Can we talk about the football sex abuse scandal?

I think the sex of the abuser is incredibly important. In 99% of sexual abuse cases the perpetrator is male. Why would that be? What should be done about it?

I agree that this is important. It's a gendered issue. Prentending that it isn't only serves to cloud the issue and help perpetrators.

WomanWithAltitude I'm not disagreeing with you, and I think this is a discussion for people with far wider reading and research than I'm capable of at the moment, I'm really sorry.

I do agree that there is a discrepancy between the validity of sexual abuse claims made my women and men, and I would like to read more into it.

I wear a short dress, high heels, red lipstick and a thong and I'm raped vaginally because I'm 'gagging for it' because I've had a glass of wine. A 10-year-old boy is told to masturbate his coach in order to get a game. Yes, I do think the two crimes are equally deplorable, and each should be considered equal in the eyes of the law. I don't know what the sentencing tariffs are, but please don't downplay the experiences of the footballers. They are as much a victim as I am.

We still have anonymity where we might never truly know how many accusers, of either sex, there are.

All I know is I believe you.

Devi

What does it matter the sex of the person committing the abuse? I disagree on this. I think the sex of the abuser is incredibly important. In 99% of sexual abuse cases the perpetrator is male. Why would that be? What should be done about it?

If we can't name the problem then we can't answer those questions.

SoFeckingCross it takes one person coming forward to say this happened to them for the tower to fall.

Saville. Yes, I felt physically sick the day I watched the police announcement from the Met saying this was a serious investigation. Adam Johnson, I've hidden all the threads to do with that. Ditto Evans.

The issue that I have, responding to the original post, asking Is it taken more seriously because primarily boys now men were affected?, my answer would be yes and no. Yes because of the people involved, no because I think if high profile sportswomen said that their coach abused them I would hope it would come to light in the same way. Unfortunately we don't have that many women athletes who are in the spotlight. The footballers who have come forward aren't in the spotlight now, but if, say, Beth Tweddle, Rebecca Adlington, Ellie Simmonds, Jess Ennis said 'this also happened' I would hope it would also generate the same media attention.

I know the people who are in the media right now are men, but isn't it a positive thing that they've come forward with encouraging signals from the media that abuse within sport is a taboo that needs to be brought to light?

I have every sympathy for these men and glad that they now feel able to tell what happened to them. At the same time i think it is undeniable that they are getting a more sympathetic hearing than girls/women in the same situation get.

I notice that there is going to be a programme on Channel 4 tonight about teachers in Mozambique who demand 'sex for grades'. I know that there won't be anything like the same outrage about it and yet the situation where youngsters are working hard and wanting to do well is very similar.

And yes, I agree that class pays a part. A man who isn't in a privileged position might well be portrayed as a 'rent boy', just like the girls in Rotherham had 'chosen to be prostitutes'.

I do think the fact that the victims were male plays a part. (There is still an undercurrent of homophobia to judgements about paedophilia, a kind of tacit assumption in some quarters that a man abusing a boy is somehow worse than a man abusing a girl because the former is "unnatural". It shouldn't be so, but I think it is).

I have noticed this in a case where a man was accused of sexually assaulting another man. The male victim was also gay. A lot of people were making comments like "he probably liked it", "what's the deal? he likes it that way anyway". If he was straight, they would see it as worse.
I think when a man assaults a woman, some people think "it isn't that bad" because, as you say, it's "natural".
So I don't think it's as simple as man assaults woman = fine, man assaults man = bad.
Of course man assaults woman is by far the most common.

I wonder whether there is an awareness that actually there could be a fairly large number of men affected by this... It would be surprising if it turned out to be only one coach. Football coaches have assumed a priest like dominance for a long time.

About abuse generally it was only fifteen or so years ago when most children in the more difficult care homes (and most areas had a care home where their most difficult residents repeatedly ended up in the absence of enough secure accommodation) where being actively predated upon by staff/locals/gangs. Police were never interested when a child over 14 or so absconded or was (abused) known to 'engage' in sexual activity.

I am really sorry and really unsurprised by some of the examples above. Children in care and children in chaotic homes have been abused more often than not - the institutional abuse that has come from churches or sports clubs impacts on children that society doesn't expect to be victims and that generates more attention. That boys with a huge lucrative talent and much support could be victims exposes our anxieties about how we can keep any children safe.

Boogers - you appear to be spectacularly missing the point.

