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We had a friend visiting this past weekend.  He was on the sofa flipping through cable channels.  I’m focused on enjoying a Blue Bell/Coke float—paying no attention to what’s on the screen.

But my attention perked up when he said, “I just read ‘one in five females is sexually assaulted.’ (long pause)  Is that true?”

“Yes, hard to imagine, but it is. Estimates depend on what study is used.”

Then I added, “and one in six men.”  (l-o-n-g-e-r  pause)

Silence.  End of conversation.  The TV screen had moved on to something else and neither of us said more.

I’ve thought about that exchange several times since – especially about the silence, about what felt like an abrupt end of conversation.  It’s not usual for me to just let that sort of conversation drop (I’ve been having those conversations for a long time).  But this was different. It was with someone close to me, about a subject close to me… I said no more.  And neither did he.

Thankfully, the silence about male sexual abuse is broken more and more often.  Today on the Oprah Winfrey show 200 men will step forward to speak about their own childhood sexual abuse.  It’s the first of two episodes.

The first episode on Friday, Nov. 5, begins as each member of the audience holds a photo of himself at the age at which he says he was first abused. Then, joined by Oprah, Tyler [Perry] and Dr. Howard Fradkin, a psychologist who specializes in working with male survivors of sexual abuse and assault, the men come forward to share their stories and experiences.

In the second episode on Friday, Nov. 12, the men are joined by their spouses, partners and girlfriends to talk about the affects abuse has had on their relationships.

You can read Oprah and Tyler Perry Raise Awareness about Male Sexual Abuse on RAINN’s website to learn more about  male sexual abuse, the program and some of the participants.

I plan to watch and celebrate the breaking of silence as each man speaks.

And I commit to doing more than just bring up the subject of male sexual abuse and  sexual assault.  I will try to provide an opening for the men I know to ask questions, to tell a friend’s experience – or their own – if they choose.

Resources: www.1in6.org;  www.malesurvivor.org; www.rainn.org

Please take a moment to listen to this commentary from sports analyst and commentator, Frank Deford. About one minute and 35 seconds in, he ponders if the American male being ”rendered extraneous” is the cause of golf’s downward spiral. He asks, “How can sensitive modern dads disappear for hours on the links when they have to change diapers, carpool to ballet class and spend their down time getting in touch with their feminine side?”  My first thought? Wow, I didn’t realize I’m being rendered obsolete. Whatever will I do?

And then I recalled recent advertisements that have been trying to warn me of my impending doom. There is the car ad title “Man’s Last Stand” and the Dockers ads imploring men to “wear the pants.” How could I not have seen? All of this feminism running rampant and this reverse sexism are robbing me of my very masculinity – Americans’ lack of dominance in golf is just the tip of the iceberg.

How dare I be expected to be an equal partner in parenting? I only have daughters, so I shouldn’t have to parent at all really – they just need their mother. And how can I be expected to take them to ballet class (or soccer, or football or any other sport they might play in this crazy genderless society)?  I’m just a dad. And what is all this about getting in touch with my feminine side – does that mean I have to say “I love you” to my family and friends and acknowledge that I have emotions other than anger and actually, like, talk to people in a meaningful way? Icky.

Oh wait, that’s right, I forgot, I think that this concept of the impending death of the American male is, well, how to put it nicely, seriously flawed. We still live in a seriously patriarchal society, last time I checked. Women still make less money than men for the same job, men still have a stranglehold on the positions of power in our society (ranging from business to politics to the military) and sexual violence is still being perpetrated primarily by men at extraordinarily high rates against primarily women and children, and that is the tip of the patriarchal iceberg. Poor men, poor us. If the current efforts to create equity across the spectrum of gender (and race, class, age, ability status, etc.) are successful, what will we do if we can’t continue to enjoy the perks of our privilege?

My coworker, Morgan, put it best when we were talking about this issue a few weeks ago. She noted that people in positions of power begin to get uneasy and complain about being left out or marginalized as soon as there is a credible threat to the belief patterns and institutional structures that bestow their privilege upon them. The only way the American man will become obsolete as a result of a steady, but slow march towards equity is if he refuses to change and continues to fight to maintain his privilege. The way it is now, society is not working for women and children, nor is it really working for men.

What are your thoughts on the commentary, the ads and/or the idea that the American man is “being rendered obsolete?”

“Behave,” a special episode of Law and Order:  Special Victim’s Unit will air tonight at 8 p.m.  CST on NBC.  Written by executive producer, Neal Baer, the episode spotlights the backlog of untested evidence collection kits and how that backlog affects survivors and allows perpetrators to escape any accountability for their crimes.

