Boys are often told that having a sexual experience with an older woman is a “badge of honor.” But many times such experiences can more accurately be described as a “traumatic experience” and even as a case of sexual abuse.
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Earlier this week, CNN reposted an essay written for Elle magazine by a man who, as a teen, engaged in “consensual” sex with a much older woman. Many people fail to understand that this, too, can be a form of abuse. Oftentimes men are told this is a badge of honor, or that they were “lucky” for having had such experiences. Former MaleSurvivor President Murray Schane, MD wrote about why this can actually be a destabilizing and harmful experience. I felt it was important to share, and I hope you will as well. We need to do more to counter the myth that a boy is always lucky in these circumstances. My thanks to Murray for his permission to share this with the GMP community:
This is a first-person account of a man’s life altered and deformed by the sexual relationship he had as a fifteen year-old boy with a forty year-old married woman, a woman who entered his life as a care-taker for his seriously incapacitated older brother. Doubtless the trauma of witnessing that brother’s accident, and the extraordinary care required to maintain him thereafter had enormous impact on him and his parents. The family dynamics were remolded by guilt, anger, and, especially for the author, a sense of loss as he believed he had lost forever the loving attention of his mother.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeEnter the forty year old woman, a kind of volunteer healer for the brother, who began essentially grooming the author by paying him “a great deal of attention,” buying him gifts, “offering sympathy to me rather than to my brother.” The author responded with an innocent love for the woman. But then she introduced talk of sex with him which “until then I had not thought of her in a sexual way.” A clandestine sexual affair began, sustained by its potent mix of anger, lust, and the secret, illicit thrill it evoked.
These were the qualities that bound the boy to the woman who perpetrated the affair, who promoted a consensual-appearing sexual relationship that actually broke apart his trusting, filial attachment, wrested from him his own initiative, and invested in him a warped view of sex and romantic relationship that hobbled him psychologically for years afterward.
Yes the affair could be considered statutory rape yet for the author the repercussions extend far beyond that unnatural conjugal bed. They shaped and deformed his sense of self in relation to others, incapacitated him for truly consensual relationships with other women for years, trained him to seek out other older, married women-damaged women as he states-with whom him he could only re-enact the experience, however fond and forlorn, of that first and actual abuse.
Accompanying these negative psychological effects are neurobiological impingements on the still developing brain. Sexual trauma, however seemingly benign, alters the very structure and function of key components of the brain: the hippocampus, the memory distribution and consolidation center, the amygdala, the brain’s emotional trigger, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the stress response “team,” and the pre-frontal cortex (PFC), the very foundation of personality, which exercises executive function thereby piloting one’s way through life’s experiences. Even at age fifteen the PFC had not matured and remains still malleable and subject to malign alignments.
Early sexual experience, as many survivors can attest, will often implant a brain-based tendency to sex addiction that will persist long into adulthood. Fortunately the brain is also neuroplastic, capable of repair and structural change. But this requires appropriate guidance, therapy, social support, and sometimes even medication.
Men who have had sex at an early age, especially sex with a woman if they are heterosexual or sex with a man if they are gay, will often refer to that first experience as lucky or enjoyable and as if it had no lasting impact. The author of this article offers ample, sad evidence of just how wrong those men may be. To be wrested out of childhood, dragged under the authority of an adult, deprived of initiative, rendered hapless and bound to errant secrecy-all that can cripple the adult who later emerges fully scarred and scathed.
The author, now in his forties, apparently resisted until quite recently the awareness of how damaging was that early sexual experience. Such resistance is one of the reasons we at MaleSurvivor work to assert the message that early sexual experiences can harm children, and that all male survivors regardless of their experiences should have more support and understanding. Men caught up in scenarios like the one described in this article, are often especially resistant and, therefore, especially vulnerable to truly undue suffering. This is yet another example where attention must be paid, and where intervention and prevention needs to be offered.
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–Photo: blackham/Flickr
The story that best describes societies view on this was the one a couple of years ago where the 30 something year old teacher had sex with the 15 year old student, got pregnent, had the child, and a judge ruled that once the student was ‘of age’, he would have to pay child support!
I see this and that article as a huge disconnect with Age of Consent laws on the books of states with actual facts and Common Sense; there should be No Reason why these laws where the “age of consent” is 14, 15, 16, and so on WHEN these articles here and on CNN cleary state that Teens are not in the right state of mind to deal with the sexual ramifications of sexual activity- even amongst each other. I myself lost my virginity at 13 years old to a 16 year old girl. I had no clue what I was… Read more »
I read the original article first, and he makes in clear that in that first relationship not only was there an age difference, but also a need for extreme secrecy. He also speculates that he sought out relationships with older women because he was emotionally distant and abused by his mother, while regarding her as intensely beautiful. In the original article he makes it clear that he pursued many relationships with women who would be cheating on someone else, or where there was a sense of secrecy, and other things that could recreate that experience. So the age difference was… Read more »
This happened to me when I was 13. Why it is wrong: there are many complicated reasons, and one simple reason. The simple reason is: the kind of woman who seeks a “relationship” with young boys is usually a very sick person who wants to cause harm. These women cause harm in the typical female way: with vicious and cruel manipulation calculated to do the maximum lasting harm. There are many other reasons, but this is the easiest to understand. Predators are not kind or compassionalte. They are just as cruel and abusive in the way that they TREAT their… Read more »
“Predators are not kind or compassionate. They are just as cruel and abusive in the way that they TREAT their victims, as they are in the way they CHOSE their victims.”
