Interview with Rany Levy (MSW), a Men's Sexual Violence specialist

Introduction:

I recently had the pleasure and honor to interview Rany Levy, who is hosting our monthly webinars for mental health practitioners. Rany is a seasoned social worker with over 25 years specializing in male survivors of sexual violence. He specializes in therapeutic work with male survivors of sexual assault, facilitating groups, guiding therapists, lecturing, and teaching in psychotherapy schools, while also operating a private clinic in Tel Aviv, Israel. In this conversation, we delved into Rany's motivations, challenges, and insights, offering valuable perspectives for practitioners and survivors alike. 

Understanding your work

Petra: Thank you for agreeing to talk with me, Rany! I know your time is super valuable so I appreciate it very much! Could you please start by giving us a brief overview of your background and your work with male survivors of sexual violence?

Rany: I started dealing with the treatment of male survivors of sexual assault at the age of 25 as a volunteer at the Tel- Aviv rape crises center for survivors of sexual assault. I was volunteering at the hotline for sexually abused men, which was at the beginning of its life at the time. We, the male volunteers, were sitting next to the women who volunteered on the Women's Hotline for Sexual Abused women. In addition to the cases of the men I heard on the helpline, I also heard testimonies from women who were abused. My feminist education and social awareness began then.  

After that, already as a social worker, I trained volunteers for the hotline and gave lectures on the subject in schools, boarding schools, in the army, basically, wherever I could. 

As I continued my studies, I began to work with survivors of sexual assault privately. I facilitated groups for survivors, for survivors of abuse who were also addicts, and for survivors from the gay community. Today I work with survivors of sexual assault and with teams of professionals in the field, as well as write articles on the subject.

Petra: What motivated you to specialize in working with male survivors of sexual violence?

Rany: The intersection of trauma, masculinity and violence interested me a lot. I saw this as a pioneering field and it was important for me to help this under-served population, those who do not yet have their voice. I was greatly influenced by the theories that describe power relations in society, by feminism and critical thinking about the social situation in which we live. At the beginning, there was no reading material on the subject, so I learned mostly from my own work and supervision with experts who work with women who have been abused.

Petra: Can you walk us through a typical day or week in your work, particularly in terms of providing therapy and running support groups?

Rany: On a normal day I see patients at the clinic. Not everyone is a victim of sexual assault. Over the years, I realized that I need to keep myself from getting burned out in the field. I try not to treat more than four clients who suffer from childhood trauma at the same time, and even that is sometimes too much.

Insights into male survivors

Petra: What are some common challenges that male survivors of sexual violence face in accessing support?

Rany: Men are raised on the myth that they have to fend for themselves, so it will take them longer to reach out for mental help. Mental help is identified with dealing with feelings that are considered feminine and far from men and masculinity, so it will be difficult for men to get help from mental help workers since they don't want to think that they are feminine in any way. Men feel that the field of emotional expression is foreign to them and also sometimes feel feelings of inferiority in front of a female therapist, so it will be more difficult for them to use therapy. 

Men often suffer from "comorbidity", such as addiction or other trauma, and some kind of mental illness which complicates their treatment. 

Another thing is the paucity of treatment places that specialize in working with men in general and with men who have been survivors of sexual assault in particular. This field of treatment is unique and the expertise in it is not widespread yet. 

In order to help male victims, the social worker or therapist must have knowledge in a number of areas: trauma therapy, gender-oriented therapy, and psychodynamic therapy. There are not many therapists who have such broad knowledge.

Petra: Could you share some insights into the unique experiences and needs of male survivors compared to female survivors?

Rany: In general, as far as trauma processing, the treatment is similar, but if we look at the gender issue men have their own special needs in therapy. 

First of all, questions around sexual orientation and gender identity concerns affect men but do not arise in women who have experienced sexual violence. 

Secondly, because the subject of sexual assault of men is taboo and very little is talked about in the media, men feel more alone when they are sexually assaulted and therefore it is more difficult for them to ask for and receive help. They also feel as if they are the only ones that this has happened to, which causes them great shame that makes it difficult for them to speak up for help. 

