More men are sexually abused than women, claims sex expert who calls for an #UsToo movement

AN author who writes about the sexual experience of Brits has claimed that MORE men are sexually abused than women.

Wendy Jones, who penned The Sex Lives of English Women, has been interviewing men for the male version of the book and says damaging sexual experiences are “almost universal”.

She told The Sun Online: “Men have a lot more sex and they have a lot more violent sexual experiences than women – perpetrated by them and against them, among men and among children.

“The sexual abuse experienced by men is higher than against women. Men are sexually abused in boarding schools, clubs and many other places.

“They have more sexually damaging experiences than women do.

“Give me a man who is honest about his sexuality and at some point he will say that he has had a sexually damaging experience in his life. I can guarantee it. There is a very small number that haven’t.

“It’s not bad sex that they don’t enjoy, it’s sex they don’t want. It’s sex that involves the abuse of power.”

‘Women are abusers too’

Wendy also claimed that women were as likely to be the abusers as other men.

She added: “We really have to get over this idea that women are not sexually abusive. They are victims but sometimes they are also perpetrators.

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, an estimated 138,000 men aged 16 to 59 experienced sexual assault in the year ending March 2017. This compares to 510,000 women.

But Wendy believes this is the tip of the iceberg, as men are more reluctant than women to come forward.

She said: “They are even more secretive about it and I think it feeds into the suicide rate among men, which is 12 men a day in the UK.

“Men dish it but they are also the victims of more abusive acts than women.

“This is a great secret in our society which we are not yet mature enough to deal with.

“But something is making 12 men a day kill themselves and it’s not just stress and a bald patch.

“They are dealing with sexual abuse in a very secretive way.

“Society isn’t sympathetic to men who are sexual victims and they carry the shame about it.

“It’s very hard to be the first person to stand up and say this because you get shamed, or attacked, or the law courts aren’t on your side. But in a more tolerant and a more sexually mature society it will all come out.”

‘It will be decades before we can heal sexually’

The author says there should be a new movement to replace #MeToo, which has helped women to come into the open about abuse.

She said: “It should be called #UsToo because of the number of people of both sexes who are dealing with the sexually damaging experiences they’ve had.

“Women have always had sexually abusive experiences but they are less ashamed of them now.

“They don’t carry the abuser’s shame as much. They’ve given it back to the abusers, which is where it belongs.

“What I found in the book was the huge level of bad sexual experiences that women had, but that’s more open now.

“Some women are coming out in the open about this but men aren’t, so we’re only getting half the story.

“It will be decades and decades before we have any public healing sexually.”

Male sexual abuse charity SurvivorsUK stand by the belief that more women are abused than men, but agreed that many male victims find it hard to come forward.

A statement from the charity read: “There are multiple barriers which may make men feel that they are unable to report an offence to the police.

“Survivors may feel shame and guilt, they may worry about not being believed, or they may be scared about what people will think of them if they speak out.

“At SurvivorsUK we know that the number of reports are only a small percentage of offences that actually take place.”