Surviving . . .

One day at a time

Joe was a typical fifth grader who liked riding his bike and playing with GI Joe action figures.

Like many boys his age, he took every opportunity to miss school. When he learned seeing the school psychologist would get him out of class, he said he was having problems dealing with his grandfather's death.

Asking that his last name not be used, the junior majoring in business at the University described how the psychologist molested him in a small school room near the boys' bathroom.

First, the man just masturbated in front of Joe. Next, the man touched him and performed oral sex on him. The sexual abuse reached its worst point when the man made Joe touch his penis until the man ejaculated.

"I didn't know how to tell someone. I knew it was wrong. I knew I didn't want it to continue," he said.

Assault at any age

Although sexual abuse or assault at any age is devastating, there are important differences between childhood and adult sexual assault.

"It is even more traumatic and is so devastating because important boundaries are violated," said Patty Johnstone, assistant director of the Center for Women Students. "Children are not supposed to be touched in a sexual way in our culture. . . . One way children deal with being assaulted is to totally block it out."

There are differences between adult and childhood sexual assault, but little differs between how men and women react to abuse or assault. Reactions are not based so much on gender as when and how the abuse or assault happened.

"His experience would also be similar to women who went through childhood sexual abuse," she said. "It's not so much an issue of gender, but the kind of assault experience -- the age, the type of assault, who the perpetrator was."

Surviving

To try to end the abuse, Joe typed a letter to his principal describing what happened. His sister-in-law found the note in his room and told his parents.

The police pressed charges, but a jury found the man not guilty. Joe went from an outgoing child to a recluse who rarely spoke to people.

"I totally built a social wall around myself. I wouldn't let anyone get near me," he said. That wall kept out even those closest to him -- including his father.

"My father would come up and put his arm around me and I would feel so uncomfortable. This whole incident emotionally screwed everything up inside," Joe said.

Joe would pray for someone to kill the man who molested him. He would carry a wrench to school to protect himself. Even as a senior in high school, people still teased him about the incident.

For Joe, one of the hardest things to deal with is that the man may have kept molesting children. Police are now charging the man with molesting several mentally retarded boys.

"I want to be able to testify in this trial. I'm very afraid of what will happen if he gets off again," he said. "You have no idea what hell these kinds are going to go through. I'm amazed I've lived through it. Now he's picking on even less believable people."

While Joe has survived to talk about his experience, his words reveal the scars.

He doesn't trust the justice system. He lost his faith in God.

"I have a hard time understanding if there is a God why he allows such horrible things to happen and allows them to happen over and over," he said.

It has also left him an emotional stone. He didn't even cry when the jury returned the not guilty verdict. Talking about the topic, his blue eyes remain dry.

"A big part of my innocence and youth was lost. I have zero social skills because I was so alienated while this was going on. Nobody wanted to socialize with me. . . . You can't imagine how embarrassing it is -- especially when you feel homosexuality is a total abomination -- to say this thing happened," he said. "I didn't want anyone to know, but I couldn't take it anymore."

Close to home

Although Joe was molested in a New Jersey elementary school, a similar crime happened in State College on Jan. 31.

A man was indecently assaulted in his home on South Atherton Street around 4 a.m. by another man, according to the State College Police Department.

Police cannot release any more information because the alleged assault is still being investigated, said Sgt. John Wilson.

Working as a detective for 10 years, Wilson said male sexual assaults are rarely reported.

"Only a small percentage of sexual assaults are reported. Male sexual assaults are reported even less often than sexual assaults against women," he said.

According to FBI statistics, about one in 10 rapes involves a male victim. Other reports have found that between 7 percent and 16 percent of college men have been raped. The U.S. Department of Justice documents more than 13,000 cases of male rape each year.

Determining the actual number of male rapes is extremely difficult because rape is a crime vastly under-reported by both sexes. Only one in 50 women who are raped report the crime to the police, according to the National Victim Center. Experts say men are even more unwilling to report the crime, partly due to misconceptions about male rape.

One myth is that only gay men are raped. The truth is that in most rapes both the victim and the rapist are heterosexual, Johnstone said.

"It's much more likely to be a heterosexual man raping another man because it's about power and control -- not sex," she said. "I think it's another myth that keeps us from confronting what rape is about."

Another myth is that a man should have been able to defend himself and prevent his attacker from raping him.

"Oftentimes, a man can no more defend himself than a woman," she said.