Even it cannot be approached with rational thought, for it is an irrational force.

Capricious.  Rapacious in its appetites.  And completely selfish.

Just like the pedophile himself.

Was it a boy?

If others saw the headlines back in the early 90’s and wondered the same thing, the answer was, yes. Yes it was.

And that boy was me.

***

Kirk Daniel says this about his reasons for writing: “There is such a stigma around male childhood sexual abuse. I hope my writings can enable other men, both young and old, to come to grips with what happened to them, to know that it was not their fault, and to come to healing through Jesus Christ and the loving support of others who are not ashamed of their stories.” You can read more of his posts on his blog at These Ashes.

Feature photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash