“A Very Steep Climb”: Therapists’ Perspectives on Barriers to Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse Experiences for Men

ABSTRACT

Recent studies indicate that men experience unique barriers to disclosure of child sexual abuse. Blind spots held by mental health providers and social service agencies may inadvertently help produce and sustain these barriers. However, therapists who specialize in treating this population may also hold important insights into the barriers clients face. Because delayed and nondisclosure of child sexual abuse have been associated with negative mental health outcomes for adult survivors, understanding these barriers is critical to improve clinical practice and facilitate help-seeking. Using conventional content analysis, this study examined the perceptions of nine therapists who specialize in the treatment of men who were sexually abused in childhood, many of whom are considered pioneers in the field. Analyses identified nine types of barriers, which were organized into three categories: intrapersonal experience (difficult feelings, lack of language, and self-engagement), social milieu (internalized social stigma, negative responses, social loss or judgment, and masculine identity dissonance), and health care environment (structural barriers, relational challenges with therapists, and unhelpful therapeutic strategies). Implications for future research, clinical training, and clinical practice are discussed.     

Ethnicity,ideology and academia

This essay examines the cultural politics of gender performance in relation to the conditions of intelligibility in Chinese society. Cultural imaginings of gender in China are influenced not only by the ideological apparatuses but also by a traditional mode of epistemology that sustains a regime of collective make-believe wherein homosexual subjects are regarded as unintelligible. Although homosexuality exists in social reality, the lack of its own truthful representation creates numerous misunderstandings that prevent the development of a positive identity in Chinese culture, and homosexual sensibilities are suppressed by the hegemony of cultural values that drive sexual deviants to self-negation and self-sacrifice. Fe/male impersonation, as an oblique mode of expression, reveals a radical difference in desire which, undefined by the existing measures of epistemology, characterizes a phantasmal situation of the obscure human passion that fails to produce full presence in Chinese cultural space.     

女性主体的确立和男性神话的颠覆——解读海伦·加纳的《小天地里的大世界》

澳大利亚女作家海伦.加纳是打破女性客体地位的先驱者,她在90年代初出版的中篇小说《小天地里的大世界》里,从各个方面着力强调了女性的主体地位。本文从摆脱"他者"的女性、颠覆男性神话的女性作品、女性话语权和对人际关系的控制等几个方面解读这部作品。     

The Queer Periphery: Sexual Deviancy and the Cultural Understanding of Space

ABSTRACT

The association of normative sexuality with the geographical center and sexual deviancy with the geographical periphery represents a pattern of thinking that has stayed with us in different guises throughout history. The article traces this pattern and some of its complex ramifications from the ancient Greeks to the present.     

Gay Monogamy: I Love You But I Can't Have Sex With Only You

Assuming isomorphism between heterosexual and homosexual relationships may preclude a contextual understanding of gay male monogamy and extra-dyadic sex that may otherwise remain perfunctory. This study sought to explore the experiences of gay men who engaged in extra-dyadic sex outside their primary relationships. Based on qualitative interviews with eight gay men, this study may shed light on the relational structures and processes of same-sex unions. Several strategies including compartmentalization, boundary affirmation and secretiveness were reported to be utilized to preserve emotional monogamy and primary relationship quality. Such findings may bear relevance to therapeutic practitioners working with this group that may challenge normative relationship conventions.     

The HMS African Revisited: The Royal Navy and the Homosexual Community

The article contains both a survey of writings on homosexuality in military organizations since the early 1970s, and a reexamination of the homoerotic involvements on the Royal Navy's HMS Africaine from 1811 to 1815. The Africaine affair, first studied by Arthur N. Gilbert in 1974, involved a sexually active coterie on board the ship that included a large segment of the crewmembers. Analytical structures for studying all-male sexuality 30 years ago have gradually been superseded by new theoretical paradigms, and these more recently developed approaches can be used effectively to provide a greater understanding of the events that led to a series of courts martial and the hanging of four of the Africaine's men in 1816.     

匍匐在男权阴影下的乡村女性——论毕飞宇《玉米》系列中的女性形象

毕飞宇的《玉米》系列作品通过细腻的心理刻画、生动的情节叙述,塑造了一个个鲜活的农村女性形象：理智早熟、工于心计的女强人玉米;漂亮聪明、要强风流的小妖女玉秀;聪颖娇媚的红颜祸水柳粉香;被蹂躏却又沉默的王家庄的其他女人们。她们个性迥异,但却命运同悲——匍匐在男权阴影下艰难求生,在不如意的生存困境中奋力抗争,最终却不能改变自己悲惨的命运。她们悲惨的命运折射的是那个特殊年代权利对人性的腐蚀。     

The Relationship Between Anxiety and Sexual Functioning in Lesbians and Heterosexual Women

The association between anxiety and sexual functioning was studied in relation to women's sexual orientation. Participants in lesbian relationships (n = 42) and heterosexual relationships (n = 78) completed the Multidimensional Anxiety Questionnaire and Female Sexual Function Index. No difference was found between groups on the anxiety measure, but lesbians scored higher than heterosexuals on sexual functioning scales for arousal and orgasm. Intercorrelations among sexual functioning scales were dissimilar for lesbians and heterosexuals. Among heterosexuals, anxiety was negatively correlated with overall sexual functioning, lubrication, orgasm, and pain, but among lesbians anxiety was uncorrelated with all sexual functioning variables.     

Hirschfeld to Hooker to Herek to High Schools: A Study of the History and Development of GLBT Empirical Research,Institutional Policies,and the Relationship Between the Two

Empirical gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) research has passed through three stages. Transitions between stages have been caused by an interaction of empirical research and institutional policies. The first period is from the late 1800s up to 1972, when research focused on categorizing homosexuality as a disease, treatments for homosexuality, and then research refuting the disease model. The second period ran from 1972 to approximately 1990, when researchers began to apply the disease model not to GLBT persons, but rather to those having negative attitudes toward homosexuality (homophobia), and researchers began to look at what it was like to be a GLBT person from GLBT persons' perspectives. The third period began in the early 1990s and continues today, when researchers focus on institutions, particularly action research aimed at changing institutions.     

On the Varying Meaning of “Open and Affirming”

Some religious denominations offer programs where member congregations can signal their acceptance of all gender identities and sexual orientations. The United Church of Christ (UCC) created one of the earliest of such programs in the mid-1980s by which congregations can adopt an “Open and Affirming” identity. However, there has been little research examining this program and how it has evolved over time. Research suggests that organizational innovations like the Open and Affirming program often become institutionalized over time, leading to changes in how the program is expressed or conducted. We examine Open and Affirming (ONA) congregations in the UCC to see if the manner in which they express their ONA identity depends on when they adopted the identity. We find that early adopters of such programs are more likely than later adopters to focus on sexual orientation. While this could be seen as a troubling pattern, we argue that it could represent greater awareness of the Open and Affirming program's meaning, which has allowed for greater flexibility in its expression.