The Shadow Boys

They are the one in six—the sons, brothers, and friends living with a secret sexual abuse we refuse to acknowledge.

(Pictured: Ryan Gadsby)

In our collective imagination, the victim of sexual abuse rarely wears a male face. The cultural script assigns men the roles of perpetrators or protectors, rarely the wounded. Rarely the traumatized. Rarely the suffering. Yet, the quiet reality, backed by sobering statistics, tells a different story: in the US nearly one in six b…