Brave Worcester man who was raped speaks out — A COURAGEOUS father has spoken of his rape ordeal in the hope other male survivors of sex attacks will come forward. Pete Shirley, of Bromyard Road, St John’s, Worcester, refuses to let the attack destroy him and hopes that by waiving his legal right to anonymity he will encourage other men to report rape.
CAPS offering Male Survivors therapeutic support group this spring — Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at Penn State is offering a group this spring for male students who have had unwanted, abusive or confusing sexual experiences at some point in their lives, which may still be affecting them.
Editorial: The war on young boys — The Obama Administration, through Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U S. Attorney general Eric Holder, have issued new guidelines designed to end or at least restrict “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies in schools.
‘Happy Valley’: Jerry Sandusky’s son speaks out against family in new documentary — Jerry Sandusky’s adopted son Matt appears in the new documentary “Happy Valley” about the scandal that landed his father in jail for 30-60 years on 45 counts of child sexual abuse, and took down Penn State University coaching legend Joe Paterno.
Judge rules Kansas sperm donor must pay child support — A man who provided sperm to a lesbian couple in response to an online ad is the father of a child born to one of the women and must pay child support, a Kansas judge ruled Wednesday. Topeka resident William Marotta had argued that he had waived his parental rights and didn’t intend to be a father.
Marist Brother charged with sex abuse of 21 boys — A MARIST brother charged with sexually abusing 21 students allegedly terrified one student to the point where ‘‘he just had to look at me and I would wet my pants’’, court documents have shown. Francis William Cable, 81, known to Marist Brothers students at Maitland and Hamilton as Brother Romuald, was committed yesterday to stand trial on more than 50 charges of indecent assault and buggery. He has not entered pleas.
No Jail for Mom Who Left Sons in Storage Unit — The mother of two children who were living periodically in a 5-by-10-foot unit at a central New Jersey storage facility will not have to serve a prison sentence. Authorities say 28-year-old Sheena Johnson pleaded guilty Friday to child abuse and contempt charges as part of a plea deal that calls for her to serve four years of probation. She initially was charged with child endangerment after her sons, then ages 5 and 10, were found last April.
Twisting Sexual-Assault Statistics — ‘It is estimated that one in five women on college campuses has been sexually assaulted during their time there — one in five,” President Obama said on Wednesday. The occasion for this lecture: He was announcing the creation of a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. It’s a startlingly high number that figured prominently in the leads of media reports on the announcement.
Why Do Some Falsely Claim to Be Victims? — Dayna Morales, a New Jersey waitress, made national news last month when she claimed she was left a hate-filled, anti-gay note instead of a tip. Last week, she came under fire when she was accused of faking the incident.
Toy Soldiers 
“CAPS offering Male Survivors therapeutic support group this spring ”
This is the first I’ve heard of a college men’s CSA/ASA group. 1in6 was said to be promoting them as well but I’ve never heard of any action/results. Years go by and it seems nothing changes.
Toysoldier, can you do an article on the conversation I had with Joanna in this commentary page?
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/helping-my-son-remove-the-masculinity-mask-shesaid/#comments
There was a latest response from me that was put into moderation and not there (likely deleted). But it shows just how utterly out of touch she, and feminists of her ilk, are with the health of boys. There’s more comments from her in the thread that shed light as well.
I can even send you the exchange I had with her on record via e-mail if it ever gets deleted completley
Eagle, when I get the chance I will read the comments. If anything is deleted, please email the discussion.
Eagle, I can’t post anything on GMP. I tried again with something so sacherine it was nearly nauseating – without success. I believe I am utterly banned.
and that banning apples to Greg Allan and gwallan.
Greg, if you’re banned then it’s not worth seeing if your comment will get through on sheer luck of the draw.
Don’t bother. I’m actually taking Joanna to task since she’s so adamant about defending feminism and covering up its blemishes. Hence in another comment she says:
“The nature of feminism is to achieve equality in the sexes. It has focused on women and girls because we were so far behind with rights and equality for so long (and in many, many ways still are).”
Toysoldier, I eagerly await your article on this because it underlies my major frustration with people like her and riles me up emotionally since we’re talking about the health of boys in that forum.
Eagle, Joanna is incapable of empathy for any male, boy or man. I’d love to have a face to face conversation with her. I suspect her bigotry could be drawn out very easily.
Greg, I do not think that is fair. While I agree that Joanna tends to run to the defense of feminism no matter what, I cannot say she is incapable of empathy towards males. I do think that her desire to protect and value feminism blinds her to the negative elements of feminism.
Eagle, I read the exchange (or at least what is still available to read). From what I can see, the original post was benign, although it did focus on feminism being the solution.
Your response had nothing to do with Gonzalez’s article. I understand the point of your question, however, it was out of place. I cannot say whether Gonzalez would react differently if girls bullied her son. Judging by her responses, I assume that she might take it less seriously given the nature of her feminist position. Yet that is just an assumption. I think in this instance, you jumped the gun with your initial comment.
That said, Joanna did not help matters. Joanna, Gonzalez, and many of the writers on the Good Men Project write about what other people would do in a given situation. The very premise of the article is based around assuming to know what situation all men are in based on Gonzalez’s interaction with her barely pubescent son. One could argue that it is “offensive and presumptuous” to state that men are trapped behind a masculinity mask.
Likewise, there are scores of articles on the blog assuming how men and boys will behave in a given situation, with an undo portion revolving around men and boys being rapists waiting to prey on helpless women. I have not seen any article from Joanna or any of the feminists invited to write for the blog that makes any differentiation between “good” and “bad” men. There is a very common “males are bad until we feminists fix them” refrain on that site. In other words, it is the bad men who get to define men and masculinity. That makes it ironic for Joanna to complain that because “there are bad feminists who are jerks to men does not define our movement, which has been in place for generations.”