No one is saying that some abuse is worse than others, or that male victims are less/more deserving of our sympathy than female victims, or that people shouldn't come forward.

What we are pointing out are the glaring discrepancies in how different victims are treated - by the police, in the media, and by the public.

That obviously should be *isn't brave.....

That's a good point about Yewtree - class and social standing (in care vs. in nice middle class family) plays into this as well as sex - hence the dismissal back when I was growing up of the male victims of adult male abusers as "rent boys" even when they were way under the age of consent for gay sex as it then was.

I do think it is a great thing that these men have done in waiving their anonymity to come forward, and horrendous that they were subject to abuse. But it doesn't alter the fact that female victims (or male victims in care homes) are treated differently, when they shouldn't be.

There's an interview with Paul Stewart on Sky News. It's heartbreaking.

Absolutely, HeyRoly and Boogers.

I believe them.

Boogers with all respect, no one has said that (a) anyone coming forward is brave (b) that they don't deserve as much help as they need.

What we are saying is that it's a pity that it has taken this to have abuse taken seriously with no victim blaming. And questioning if this is a favorable change in attitude that will carry on and apply to all victims.

Kidnapped

H subscribes to the Mail on Twitter and he tells me random tweets. Yesterday Katie (I hate women and especially women more intelligent than me) Hopkins asked what she could give her father for a 70th birthday present. It was suggested a condom and a time machine. I'll leave that one there.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that male victims of sexual abuse are being treated with dignity and respect, simply that it contrasts very sharply with the treatment of female victims.

WomanWithAltitude Yes! Rape is rape, boy or girl, young or old, man or woman.

No means no, every time. And if the person can't say say yes it doesn't imply yes..

Kidnapped has a very valid point:

We've had no disbelief of the victims, no hounding of victims, no claims that they are all out for compensation, no 'it wasn't that bad' and no 'that's just how things were in the 1980s'

Play that out for the victims of Yewtree.

I still believe the footballers.

Katie Hopkins' headline for Adam Johnson was "Adam Johnson broke the law – with a girl who knew EXACTLY what she was doing - but he’s not a paedophile and he doesn’t deserve prison and a Twitter lynching".

Daily Mail link

If Katie Hopkins is to be consistent, she should be penning her 'These male victims should be ashamed of themselves, they looked older and they knew EXACTLY what they were doing' article as we speak.

I get a feeling that we won't be seeing it.

Kidnapped you're right, and I'm really sorry, I've mixed the two. I'm very sorry, in delirious flu-ridden state with only MN and a mobile to keep me company I've confused the arguments. Again, I'm really sorry.

Johnson was the hebephile. Evans was the, well, yes, we'll leave that there.

It still doesn't detract from my argument. Abuse is abuse, and how it comes to light is irrelevant.

What does it matter the sex of the person committing the abuse? Abuse is abuse, yes?

And if it encourages my 67-year-old uncle to come forward and say 'this happened to him' or if it encourages my teenage son to say 'this is happening to me', then is it really a bad thing?

Boys, girls, women, men, there is help there.

Unfortunately you don't have to look that far to see many examples of cases where this wasn't true for child victims. Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Adam Johnson etc...

I am really interested in how this plays out in the media.

We've had no disbelief of the victims, no hounding of victims, no claims that they are all out for compensation, no 'it wasn't that bad' and no 'that's just how things were in the 1980s'.

Just a story about how awful it is. Which is how it should be, of course.

Don't muddy the waters in describing the events that happened in that Premier Inn in Rhyl with the descriptions that have been described by the players that have so far come forward.

Leaving aside your obvious confusion between Ched Evans and Adam Johnson...

"muddy the waters"? Really? Both examples are rape imo.

Devi My experience sounds sadly similar to yours, except my abuser was a trusted foster carer - and back in the 80s foster carers could do no wrong. I was definitely not believed, in fact if it wasn't for the psychologist sticking up for me (ironically I had been sent there to see why I would lie about such a think) I would have been sent back to them. Instead I was moved to a home for 'troubled girls'.

I am really shocked but sadly not surprised by the football scandal

I do think it's been taken more seriously because the victims coming forward are men, yes.

I wonder how many male victims will come forward to be told they're "just looking for money" (as many female victims of Savile, Harris et al have been told).

I think men are seen as inherently more trustworthy, and there's also an element of "He can't be lying because he's confessed to such a shocking, taboo thing". Female victims don't get anything like that degree of respect.

I'm sorry this has been triggering for you, OP. I hope you don't mind people continuing to discuss it.