My vote for comment of the day!
So……is it that early sexual experience is the problem, or is it early sexual experience with much older adults that’s the problem?
Because we seem collectively fine on the whole with letting two 15 year olds have sex with each other.
The difference is that two 15 year olds are two 15 year olds that are more then likely experimenting rather then being drawn in by an adult who “should” know better. And even at 15, there can be ramifications.
I don’t discount this subject, but I have to say, I’m one of those guys who thinks “I wish I had a horny older woman who wanted to do me when I was 15.” I can see how it might be damaging if a young teen is led on to believe there is a real possibility of relationship with the older adult, but really I have a difficulty understanding how and why someone is so “damaged” by such a consensual thing in their teens, unless their damage arises from earlier development. Or maybe, from the puritanical attitudes and reactions which… Read more »
OK, now just reading most of the original article from Elle, I see it IS a matter of an older MARRIED woman leading him on emotionally. But what if the adult woman is clear that she just wants sex? What if she offers no illusion of a romantic relationship–in fact, discourages the thought of it?
The question is this, for me: If it were a 40 year old man and a 15 year-old girl, would you feel differently about it?
If so, why? Are our boys somehow better at making decisions at age 15? No. Do they somehow deserve or need less protection from the grown-ups charged with caring for them? No.
A 15 year-old is a 15 year-old.
Yup and that’s the long and short of it Joanna. There is a lot of discussions regarding stereotyping males and isn’t it a stereotype to look at guys and expect them to bag a babe at ab early age, the proverbial beginning of the notches on the bed post?
Interesting that this article comes at the same time where another article was written “New Study: Black Children Lose Protection of Assumed ‘Childhood Innocence’ Long Before Adulthood” I haven’t read the article yet by the title, I would presume it has to do with kids growing up to fast.
@ Joanna, First of all, I think some 15 year olds are 35, and others are 5. Nevertheless, I’m not saying this kind of encounter is necessarily a good thing. I agree that boys and girls are equally precious and deserving of protection. I guess it’s all in how you view the situation, and I’m trying to think outside the box. The truth is most of these atypical early spring/early autumn encounters are probably harmful. If someone is emotionally attracted to someone much older, they are probably looking for a parental figure, and their feelings will undoubtedly be shattered at… Read more »
So often we hear that boys are 2-3 years behind girls in their teens and into their twenties as to their emotional development…… So…. wouldn’t it be Worse, more damaging to a boy than to a girl? Girls on average are culturally prepared to handle these issues to a better extent than boys….yet if it’s a boy it treated as ” no harm no foul ” Why? Why do we as a culture have this blind spot toward emotional and sexual abuse, but only when it’s targeted at males?
“Why do we as a culture have this blind spot towards emotional and sexual abuse, but only when it’s targeted at males?”
Because men/boys are disposable!
@ Paul When I was in high school, we had a retreat at a women’s college dorm. The high school boys were housed on 3, the high school girls on 4, the college women on 2, and the first floor had the shared amenities like gym, cafeteria, etc. I won’t get into the details, but I had sex with some of the college women. I was 15 a week or so away from 16 so if any of those women were 20 or older it would have been statutory rape. There was a pretty good possibility that at least one… Read more »
One of the worst things about being sexualized too young is….it does feel good…..It opens up a need/craving that begs to be fed…….you actively look forward to it…….You may not be ready for it emotionally yet you are too young too naive to stay away. That is both boys and girls…..I’ve spoken to many other people that “Started young” also about this.
@ trey1963 I’m not trying to justify what they did at all. I also don’t want people to get the wrong impression of them. The age difference wasn’t extreme. Although I highly doubt all those women were under 20 / 21, I don’t think any were over 23 / 24. I would be extremely surprised if someone wasn’t statutorily raped or had some other sex related statutory violation that weekend whether me or a classmate. I think it was a crime driven by opportunity. Not many males normally present. Something told them it was wrong. They didn’t approach us initially.… Read more »
If what you described happened more than 10 years ago, these college women couldn’t be accused of statutory rape (at least not in New York). In cases where the ‘of age’ person was female, the most you could charge them with was something along the lines of ‘contributing to the delinquency of a minor’. Basically the same charge you’d face if you gave them a cigarette or a beer.
@ Paul,
The entire relationship is plain wrong. Enough said.