Less than 2% of men commit rape, but it is fine to judge all men by those few. A substantially larger portion of feminists treat men terribly, but let us not judge all feminists by that sizable minority.
I doubt that Joanna will ever understand your experiences, Eagle. I doubt that if Gonzalez’s son were bullied by a girl she would understand it either. You are dealing with ideology, so nuance usually goes out the window. Both of them are convinced they are right, I am sure that if someone presented in explicit detail a horrific act of abuse committed by a feminist against someone, both Gonzalez and Joanna would claim sympathy but neither of them ever connect that feminist’s actions with their ideology.
This is why I do not believe Joanna when she claims that she supports male survivors. Too much of her demonstrated views suggests that she is simply saying the right thing and does not take the issue seriously. I think her view is that men’s issues are “legitimate” problems to extent that they either impact women or prevent men from becoming feminists.
My suggestion would be to spare yourself the headache, create your own blog, and write about what you want to there.
Looking back on it, I did jump the gun.
Thing is though, I just got triggered by this whole “Masculinity Mask” thing and the whole “Feminism Is For Everyone” declaration. In my anger, I wanted to demolition them and show the people that feminism isn’t perfect, removing masculinity masks isn’t the whole solution and that there are areas it’s basically flawed in.
Maybe I should just avoid articles like that from now on. Save me from falling off the deep end again.
But Toysoldier, I’m still surrounded by a world that still treats girls like they can’t do no harm. I mean, how do I deal with it? Aside from my writing?
“While I agree that Joanna tends to run to the defense of feminism no matter what, I cannot say she is incapable of empathy towards males. ”
She is capable of empathy towards males, it’s just that she always prioritized the defense of feminism over that. And since feminism is part of her identity that pretty mucuh means her empathy is subordinated to her self-interest – so it’s not real empathy.
Eagle, my suggestion is to continue to speak out about the issue, but chose your fights and your words wisely. Everyone will not want to listen to you, and there are plenty of times when it is a waste of time to talk about the issue with certain people. If you look back on the comments I made on GMP, you may notice that I limited most of my comments to discussing violence against males statistically and generally and critiquing feminism generally. I never went into any specifics about my experiences, whether as an advocate or a survivor. When asked about my personal experiences, I kept things basic. This was because I knew the crowd I would be dealing with and understood that revealing personal experiences would carry little weight.
I think that sometimes you let your frustration and anger take control. The world is the way it is, and it cannot be changed overnight. As a result of people like you speaking up, people like Joanna now have to at least give lip service to men’s issues. Keep that up, but know when to take a break. Every comment and article does not need a response. If responded to every stupid thing I read online I would never have any time to breath. Sometimes saying nothing speaks volumes.
I great example is the comment thread on that article. All the people who supported it were feminists. No non-feminists backed it, and to my knowledge very few non-feminists participate on that site. The vast majority of the writers are women writing about men’s issues. The Good Men Project is a complete failure in that regard because it only includes certain men’s voices and a dominance of female voices. Let them talk amongst themselves and continue to miss the point.
Ginkgo, that is my view of Joanna as well. What I find most annoying is that Joanna openly defends feminism at the drop of a die, then claims she does nothing of the sort and takes immediate offense if someone says otherwise. That kind of passive aggressive response does not help her position, and it also does not work well on emotionally distant people like me.
@TS…
You were not involved in the email communication I had with the individual concerned.
Damn, too quick on the button.
When one puts political ideology ahead of compassion they ARE absent of any empathy. Ideology depends on stereotyping which is fundamentally dehumanising to the individual.
Eagle…
This from TS is very good advice…
“I never went into any specifics about my experiences, whether as an advocate or a survivor. When asked about my personal experiences, I kept things basic. This was because I knew the crowd I would be dealing with and understood that revealing personal experiences would carry little weight.”
Personally I am hopeless at speaking to my own circumstances. Contrarily if I’m doing it on behalf of others I have no difficulty. We need to accept that the vast majority will not take male victims – particularly of female perpetrators – seriously and even many who do will still believe it to be something less.
Okay but how else am I going to shed the light on girls getting away with bullying boys (at which I’m passionate about advocating against)? There’s no research on it, nobody’s talking about it. What else have I got left except my own experiences?
Greg, what conversation was that? I am just curious. I had several exchanges with Joanna and Lisa Hickey when I asked them to remove my pieces from their site.
Eagle, there is some research about girl’s violence about boys. You can use that. You can also use examples from news reports about female-on-male violence to show that it occurs more often than people think. Using your own experiences as an example only to an extent. Your are too close to it, so when someone dismisses it you may take it personally. Using broader examples can lessen that impact.
Also, I again say that you should pick your battles. Every conversation does not need to be about that subject. Wait until someone starts painting bullying as something only boys do to mention how frequently girls bully others. Think tactically, not emotionally. You are trying to convince people to take the issue seriously, so you need to present them with the chance to do it. Give them the information that you know of and allow them to accept or reject it. You cannot make anyone take these issues seriously. They have to choose to do it on their own.
That is one of the reasons why I annoy feminists so much. I am not invested in convincing them. I argue based on evidence and research, and only add in the personal when it suits my position. Do the research. Look up the information. Maybe there are not many studies about girls bullying boys. However, as I mentioned above, there are plenty of studies showing female-on-male violence. That is something you can use to show this is a valid issue.
And try not to take it personally. I understand it is frustrating, but the honest truth is that people Joanna do not care. They do not care if you are upset, they do not care that you were hurt, and they do not care how important the issue is to you. Why waste your time getting angry at them if they are going to brush it off?