“How did you not defend yourself? this is what Sebastián’s father replied when he told him about the sexual abuse he had suffered from his basketball teacher, Rickter Valenzuela, when he was 12 years old; “Maybe you liked it,” he told her. The same argument was used by the coach’s defenders in the trial from which he was subsequently acquitted: that a 12-year-old should have realized this, that he is already a man, that he should be able to defend themselves. Sebastián is one of (at least) 14 teenagers who were sexually abused by Ricktet in the 2000s and who denounced justice years later, without result. In part, the fears they had when they spoke at the time were questioned about their “manliness”, that they doubted their sexual orientation or that they were seen as “little men”.

In my case, I never talked about it because I thought they would bother me or they might isolate me from the group, they would question my sexuality, they would call me gay and , at that time, it was very frowned upon. I thought they were gonna make jokes, I was scared, ashamed, I kept it so hidden so it wouldn’t affect me, so I didn’t see the need to do anything about it that time, said Marco, another of Rickter’s victims.

The questions that these 14 teenagers encountered while talking always answered the same thing: “That doesn’t happen to men.” But yes, it happens to them, we just know little about it. The statistical bulletin of the Chilean Public Prosecutor’s Office, in 2022, indicates that out of a total of 38,852 victims of sexual crimes nationwide, 12.75% correspond to male victims . But this is a low figure which is far from representing the real figures.

“The vast majority of men’s experiences of sexual abuse go undisclosed, largely out of shame at having their masculinity questioned.” explains psychologist Liza Toro, author of the recently published book “La pelota no se mancha”, a journalistic investigation into this noisy affair. Liza, who had focused her writing career on essays on motherhood and feminism, when she came across the complaints against this professor from Linares – where she is also from – became obsessed with the story . She spent 11 months investigating court cases, recording the voices of victims and interviewing specialists on the subject, never leaving her gender perspective aside. The case would finally be closed with the suicide of the attacker in 2021. But only the case, because the anger of the victims and their relatives, who failed to obtain justice in time, continues to remain. In her book, Liza postulates that the protagonists of this story experienced a silence that had to do with stereotypes about their masculinity, because “a real man would be able to defend himself”. Here, she discusses how this harmful male gender stereotype makes it difficult to recognize abusive experiences in men.

Is there a gender bias when it comes to addressing male sexual abuse?

Yes, completely. There is a bias of the social, and also of the legal, because we believe that a man must always be able to defend himself, that these things cannot happen to a man. That’s why the number of sexual assaults is so disparate, in theory, but that’s because they don’t report it, because there are many myths associated with this experience. For the book, I interviewed a psychologist who is an expert in dealing with violent crimes, she told me that the redress processes for men are shorter, they don’t have the right to be fired, because they have to be providers. It is very difficult for them to recognize themselves as victims; it takes a long time before they understand themselves as victims. In the case of these boys, some laughed at themselves on the subject, they took the suffering as a joke. After adults realized it, after 15 years.

Your book is about this harmful male gender stereotype that makes abusive experiences hard to recognize. What does this stereotype look like and how does it affect men?

It affects them from an early age, from an early age. Imagine being told to a three-year-old boy that he has to talk like a man, that he has to speak loudly, that he can’t cry, that if he cries, he’s a girl. It comes from things as basic as the fact that women are allowed to express our emotions and men are not. It lives on and you hear it at school, at home, in your family environment and you have to grow up being a strong man, who doesn’t cry and who isn’t vulnerable. The only thing allowed is anger, physical aggression. These are basic elements of gender stereotypes that we unfortunately continue to perpetuate. The theme of vulnerability, guilt and shame is also not allowed in men. For the book I also interviewed an expert on masculinities, his name is Adriano Meschi, he works in men’s circles, which is very new in Chile. He told me that men come together to talk and feel like they’ve come to an oasis, because they can finally talk to each other, kiss each other, say what they feel. But it is still very early.

In your book, you discuss how abusers take advantage of boys without a current male image, that is, with an emotionally distant or absent father, to fill that emotional void and better manipulate their victims.

Yes, I believe that the father figure is very present in the bond that this abuser has established with the boys. Ideally, I was looking for children who were in the process of separating from their parents or who had already separated. Well, culturally in general it’s the father who is absent, dads have been involved in education for a very short time, so this guy has positioned himself from a paternal role. He liked to be called dad, old man. He was very affectionate, very affectionate, very protective. He took care of them, gave them rules, told them “I train people”, always from a pedestal. One of the boys said to me, “He saw me. My biological father didn’t see me, but the teacher did.”

Do you think sexual abuse of men should be approached from feminisms? From a gender perspective?

From my place as a feminist, I have always focused only on women. Coming across this case was an inside job for me to learn to see male suffering. When I came across the story of these boys, I felt from my place as a woman, a mother and a feminist psychologist, that I was indebted. I really felt that, and that’s why I took up this banner of struggle, to work on prevention. I think that from feminism we need to work more in collaboration with men, for example with those who work on masculinities, where we can bring both positions into the debate.

How do you think feminism can be nurtured by making abuse visible to men who are also victims of violent men, of patriarchy, of an abusive society?

I think it’s there, in that this patriarchy is a system. Many times, we take that to say that feminist women are against men, it still happens to me that there are people who see it like that, and it’s not about that. It’s about working together, I think that’s where the contribution lies, to be able to integrate as a society and to recognize all the harm that this system does to us and not just to us. Both men and women need to get involved in this issue, the gender perspective to be transformed. And to have more tools to overcome this violence, because they are validated from the masculine.