Male child sexual abuse is over-represented in institutional settings. This realisation has increasingly come into public focus in recent decades initially through lived experience, often with male survivors’ stories told in the media and subsequently through court cases and government inquiries. The impacts of this trauma can have significant health consequences for men across the life course. Our research includes (1) a published review of the literature in 2025 in the Journal, Trauma, Violence, and Abuse which asked the question: What is known from the research about the institutional child sexual abuse of males? and (2) analysis of male survivor narratives from the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse (2012-17).
Researchers suggest studies of CSA underestimate prevalence and acknowledge a high dark figure of unreported offenses. Studies estimating prevalence of male CSA have traditionally varied between 3% and 17%, however the Australian Maltreatment Study recent found CSA rates for males at 18.8% or around 1 in 5. Whilst girls are more likely to be abused by a male family member, boys experience extrafamilial abuse in an perpetrators home, institution or public spaces. Boys are twice as likely as girls to experience child sexual abuse by institutional care givers.
Internalised gendered norms and expectations result in male survivors often blaming themselves for the abuse. Other factors for male non-disclosure may include; fear they will be viewed as homosexual or weak; concerned they will be perceived as at risk of sexual offending; being threatened by the perpetrator; parental and community support for the institution responsible for the abuse. For some men, they report being confused; not understanding and not being able to articulate what has occurred.
Numerous quotes from the survivors’ narratives point to ideas of masculinity that impacted on disclosure and the way they dealt with effects. Some men felt they deserved the abuse, others felt they may have invited it or expressed that they should have been able to stop it. These responses resulted in self-blame and subsequently shutting down/shutting out the experience. The results affirm well established documentation of the harmful effects of rigid and dominant constructions of masculinity on male survivors of child sexual abuse across the life course. There are opportunities to improve policy and practice in working with men to deliver more gender specific and sensitive responses. These considerations are important to consider in the context of improving health for men and boys.