Reimagining masculinity: my journey as a male sexual assault survivor | Landon Wilcock | TEDxQueensU

As a survivor of sexual assault, Landon came to view his life as one broken into many pieces. He offers a unique perspective on how we can move forward as a society in dealing with not just male survivors, but all victims of sexual assault.

Landon has been actively involved in sexual assault prevention advocacy. Recently he has been working with the Sexual Assault Center Kingston and two thesis film students on a new project to bring greater awareness to services for victims and survivors. This past summer, he began his ongoing work at the Centre for International and Defence Policy (CIDP), and has previously worked in the Wealth Management and Energy industries. Landon has been actively involved in numerous student associations at Queen’s University. He currently acts as the Chief Financial Officer for the not-for-profit organization Queen’s International Affairs Association, as well as serving as a Peer Facilitator for the Bystander Intervention Program, which works to educate students and university employees on preventing and intervening in situations of sexual assault and violence.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

This is the story
of my life falling apart,

my journey in putting it back together

and my attempt to use my story
to change the way we approach the topic.

There's no nice way to put this,

but about two years ago, I was raped.

At four o'clock in the morning,

I found myself walking
the streets of Kingston,

in a part of the city
I had never seen before.

I was lost, I couldn't reach my friends

and no cabs were answering.

I was alone and I felt numb.

After walking for over an hour,

my phone rang and it was a friend.

They asked me what was wrong,

but I couldn't bring myself to say it.

This paralyzing mental numbness

that would come to control my life
for the next two years wouldn't let me.

So, instead I replied
with a vague indication

that my night hadn't gone as planned.

With that said, my friend
likely thought I was drunk

and suggested I get to bed.

Eventually, I arrived home,
just as the sun was coming up.

I went to my bedroom
and decided to get some sleep

in the hopes that going to sleep
would erase the night from my head.

But when I closed my eyes,

I realized these horrifying memories
were not going away.

This very bed became
my safe space, or my hideaway.

It was removed from a reality
that I still couldn't face.

The bed remained my home
as I tried to forget what had happened

and as I experienced a new pain,

a pain unlike any physical or mental pain
I had experienced before.

I cut myself off from the outside world.

I stopped seeing friends
and communicating with my loved ones.

I became deeply apathetic
towards everything in my life.

School, friends, family,
nothing mattered to me anymore.

I stopped caring for myself in many ways.

By the end of my second year,
I had dropped about 50 pounds.

I either found myself without an appetite

or actually lacking any motivation to eat.

But most of all, I had convinced myself
that I didn't deserve food.

How could I if I'd just lie
in bed all day?

Despite the fact
my life was falling apart,

the people around me
didn't notice much of a difference.

To an observer, my behavior
actually wasn't that unusual.

I think we all here know someone
who might drink multiple times a week,

or maybe they sleep too much,

or maybe you know someone
who's become apathetic and uncommitted.

We often see these things as normal

because they're such common
coping behaviors of university students.

My struggles were compounded by what felt
like this constant and deep pressure

looming over my head.

This pressure was the result of an image
I had of myself as a guy's guy,

and the people around me had come
to know me by this identity too.

My years leading sports teams,

competing in weightlifting
and working on an oil rig

became these unique barriers

to getting the help that, at this point,
I desperately needed.

We tend to think of men
as both physically and emotionally strong;

physically strong enough to deter
or resist an unwanted sexual advance

and emotionally strong enough
to maintain composure

even in the most damaging
and hurtful of circumstances.

If I wasn't strong enough
to do either of these things,

I questioned if I was the man
I always thought I was.

Instead of seeking help and support
from my loved ones,

I turned my back on them.

I became angry, aggressive
and unreachable.

Eventually, this new extreme behavior
of mine no longer went unnoticed

and these very people began to push away.

As the months passed,

this numbness, anger and deep depression
that had come to take over my life

slowly began to give away.

I started to feel like myself again

and began returning to the social circles
I had previously abandoned.

Although I was slowly
but surely recovering,

I still denied the event in my head

and had actually, in this weird way,

convinced myself the rape
had never even happened.

One night, about a year
after the incident,

I went out with friends,
drinking more than I should have.

I drank that night as a means
of dissociating myself

from the reality that I couldn't face.

But on this night, I chose to do something
I had long wanted to do,

and I made my first call for help.

I reached out to what was now
my former partner of four years

and told them, as the first person,
that I had been raped.

A short time later,
I made my next call for help

when I reached out to a counselor.

This time, I attended the session,
after previously canceling,

but I was unable to tell them
exactly what had happened,

so I left feeling unsatisfied, helpless
and just as desperate as before.

My next attempt to call for help

was when I considered
pursuing legal action

against the people who had raped me.

I thought to myself this could
provide me with some closure

or allow me to feel
I'd finally done something

to lift myself from the mess
that was now my life.

However, my mind quickly became clouded
with the image of these people

staring across from me in the courtroom,

their word against mine.

What if the judges and others
thought I was lying?

Why would I only bring something to court
months after it had happened?

I thought my image as a hypermasculine
male would surely fall apart

as the people that knew me
found out what had happened to me,

and I questioned if I would be
blamed for my own rape.

