Can we talk about the football sex abuse scandal?

[DeviTheGaelet]

Headline news today, NSPCC are setting up a helpline, talk that it was organised and likely to be on the same scale as Saville.

I can't think of another occasion where sex abuse has been reported on so much. I also think sex abuse/grooming was rife in the 80s/90s, I can think of several coaches that have been jailed but not of a story as big as this. Also, other grooming rings e.g. Rotherham haven't resulted in NSPCC helplines I don't think.

Is it that we are becoming more intolerant of sex abuse?
Is it topical because of Saville?
Is it magnified because everything to do with football gets generally over reported anyway?
Is it taken more seriously because primarily boys now men were affected? (I also think gender may have played a part in why "Nick" was taken so seriously in the children's home allegations).
I've posted in feminism because of the gender angle but interested in any thoughts (including being told IABU)

a male footballer opens up about abuse instantly taken seriously (as it should be) however when a current footballer is revealed to have groomed and assaulted a 14 year old people were lining up to defend him and revile her, and his club knew and helped cover up

This is a good point. I bet many of the fans sympathising with the footballers who have come forward are the same people calling Adam Johnson's victim a liar and a slag.

Like it or not, there are double standards in how victims of each gender are treated. That's not to diminish how brave the footballers have been, or what they suffered, but the idea that a famous male footballer will get the same treatment in the court of public opinion as a woman or girl who reports abuse or rape is just not true.

The recent report on how the Met police treats reports of child sex abuse is depressing - will try to read it properly over the weekend, but will be interesting to see if there is any evidence that male and female complainants are treated equally

WomanWithAltitude

I bet many of the fans sympathising with the footballers who have come forward are the same people calling Adam Johnson's victim a liar and a slag.

I'm not sure who you're 'many' are, but my husband and 13-year-old son are both season ticket holders for SAFC and we have had many conversations about this, prompting many conversations about bodily autonomy and consent and things beyond. Until early this year my son had an Adam Johnson poster on his wall. His SAFC calendar still has Adam Johnson for April. 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.

These are people. Real life, flesh and blood people, with red blood and feelings and all that. Does it really matter what sex it applies to? My son going to football? My daughter going to dance class? It applies to them both. They both want to do well, they both want to excel, they both want to be footballers and dancers. Their tutor has exclusive access to them and tells them they could go far, but they need to make their coach happy by doing, well, read the court reports.

My argument is that this is the first step in exposing abuse in sports from people who are in a position of trust. It takes a brave person to make the first step.

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

I do think it's a mixture of things - more awareness of sexual assault, men's football being the highest profile sport there is in the UK, and 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).

The issue of leaving kids alone with coaches still goes on - back when DS was tiny (pre-school) he went to a tumble tots club. From 2 1/2 they were expected to go into a class where parents were no longer allowed to sit round the edge of the gym and watch. At 2 1/2! Not suggesting any sexual wrongdoing in the club, but it seemed to me to show a woeful lack of understanding of child development and could, in the hands of the wrong coach, create just the sort of atmosphere of "what happens in the club stays in the club" that does allow abuse to flourish. Neither DS nor I was happy with this, so he left, which was a great shame because he was actually quite promising.

(Incidentally, I thought Rhyl was Ched Evans, now found not guilty. Adam Johnson was the guy who groomed and sexually assaulted an under age child.)

Boogers, I think you are confusing Adam Johnson with Ched Evans.

I suspect that men coming forward are more readily believed than women.

Is the fact that some of the men have waived anonymity also a factor, I wonder?

It is harder to call someone a liar when you have to look them in the face. Much easier when you don't know who on earth they are.

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.

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

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.

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.

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...

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Absolutely, HeyRoly and Boogers.

I believe them.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.