Life has a tendency to get in the way from time to time. So on this Sunday afternoon, I had to think about why I began writing in the first place. It wasn't that I was just good at it. After all, I've played the role of the team captain of my own cheer leading squad many times. But with that being said, that wasn't the reason why I began writing.
There is a saying that I'm sure that you've heard me say from time to time; and that's "A writer, writes." I think that that particular saying says it all. In addition to that are the ideas that form in my mind. My work has to have meaning. "Bruthas" had meaning. I was able to tell an interesting story through characters and address social issues that were and will probably always be dear to my heart.
This brings me to my current work which I want to release this year. It is called "Forty-Five Years of Dark" and it is the true story of my life as a sexual abuse survivor. Men don't normally talk about this much less write about it.
As a gay man, I think that we handle sexual abuse differently than our heterosexual counterparts. I know that speaking for myself, it was hard to negotiate the waters of social interaction from time to time. From an emotional perspective, something was thrown out of whack for me and continued to be until I realized what it was. Abuse survivors deal with their own issues of molestation differently.
This next book will have meaning for me. Writing it was theraputic. It's creation involved some deep soul searching. Here is an unedited excerpt:
45 Years of Dark
Men, as a rule don’t
like classifying themselves as victims.
Boys are brought up to be strong.
We are reared to be protectors of our women, children and homes. We are taught to be fearless in the face of
adversity, and there is nothing wrong with that. But being a victim is not a virtue. We consider it a weakness, and because of
that, we remain silent. We talk about
the occasions where we are victims; but just because we don’t talk about it
doesn’t make us any less a victim.
Heterosexual men
respond differently to molestation than gay men respectively. But individually, each man reacts in a way
that coincides with their nature as well as what was physically done to
them. I am not a licensed psychologist,
but I believe that if a man who identifies himself as a heterosexual is
violated by another man as a child, his response may be anger, first and
foremost because engaging in sex with another man is not in his nature. He is literally being forced to do something
that he does not want to do and feels powerless to stop it. This may create feelings of helplessness,
followed by anger; but as a child, you may not know the reason why. You may not necessarily be emotionally
equipped to connect the dots.
A homosexual man may
respond completely different to being molested by another man. For gay men, sleeping with men is
natural. Having sex with an adult man
may even be construed as a badge of honor.
It would be no different than a heterosexual man having sex with an
adult woman.
But simply because a
boy has sex with an adult, whether that adult be male or female; the fact
remains that an adult is having sex with child, and it doesn’t matter if that
child gives their consent or not. The
adult is in control. They know better
and should exercise restraint and self-control.
We know that children
don’t look like children nowadays. We
know that children are physically maturing at a faster rate than just
twenty-years ago. But simply because a
child physically looks like an adult doesn’t make them an adult. That child isn’t capable of making a decision
such as consenting to indulge in a sexual act with an adult. They are not emotionally equipped do so. They think they are, but they aren’t. Anyone beneath the age of 14 doesn’t
understand the ramifications of sex. All
they know is that it feels good.
And as for the adult,
all they know is that it feels good to them even if it doesn’t to the
child. In their mind, they think that
the child will ultimately forget what is being done to them. They may convince themselves that the child
is enjoying the act just as much as they are, and that the enjoyment translates
to no emotional damage being done. They
couldn’t be more wrong.
~ J.L. Whitehead
