​#MenToo - The Unseen Epidemic of Child Sexual Abuse of Boys and Why Boys and Men Don’t Share

In this episode, Dr. Palfy discusses how her work in law enforcement, specifically investigating and arresting child sexual abusers, led her into a career of psychology. She discusses how when we think of childhood sexual trauma, we often think of women, although 1 in 6 men were sexually abused prior to age 16. She explains that of those that were abused, only 5 in 1,000 go on to disclose their abuse, thus giving a sense that this doesn’t happen to boys and may be missed when working with men. She discusses some of the differences between abuse of boys and women including societal norms of men being protectors (the man of the family) so not telling, fear of being seen as gay or as someone who will inevitably be a child abuser, worrying that they somehow wanted the abuse as males anatomy responses physiologically different during abuse, and ultimately society not making a place for males to be vulnerable, and instead dismissing or shaming them for being too sensitive. We discuss her work in helping others to understand male experiences of abuse, so that clinicians can be more aware of seeing that this may be part of the reason men are struggling and help them to address their trauma. Kelli Palfy, Ph.D. is a psychologist and author, who first started her career as an RCMP officer that specialized in sex crimes. Today, Dr. Palfy works with first responders, male survivors of sexual abuse, and people who are bullied in the workplace. Dr. Palfy authored the book Men Too: Unspoken Truths About Male Sexual Abuse which is based off of her own research and experience in the field.