Because of the culture of sex life in gay men, we find a variety of sexual assaults among this population that are different from those that happen to lesbian women. 

What women and men have in common is that in most cases the attackers are men.

Petra: In your experience, what are some of the misconceptions or stigmas surrounding male survivors of sexual violence, and how do you address them in your work?

Rany: 

1. that the offender is gay who recognized homosexuality in the victim.
2. The victim is guilty because he did not resist. 
3. That the victim is not a "man".
4. That it didn't happen to anyone else but them.
5. That it is impossible to live a full, good and happy life, after a person undergoes sexual abuse.
6. A victim of sexual assault does not have the possibility to start a family and live a good life.

As part of the treatment, I give a lot of space to everything related to providing information whose role is to disprove these prejudices. I believe that these prejudices harm the individual's ability to heal and improve his self-image.

Petra: In your experience, what’s the average timeframe it takes for men to feel like they’re ready or need to talk about their experience? Is it years? How old are the individuals who come to you? 

Rany: The men who come for treatment come after a long and lonely struggle with the symptoms of the sexual abuse they experienced. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to come to treatment. A seventy-year-old patient came and talked about an abuse he suffered at the age of fourteen. If the victim is from the younger generation who is already more aware of sexual abuse in men, then he may turn in after a shorter period. In any case, it will take longer for an abused man to get treatment than for a woman.

Life challenges for survivors and the therapeutic process

Petra: How does sexual violence impact the lives of male survivors beyond the immediate trauma? 

Rany: Men have many mental challenges to deal with, I will try to talk about some of them. 

The first thing is the difficulty of finding words for their emotional world. To help a person who feels mental distress, we must first help him find words for this distress. Men usually have a hard time finding words to describe their feelings, their suffering and pain. 

Another thing that challenges them is loneliness. Usually it will take several years before they dare to tell about what they went through, and until they do, the therapist will be one of the only ones who knew about the trauma they went through. 

Another challenge is the confusion regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. Sexual assault of men threatens their identity as men because, according to the prejudices in the field, men are not supposed to be raped and if they are raped, it means they are not men. 

The nature of the attack and the sexual characteristics of it will often cause the victim to feel confused about his sexual orientation. The victim may conclude that the abuser chose him because he may have identified that he is gay, which of course is not true; the abuser usually has no knowledge of the sexual orientation of the victim. This confusion can be distressing for a long time until the patient talks about it in therapy and the therapy helps him to build and shape his sexual orientation. 

Another challenge, and perhaps the most difficult of all, is the difficulty of trusting others after the sexual assault. Trust is the first thing to be damaged and the last thing to be repaired during treatment. Sexual injury is a trauma that damages the confidence in the relationship between a person and the other person. The victim was betrayed and therefore it will be difficult for him to regain his sense of trust in the world and in other people.

Petra: Can you talk about your therapeutic process for male survivors? What does therapy typically involve, and how do you approach it with survivors who may be hesitant to seek help or talk about their experiences?

Rany: In therapy we must try and help find words for the trauma that has no words, that has no cultural context. 

With questions such as: "What was it like?", they will run into a wall: "It was like nothing else in life." And beyond that, many times we hear that: "I didn't know this could happen to men, it's something that only happens to women." A man who has been sexually assaulted feels that something unreasonable and unthinkable has happened to him. 

That's why we as therapists must find together with the patient an understanding of the experience he went through. We must try to build a network of connections, offering a range of different views and information and facts, within which we will place the sexual abuse. 

To a client who was hurt several times by a teacher, I found myself saying: "You describe an empty house, where people live but in fact it is empty, there is no emotion, there is no speech, you are there but you are not seen, you are also empty in the empty house. Then someone comes who gives you everything: warmth, love, gifts, tells you that you are beautiful and cute; he seduced you with everything he felt you needed, you didn't know that he wanted to harm you." There is nothing wrong, and even often necessary, to add a network of information about male rape in order to shatter prejudices that the victim may have regarding the subject. 

