Our media generally frames victims of sexual abuse as white and female. And the national discourse on the subject of molestation and rape is largely within a heteronormative paradigm. The concept of male-on-male child sexual abuse is seen as something that rarely happens; when it does, the perpetrator is often dismissed as a sexually deviant recluse.
The idea of mainstream, straight-identified men—prominent, successful ones, even—molesting young boys is still deemed an anomaly. That misconception may prove all the more confounding for young black boys in a society in which role models are hard to come by.
This is all true. As a white male, I see it. I can’t imagine how much more that goes for African-American men. Our culture refuses to see men as victims because they’re somehow afraid that will diminish the narrative of women as the victim, always. When a man is a victim, we just can’t fit that in, so we ignore it.
And this gets doubled if the abuser is a woman.
But, sexual abuse is sexual abuse. Gender and race don’t matter.