Lastly, I considered the statistics.

In Canada, roughly one out of ten people
that experience sexual assault

will go on and report it to the police.

Yet, out of every ten
that do report it to the police,

only two will lead to a conviction.

I thought if a young woman is so often
unable to convict her male abuser

that I would surely have no chance.

It was pointless: the risks too high,
and the benefits just too low.

Today, I stand in front
of you as a survivor

that is still trying
to put together the pieces

almost two [years] later.

I've made strides in some areas,

but I continue to face
challenges in many others.

After missteps with counseling

and deciding not to pursue legal action
against the people who had hurt me,

I decided to try a new avenue

and I decided to try to share
my experiences as an attempt to heal.

The first step in this process
was writing an article

for a university paper on my campus.

I thought it would allow me
to share my story,

hopefully support other survivors

and use it as an opportunity
to advocate for better resources

for people like me on my campus.

The article received
an overwhelmingly positive response.

It showed to me there was a community
that wanted to support me

that I didn't know existed before,

and that people's perceptions of me
would not be changed, as a male survivor.

I also learned that my story
resonated with other survivors

and that people who hadn't
experienced sexual assault

were better able to understand
and empathize with people like me.

While many survivors or people
who experienced traumatic events

may not find publicly sharing
or discussing their experiences

as the best way to heal,

for me this was a key step in my healing.

In fact, recently my life has brightened.

I've found medication which works for me.

I've found friends who make me
feel loved and supported

and I have begun
to actually enjoy spending time

with all my loved ones
and friends once again,

and perhaps most importantly,
I'm excited about what the future holds

and I feel confident I can
and will make the most out of it.

Sitting here today,

you might rightfully expect me
to view the people who raped me

as sick, twisted individuals,
undeserving of forgiveness.

And for a long time,
I viewed them exactly that way.

But today, my view has come
to evolve and change

as I came to realize holding on to these
deep, negative feelings towards them

was not allowing me to grow and heal.

For this reason,

I've had to come to a certain
level of forgiveness

so that I could carry on and heal.

This is why I am onstage today,

as a victim to try to provide insight
into how we can move forward,

both as individuals who have
experienced sexual assault

and as the greater society
that should be supporting them.

You may wonder why exactly
I decided to share with you

my story of sexual assault.

I refused help because I believed
men had to be independent.

I told no one about my rape
because I knew my emotions would come out

and I didn't believe "real men"
showed their emotions.

I couldn't face the outside
society or world anymore

because I was no longer
the person I thought I was.

I allowed my body to decay

because I could not admit even to myself
that this strong body I'd built up

had not even been strong
enough to protect myself.

My relationship crumbled,

as I was unable to tell my girlfriend
that I had been raped

because I believed it would change
her perception of me as a man.

What I've come to understand
is that there is no one identity of a man

and there's no necessity
for one person's type of masculinity

to be the same as another's.

From a young age, men are taught
to man up in times of crisis or pain,

to use physicality to show dominance,

to never be emasculated

and to not show their emotions.

A study from the University
of California, Berkeley,

discovered that when men had their
masculinity questioned or challenged,

they were more likely to immediately
become more aggressive

and hold homophobic beliefs and attitudes.

This study indicated an overarching issue
with the male psyche today.

Many men struggle
with what their identity is

and thus rely on these
outdated ideas of masculinity,

whether that be having to be
stronger than their friends,

being able to drink more,
being able to sleep with more women

or being able to not cry.

The notion that we should reject
more fluid gender roles

because they conflict with masculinity

is fundamentally misguided.

As I've sought to learn more
about what makes me a man,

I've learned how gender equity and
a liberation from traditional gender roles

can release men from
the constraints of masculinity.

Challenging one's own identity or one's
own masculinity means stripping it down

and from there rebuilding it
in a healthy, productive way.

You can be a man who cries.

You can be a man who has never
played a sport in your life.

You can even be a man who has been raped.

When I challenged this identity
and the norms that I had been taught,

it was only then that I began to heal.

Recently, I've been able to begin
reconstructing my own identity,

this time not basing it
on these traditional masculine traits,

but rather on ones that I believe
make my own identity as a man.

These now include confidence,
passion, honesty,

loyalty, kindness

and perseverance.

Let's work harder to understand
how societal norms,

like conventional notions of masculinity,

can prevent survivors from seeking help.

Once we've understood these issues,

let's work together to challenge them
as the dominant ways of thinking,

so that we can realize a society

that doesn't impose pressures
on its most vulnerable,

but instead builds them up.

Today, I ask you to join me in reshaping
the way we approach sexual violence,

against any and all genders,

and to challenge our own
notions of masculinity.

To do this, we must consider
how we interact with the men in our lives.

Through making these small changes in the
way we interact with the men in our lives,

we can begin to shape a new society,

one in which no one is left
putting together their own pieces.

To do this,

we must resist using phrases
like "Man up!" and "Be a man!"

when the men in our lives
show vulnerability,

and instead, tell our sons,
brothers and boyfriends

that showing their emotions is healthy,

that sensitivity is strength

and vulnerability is power.

Thank you.

(Applause) (Cheers)