We must recognize that the victim has been through something that he has no way of putting into words yet. The lack of words creates in the victim severe feelings of humiliation, shame and humiliation, as if he is required to play on a field that is very foreign to him. We must respect his vocabulary and work with him so that he finds the right words to understand his actions. 

We build a private vocabulary for each treatment and with each patient. A unique language game suitable only for him and us. The sexual assault is referred to by some code name that distinguishes it from other cases, the offender gets a nickname or some name, the place gets a nickname and so on. We create a lexicon to create a living memory in order to restore life to dead areas of the soul. 

From the connection between sex and violence, and from the ‘legitimacy’ of men to talk about sex, and from the inability to think and imagine intimacy and closeness that are not related to violent sexuality, we often find that much of the content in sessions have sexual themes and concerns. The treatment room is flooded with sexuality that is often technical and concrete. So therapists need to be mindful, patient, and tolerant of this.  

In many societies, men are expected to be sexual and violent to be called men. This norm hardly allows a man to express tenderness, neediness and need for intimacy. Men - and mainly injured men - are afraid to bring their vulnerability to the treatment room. Therefore, they will often behave as hypermasculine, which covers up the difficulty in personal, intimate, sensitive and more vulnerable speech. For example: a client tells me at length how he slept with five different women over the weekend. After he finishes the story he asks me, as if he has read the psychology books, if I have anything to eat. “Five women and still hungry,” I answer. Behind the conquests was hidden another hunger, one that cannot be satisfied with such ‘conquering’.

Building resilience and self-esteem

Petra: Can you share examples of how you've seen survivors develop resilience and reclaim their lives after experiencing sexual violence?

Rany: A victim who is in the process of recovering from past sexual trauma will feel that he is learning to create different modes of communication with the environment and with himself, to control his actions and impulses more and to moderate the emotional storms he feels. He will experience reality in a more positive and less threatening way, and define himself less as a victim and more as a survivor. 

Many of the survivors succeed with the help of therapy in building or joining a supportive community and improve their ability to ask for help from significant others who know their situation and can help them. Another improvement found to be significant is in setting clearer boundaries, in controlling anger and in greater acceptance of the situation. Survivors who underwent treatment noted an improvement in their condition, which is manifested in the fact that they learned to gain more control over their lives and the feeling that they are less controlled by their past. 

They felt that others' acceptance of them and their condition contributed to their strengthening, and that the treatment gave them feelings of meaning, freedom, achievement, ability and strength, which they did not have before. The ability to face and resist socially-dominant masculinity, not to submit to traditional masculine roles and not to harm others, is also a significant aspect on the road to recovery.

Petra: How do you help survivors cultivate self-compassion and self-esteem?

Rany: Self-compassion and self-worth are built during the treatment mainly through my respectful and empowering attitude towards the patients. My attentive attitude and understanding of them is internalized and becomes part of their attitude towards themselves. Also, the awareness that the negative attitude is a result of the injury they suffered and is not imposed by reality contributes to their ability to release this attitude. I encourage clients to create supportive relationships that strengthen and improve their relationship to themselves.

Message for Survivors

Petra: And finally, what message or advice would you like to convey to male survivors who may be reading this interview? Especially for male survivors who may be considering seeking support but are unsure about taking that step?

Rany: I ask those who feel they need help to do what they can to overcome the difficulty, to be brave and ask for help. Things don't get better by themselves, they only get worse. It takes courage to ask for help and be helped. The most manly thing a man can do is admit his “weakness”. To truly be a man is to be connected to his vulnerability and difficulty and to ask for help. Even if the first time you didn't get the help you needed, and this happens many times, don't wait many years to try again, in the end there will always be someone who can listen and help. Help can be significant and change lives, even save lives.

Thank you so much, Rany, for sharing your insights and experiences with me. Your work is incredibly important, and we appreciate the opportunity to learn from you. 

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Meet Rany and join our next webinar

If you’re a practitioner who works with male survivors, and would like to learn more about sexual violence against men and connect with other practitioners, we encourage you to register for our free monthly webinar series: “The special challenges in working with male survivors of sexual violence”. Hosted by Rany, this is a unique opportunity to learn from one of the few seasoned experts in the field. 

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