When a boy is abused, his identity is changed from his essence to that of a victim. He can see himself as something wrong with himself, as an object, or a target of others' aggression. He will compare himself with others and begin to make assessments that he needs to be tougher, more macho, more of a man than the next guy in order to avoid being hurt. Boys learn what it is to be a man from their fathers. A young boy looks up to his dad as a man who knows everything, a role model which does no wrong.
Some boys believe their dads can walk on water.
We don't get the chance of viewing our parents as perfect because there is so much violence and destructiveness in the home that we know something is wrong. At age three, I witnessed my father rape my mother and attempt to kill her and myself. He had been previously arrested for negligence homicide. My father had attempted to use his car to push my mother's car home. My mother's car had crashed into a third car where a man had died.