Meer
From reading here, a lot of what makes physical abuse so awful is the emotional aspect to it, both at the time and later. I don't know, but I wonder if the same happens with sexual abuse?
Yes, hugely so.
(I have ended up writing a huge essay here, it was cathartic for me to do so, so I'm posting it hoping it will help other survivors of SA.)
Sexual abusers tend to fall into treating the victim one of two ways:
- Mostly ignoring them, physical punishments, verbal abuse, complete denial of any sexual contact, painting the victim as a compulsive liar or fantasist. From what I have seen working with other survivors, this is the most common tactic for male on male abuse. Also abuse events tend to be isolated rather than ongoing.
- Making the victim in to a favourite with special treatment, praise, treats such as being allowed to stay up late or access to toys/activities that other children are denied. Getting the victim "on side" especially against other members of the family. Isolating the victim from friends and family who might help, often by lying to the victim that these people have done or said something horrible. Building the fantasy in the victim's head that s/he is special and chosen. Perhaps telling the victim that h/she is in love with the abuser and that society won't understand. Often the abuser presents themselves as the helpless fool who the victim is seducing. This tactic is more commonly used when the abuse is frequent and carries on for a long time.
My dad used the second tactic and it was extremely effective. He was very clever and calculating in how he isolated me from my mum and my sister, and from my friends. I felt immense shame over the abuse I endured, because I believed him when he said it was my fault and that I enticed him.
My mum's fucked up reaction, when I finally did tell, was really the nail in the coffin of my mental health. Instead of telling me that it wasn't my fault, and protecting me from him, she told me I must never say anything to anyone and then she... just let him get on with it, basically. Oh but "He said he would stop, so of course I believed him." Yes, okay 
She then completely emotionally withdrew from me, for the next three years while we all lived together (with my younger sister there too!) When I saw signs that he was beginning to groom my sister, I told a teacher and asked for help. For that I was punished for years from my mum. Because I had "aired your dirty laundry to all and sundry". Because I had brought shame on the family. Because I had got social services involved. Because it was my fault that now we didn't have a nice big expensive house and two cars and my mum would have to get a job. My fault.
The sense of betrayal with sexual abuse is huge, and in a way it's very hard to explain. First you feel that your parent betrayed your trust. Then you feel guilty for feeling like that, and as if you betrayed them by breaking up the family. Like you should have just shut up and put up with it.
You are also told that you liked the abuse, that you invited it, and that if you feel any sexual desire for anyone for the rest of your life, it means you're a slag and proves you wanted it. Often you feel terrified of sex but also feel it's the only value you have, so you have sex with a lot of partners even when you don't want to, because otherwise what are you for? What's the point of you?
You are triggered, often to the point of flashbacks and panic attacks, by random phrases, smells, sounds, but you are unable to tell people what's happening because you are so ashamed. Sometimes you wish you could get raped by a stranger because then everyone would sympathise with you and say it wasn't your fault. Then you feel suicidally low for days because only an evil, mad person would think like that.
You meet people who say they have never been raped or abused and you become furiously, bitterly envious. You are consumed with rage and you find yourself wishing they would be attacked so they would finally understand what it's like. Then you think you should just die because you're so evil.
Some days you want to just strike a match and burn the world.
Some days you can't bear to hear or read the word rp and other days you immerse yourself in real life stories and misery memoirs just for the comfort of knowing you aren't the only one.
You drink everything you can and take every drug you can get, even though you know they make you feel worse, because worse is how you should feel, because you're ruined and broken.
You hear your abuser's voice in your head every hour of the day, criticising what you're wearing, what you're doing, how you're moving, telling you he knows all your secrets and nobody's fooled by your nice girl act.
In fact your abuser spends more time talking to you now than when he was actually your parent.
You feel like you're made of ice. Like you've frozen yourself to numbness just to get away from the constant feeling of the abuser's hands on your body. You wish you could take a knife and cut away your breasts, your vulva, your buttocks, because no matter how hard you scrub, you can never wash his touch away. You like the idea of being made of ice because ice is pure, clean, innocent. Untouched.
One day you hear the phrase "inner child" and you bark with laughter because you don't have a child inside you, just the rotting corpse of an old whore.
You aren't fit to be in a relationship, but equally you're terrified of being on your own, alone with just your memories and the voice of your abuser. So you stumble from one bad relationship to another, being abused and abusing in turn, constantly seeking the intimacy you are unable to give or accept.
And then one day something changes. Maybe you read an article or a book that actually speaks to your heart, rather than just to your head, and you finally start to understand that it wasn't your fault. Or maybe you meet another survivor, one who's further forward in healing than you are, and who holds out their hand to you, willing you to step forward onto the same path they are on. Maybe you find Mumsnet!
And you start drinking less, and drugging less, and you find the courage to stop having these relationships that take everything and give nothing, and you tell your useless therapist, finally, that it's not working, and you find one that does. You put away the misery memoirs and start reading proper books about healing. You do your work. And my god, it's hard work, the hardest thing you'll ever do, to go back inside and find that little child who really was still in there after all, and let that child cry, and feel their pain, honour their courage, and meanwhile you're still holding down a job, raising children, getting out of bed every day. You do your work.
And then you turn around and you realise how far you've come. Further than from here to the moon and back.
And sometimes maybe you feel strong enough to hold your hand out to other survivors who are struggling, and you cheer them on as they build that path out of despair and into the light. As they do their work. And sometimes you don't feel strong enough to do that, and that too is okay.
And then maybe you realise that you've come such a long way, and now you can be the real you that you were meant to be. And you find a relationship that's healthy, and where you make each other happy, and you don't expect your partner to heal wounds that they don't even know about. And maybe you settle down and vow to be the best partner and parent you can be, because that's both your revenge and your reward.
Or maybe you decide to be single, because you're not afraid any more of being on your own. You've silenced your abuser's voice, and the only sounds inside you are peaceful.
And the biggest thing of all for you, is that you've done your work and by god it was hard. There is nothing, from now on, that life can throw at you that you feel incapable of dealing with. You are strong.