Talking Taboos: Breaking the Silence on Male Survivors with We Are Survivors

And I know, Caleb, you just mentioned sexual harms.

I'd love for you to kind of explain why you use the term rather than rape or assault, we are survivors, or I guess, as well as.

And could you talk a little bit more about this?

Yeah.

So I think the fundamental principle is we don't ask someone to arrive to the service with the right label for what's happened to them.

We want them to use an opening term so they might know that a sexual experience was unwanted or damaging, but might not be able to put a particular offence or a particular description to that word.

So it's as opening and as broad as possible so that someone can connect to that phrase.

That doesn't mean we avoid words like assault or rape, but we want someone to be able to come to us and explore what's going on with them.

We also know that men are less likely to use those words.

And there's some narratives that, you know, some people still believe that men can't be raped so that they wouldn't associate their experience with that terminology.

So for us, it's really important that we're as accessible to people as possible.

And have you received feedback from service users about kind of that opening term as you put it?

So, not explicitly.

However, what we have seen is more people referring into the service.

um with a less defined terminology of what's happened to them so we're getting people at a point where they feel able to explore with us and not have to come in with the right word or the right experience and that can be at any point in somebody's life and i'm sure we'll talk about a little bit later on but there's still a lot of myths around what can and can't happen to a man

And why do you think that sexual harm against men, boys, non-binary people is talked about even less than it is for other groups?

So there's still the expectations around masculinity.

Men can't be victims.

Men are still framed as perpetrators, the ones that are committing the harm.

Yeah.

There's lots of stuff around sexuality, so that if someone has had sexual harms committed to them, their sexuality is going to come into it.

The CSA Centre that we work with has done lots of research on this, and there's lots of intersectionality about things like race, sexuality, disability, class... all this stuff that can then impact somebody's vulnerability towards sexual harms.

And me and Christopher have spoke about this before, but there are certain behaviours that, again, which we're going to talk about, that get laughed away.

But if an image of a man or boy is shared of a nude, for example, it's seen as banter.

If someone's on a stag do and they're stripped and tied to a pole, it's seen as a laugh.

And I know, Caleb, you just mentioned sexual harms.

I'd love for you to kind of explain why you use the term rather than rape or assault, we are survivors, or I guess, as well as.

And could you talk a little bit more about this?

Yeah.

So I think the fundamental principle is we don't ask someone to arrive to the service with the right label for what's happened to them.

We want them to use an opening term so they might know that a sexual experience was unwanted or damaging, but might not be able to put a particular offence or a particular description to that word.

So it's as opening and as broad as possible so that someone can connect to that phrase.

That doesn't mean we avoid words like assault or rape, but we want someone to be able to come to us and explore what's going on with them.

We also know that men are less likely to use those words.

And there's some narratives that, you know, some people still believe that men can't be raped so that they wouldn't associate their experience with that terminology.

So for us, it's really important that we're as accessible to people as possible.

And have you received feedback from service users about kind of that opening term as you put it?

So, not explicitly.

However, what we have seen is more people referring into the service.

um with a less defined terminology of what's happened to them so we're getting people at a point where they feel able to explore with us and not have to come in with the right word or the right experience and that can be at any point in somebody's life and i'm sure we'll talk about a little bit later on but there's still a lot of myths around what can and can't happen to a man

And why do you think that sexual harm against men, boys, non-binary people is talked about even less than it is for other groups?

So there's still the expectations around masculinity.

Men can't be victims.

Men are still framed as perpetrators, the ones that are committing the harm.

Yeah.

There's lots of stuff around sexuality, so that if someone has had sexual harms committed to them, their sexuality is going to come into it.

The CSA Centre that we work with has done lots of research on this, and there's lots of intersectionality about things like race, sexuality, disability, class... all this stuff that can then impact somebody's vulnerability towards sexual harms.

And me and Christopher have spoke about this before, but there are certain behaviours that, again, which we're going to talk about, that get laughed away.

But if an image of a man or boy is shared of a nude, for example, it's seen as banter.

If someone's on a stag do and they're stripped and tied to a pole, it's seen as a laugh.