CTV
November 5, 2010
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Entertainment/20101105/oprah-male-child-sex-abuse-victims-101105/
[with video]
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| Sexual abuse victim Robert Berube appears on CTV's Canada AM on Friday, Nov. 5, 2010. |
In a bid to shatter a pervasive stereotype, Oprah Winfrey's regular studio audience of female fans is being replaced today, by 200 male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
For the first episode in a two-part series on the subject, Oprah was the only woman amongst the sea of men.
As the episode opens, the men all stand silently clutching photos of themselves taken at the approximate age they were abused as children. Sudbury, Ont.-native Robert Berube was one of 30 Canadian men who took part in the program.
"I think what really got to us was Oprah was the only woman, and the tears started coming down so it was pretty dramatic in a sense and very, very touching," Berube told CTV's Canada AM in an interview from London, Ont. Friday morning.
Oprah Winfrey has often spoken about her own experience of childhood sexual abuse that began when she was just nine years old.
Berube, 55, went public with his history of abuse in 2005, with claims he had been abused by his childhood parish priest Father Jean-Claude Etienne. The abuse, Berube said, began when he was just 13 and continued for the next 3 1/2 years. Etienne died in 1999.
Berube and another man sued the diocese and ultimately won a settlement from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie in 2008.
In the years since, Berube resolutely abandoned his 30-year silence on the subject to become an ardent activist for the rights of men who suffered childhood sexual abuse.
He now runs a Facebook site as well as a support group, both of which are called Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Violence.
"After I had a breakdown and depression I went public... and sort of became a militant," Berube said, explaining he knows of at least ten other men who survived abuse at the same hand he did. Another five took their own lives.
"It's pretty sad because this pedophile priest destroyed lives where people commit suicide, but also destroyed the lives of all the other boys that he abused," the retired school principal said.
Recalling his experience at the Oprah taping in Chicago last month, Berube was surprised how affected he was when he walked into the studio and saw his childhood photo was one of a handful that had been enlarged and prominently displayed behind the show's famous host.
"When I saw that I was really surprised, it really touched me. I said 'Oh my God, the kid's here now'," Berube said, adding that he later teased his wife about the experience. "I said I went to Chicago and got my inner child back."
More than 10,000 applied to be part of the shows Oprah calls "two of the most phenomenal" she's ever produced.
The first episode, featuring the all-male audience, filmmaker Tyler Perry and a psychologist who works with male sexual abuse survivors, airs on CTV Friday afternoon. The next episode, which will focus on the impact of abuse on victims' relationships with spouses, partners and girlfriends, will be broadcast at the same time next Friday, November 12.
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