ABSTRACT
Barry is one of many men whose stories have been written in invisible ink. His years of abuse and trauma have caused him to display a fatal level of ambivalence. Scotland’s Sexual Offences Act in 2010 gave, for the first time, a legal definition of male rape, recognising that men, as well as women, could be victims. M. Scarce describes the rape and sexual assault of men as “a crime without a history”, and it remains a phenomenon shrouded in the secrecy, shame, and fear that once characterised all forms of sexual abuse. Little about sexual abuse is new and the sexual abuse of boys and men is a phenomenon with a long but little-documented history. According to a study published in Clinical Psychology Review that examined sixty-five studies from twenty-two countries, the global prevalence of child sexual abuse has been estimated at 19.7 per cent for females and 7.9 per cent for males.
