Ending The Cycle: How Men Survive Sexual Abuse

By Mary Barker
Herald Staff Writer
September 22, 1998
Monterey, CA

Even on a bad night, the numbers were staggering. And on a good night? About 30 shots of vodka, a couple packs of cigarettes and three, four and five sexual partners of either gender -- "anything that moved," Fred Ferguson explained.

In 1974 alone, he was in hospitals and jails 13 times. "I dealt in excess," said Ferguson, 58, describing a five year span between 1973-78. "I became an alcoholic, and there was a lot of acting out sexually. My wife and I lived in San Francisco, so there was plenty of opportunity. I'd start at the best places and drink my way down. By the end of the evening, I was in the Tenderloin."

Ferguson never really knew why, until he was reading the newspaper one morning in late March almost a year and a half ago and noticed an article about male survivors of sexual abuse.

The flashbacks he had started experiencing two months before began to make sense. "It was sort of a shadowy thing between me and an older man," Ferguson said. "When I first got the memory, I tried to ignore it. I thought, 'This is just nuts.' "

He later discovered that, when he was somewhere between the ages of 1 1/2 and 4, there had been an encounter with a great uncle, a man who went on to serve 15 years for child molestation. Ferguson's mother also recalled an incident where she caught an aunt "leaning over me," Ferguson said. "We had a very busy family," Ferguson said, smiling and explaining that he always has used humor to deal with the pain. "And we weren't exactly trailer trash. We were upper middle class."

The litany of indiscretion eventually came to include Ferguson's mother, too. "My father was an alcoholic, so she and I lived and worked so closely together as a defense pact against him," Ferguson said. But one afternoon, she came into a room, disrobed and invited her son to fondle her. He did.

"It was probably exciting to me," said Ferguson, who forgives his mother and still loves her dearly. "I was attracted to her. She was a beautiful woman. It was like being horrified and exhilarated all at the same time." It happened twice. It lasted three, maybe four minutes each time.

Ferguson spent a lifetime reeling. He was very successful in business but an emotional wreck. He was agoraphobic but actively solicited physical encounters. "I was afraid of anything that had to do with the public, except sex," Ferguson explained. "It had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with finding some sort of validation."

He was hurting deep inside, so he punished himself outside through self-mutilation, a common symptom of sexual abuse survivors. One day, while riding his bicycle at the age of 13, he stuck his foot in the spokes. "I was fully aware of what I was doing," he said. His big toe was sewn back on by doctors, but Ferguson lost his middle toe. Four years later, he had all his teeth pulled. "And nothing was wrong with them," he said. How did he get the dentist to go along with the preposterous proposal? "I think he needed a new rug for his living room," Ferguson said laughing. "I'm just kidding. I just told him I was tired of getting cavities."

He was tired, it seemed, of too many things. At first, he tried to compensate by using big words and making people laugh. Then, at the age of 34, he began his San Francisco escapades. Sometimes, he still can't believe his wife stuck by him, and he thanks someone that he never tested positive for AIDS.

Ferguson quit drinking in 1980 and, for the past 1 1/2 years, has been attending Monterey Men's Group, dealing with surviving sexual abuse. He will be one of the speakers at the West Coast Retreat for the National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization, Sept. 24-27, 1998 at Mt. Madonna Center in Watsonville.

"To a lot of people, (my story) is going to sound disgusting and degenerate," he said. "All I can do is be grateful I survived." Six years ago, though, Ferguson was diagnosed with emphysema and "my card is about to be punched," he said of the prognosis. "But that's OK," he continued. "It's been a ride. It's been a journey of discovery."

(Editor's note: The name of the male sexual abuse victim in this story has been changed to protect his identity.)