In her Sept. 24 SVU Production blog Mariska Hargitay says,

One of the most rewarding aspects of working on SVU is the show’s ability to shine a light on the problem of sexual violence. This next episode is one of the most meaningful I have ever done, and it stands as a powerful example of the way we aim to raise awareness about these difficult issues.

Rape crisis hotlines may expect an increase in calls during and following the episode which includes information about the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).

When Mariska Hargitay began her role as Detective Olivia Benson on SVU over 10 years ago, she wasn’t prepared for the kinds of “fan” letters she received from victims telling her of sexual assaults they’d suffered, some many years before.  For many of the survivors, Mariska was the first person they’d told about the assault. She was deeply touched by their stories—and motivated to use her visibility and influence to do something about what she saw as a “silenced epidemic.”

I felt a great responsibility to these brave men and women and wanted them to know that they had been heard and that they could have hope. I studied the subject, trained to become a crisis counselor, and used my visibility as an actress to become an advocate.

So, in 2004 Mariska founded the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping survivors heal and reclaim their lives.  Since that time, Mariska’s (and the foundation’s) work to bring a voice to the “silenced epidemic” of sexual violence has expanded significantly.

In May she joined survivors, activists, experts and legislators who testified on the rape kit backlog before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Testimony urged legislators to enact victim-centered reforms and prevent future backlogs.   Mariska specifically stressed that survivors must be at the center of the dialogue and reforms.

These kits represent human beings who have suffered greatly. Testing their rape kits sends victims the fundamental and crucial message that they and their cases matter. Not testing them sends the opposite message.

On Wednesday, the Joyful Heart Foundation will launch a new web project designed to serve as a comprehensive resource on the evidence collection kit backlog:  www.endthebacklog.org.

You can also find excellent resources at http://www.nsvrc.org/projects/eliminating-rape-kit-backlog.

Watch the episode with me tonight.  Then share your responses here or on TAASA’s Facebook page.

“…received eight life sentences for his inappropriateness with a 13-year old girl.”

Inappropriateness?  What on earth does someone do that’s “inappropriate” to end up in jail, much less prison for eight life sentences?

Reading or hearing something like this makes me want to scream!  I want to yell, inappropriately for sure, “Why can’t we call sexual assault, sexual abuse and rape what they are?”  I think it’s important that reporters correctly identify and name these crimes instead of resorting to euphemisms and vague language.  I want to be fair to the writers of this newspaper article .   Most of the report details the trial in which a local resident was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a child and continuous sexual abuse of a young child.  They clearly named those crimes.

They didn’t use terms that minimize victimization or totally obscure the crime.

Until the article’s end, that is.  There we learn this was the second sex offender to be sentenced in four months.    It was the first who “received eight life sentences for his inappropriateness with a 13-year old girl.”

So what do I do beyond feeling angry and frustrated that still it seems so hard to call sexual assault what it is?   I’d like to talk to the two writers, who are both new in the community.  I want to thank them for writing about a child sexual abuse trial and highlighting how important it is for the community to work together to combat sexual abuse.  And then I want to talk about the “inappropriateness with a-13 year old” phrase.

Perhaps now that I’ve cooled down a bit, I can do that.  Any suggestions for what I should say?

Okay, so maybe this is old news to some, but I just saw a commercial for a One A Day vitamin that made me jump off my couch and do that funny yelling at the TV thing as if anyone on it could hear me! The commercial markets two separate vitamins to young men and young women. The formula for young men helps grow strong muscles and the formula for women helps keep skin healthy.

I mean, what marketing genius. I’m so glad that finally someone figured out a way to simplify things and then sell us what we all really need – a product for the essence of who we are as men and women. They had the courage to market a product for young women’s appearance and young men’s physical strength. It just makes sense on so many levels: a)why encourage strong muscles in women when they don’t need strong muscles, they just need a man with strong muscles; b) why promote overall health when outward appearance is paramount for women; and c) why fill a young woman’s head with ideas that she would need to be strong or smart, or anything other than attractive. And as for you men, we all know that “real” men are strong and… and… well, that’s pretty much the entire definition of masculinity. Why worry about anything else, anything at all?

I recognize that this is just another in a long line of troubling over-generalizations and stereotypes based on gender that we see portrayed in the media, but this one floored me and broke my heart. Just hours before watching this commercial, my four-year-old daughter struck the most amazing pose to show off her muscles to me. Am I supposed to go tell her that she’s got it all wrong, that she should just strive to look good and that strength is for boys?