Permit me to dispose of some of my qualms first. Mathews, as almost all health care workers and researchers, leaves undefined the severity of harm caused by sexual abuse . Our cultural exaggeration of sexual harm and the psycho-pathologization of life is not a cure, but a cause of suffering. They condemn obsessing on select emotional experiences as pathology. As a college teacher, I want to learn more about that research.
Suicide is clear evidence of unresolveable stresses on male teens.
I hope that Mathews and others will write more on this national crisis soon. Instead, we tend to view women s use of physical abuse or corporal punishment as a sign of stress. Mothers assault their own children because those children are helpless, and the mothers know that they are highly unlikely to be punished for the abuse. Male victims report great pain, frustration and anger at not seeing their stories reflected in the public discourse on violence and abuse. Theories of male socialization are inadequate to explain why the vast majority of males are not violent.