Many people explore the concept of sexual abuse in many different areas, whether they explore the details of the event, the psychological effects of the victims and the seriousness of the situation involving religious groups. The involvement of different media in being able to inform more people about sexual abuse is significant. This allows the authors to be able to personally inform sensitive information about this cause. 

 On the website, The Male Survivor, the site’s purpose is to provide information on the National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization. The website can do this in a supportive tone in which they, “help the public and the media to recognize and understand boys and men who have been sexually abused and promotes action to confront and fight male sexual abuse”(Male Survivor). The main goal is to be a welcoming platform to reach out to many people who have some experience with such a case. The audience in which this text is aimed for would have to be male sexual abuse victims or anyone who needs more information regarding the topic. The author is successful in being able to use a website as its genre; this had significantly allowed many people to come forward about their experiences. The use of pathos throughout the website creates a stronger connection with the author and reader. Discrepancy and the ability to make the person continue as anonymous can reach out to many without having to worry about the social stigma in their masculinity. This allows the website to reach out to its audience and be able to make a change for the better. 

 Looking further into the abuser’s point of view, there have been studies regarding the abusers past with their demeaning actions on their current offenses. In the article, “Half of the prisoners abused as children” by Mark Barna, the author introduces the idea that prisoners had a history of child abuse by using ethos to gain credibility in the information provided. Child abuse was defined as someone suffering physical, sexual, emotional, neglectful or a combination of abuse before age the 18 (Barna). Representing this information in a Brief Article helps gather attention from a vast range of ages from the readers. Being able to represent this efficiently helps the reader further understand the roots of a sexual abuse situation. This is a strong way of being able to successfully grasp the reader’s attention. Although he could use more evidence statistically wise, he still gets his purpose across. The reader can interpret these statements and establish that those who were abused as children were at risk, and often repeated the same course of action upon another being; this was considered the cycle of violence (Barna) The author’s purpose is to be able to inform the reader about why the situation does not seem to get any better. He provides a solution in which he states that correctional institutions should be able to tend to these traumas and possibly aid in making the patient better. Using diction to clarify solutions and next steps strongly support his purpose.

 The author Paul Duggan introduces the topic of sexual abuse with a religious intake. In his article, “Trial begins for D.C Catholic priest accused of child sexual abuse” he uses an informative tone to go into detail on the case describing the sexual abuse that many young woman and children went through. The author makes a professional stance in being able to disregard personal feelings about this case into their writing. The language used in this article was very simple and easy to follow allowing the readers to thoroughly understand the severity of the situation. For example, the author mentions, “Vazquez… is charged with four felony counts of second-degree child sexual abuse and one misdemeanor count of sexual abuse”(Duggan). Being able to express this information across a platform like this, allows for a vast range of an audience, he successfully uses ethos to provide factual evidence and testaments made from victims. The authors purpose to do so would most likely be to shine a light on cases like this and possibly have people think more about how the Catholic Church has a history of sexual abuse problems. He mentions how “She said they did not report the alleged incident to police until last year after Vazquez’s alleged sexual abuse of the other girls came to light” (Duggan) Using this type of diction where he specifically uses direct quotes and testaments can portray the purpose better. With Duggan’s language, he hopes to be able to capture the attention of those who might have been through similar situations and possibly encourage their confessions.

 There is also a problem regarding the aftermaths of often sexual abuse cases. Even if many cases do not reach certain extremities and any type of abuse is just as significant as the other, pregnancy and its aftermath have different paths in what they choose to do after discovering such thing. In the study, “To keep or not to keep? Decision making in adolescent pregnancies in Jamestown, Ghana”, by Luchuo Engelbert Bain Marjolein B. M Zweekhorst, Mary Amoakah-Coleman, Seda Muftugil-Yalcin, Aberjirinde Ibukun-Oluwa Omalde, and Renaud Bacquet, the authors conduct a social study in Ghana regarding all the information necessary that young adolescent women had made when finding out they were pregnant. They also looked into the reasons behind the choices of such young girls. For example, they introduce the fact that low income and middle-income countries have “approximately 16 million girls aged 15 to 19 years give birth, with about 2.5 million of these girls under the age of 16”(Luchuo et al., 2019) Although the authors have solely made this study about pregnancy rates and the cause and effect of it, they allow the reader to question why there are so many teenagers that go through this. The most successful part of this study was the numerous subsections to help break down their findings and making it much easier for their readers to grasp the evidence and findings in a better way. In general, the findings of these results were in many facts leaned more towards what decisions would be made by young adults. Because this is mainly focused on consensual pregnancies one can come to question if many adolescents cannot differentiate between consent and obligation in low-income families or social norms in their community. 

 The authors to these various sources have all in some way claimed that sexual abuse comes in many forms and occurs to many people, whether they care to admit it or refuse to acknowledge that such thing ever happened. One can see that the majority of the time this occurs in lack of acceptance form public views. When mentioned in Male Survivor that men are scared to come forth to admit to what has happened to them and can be guaranteed that they can access their website as anonymous (Male Survivor), the author was able to establish a supportive stance. The author of this website allowed assurance to be present in men and to come forth. The authors choice of words can compare in meaning and diction to that of Mark Barnas. For example, he states that the lack of emotional support or comfort in speaking up causes more damage and can lead back into a repetitive cycle (Barna). Using this type of stance allows for a connected relationship between both sources. The exposure presented in new studies like the ones Mark had made, websites like Male Survivor can act and step by step help men who have been through tough situations. 

 However, looking into a more social environment aspect, social norms plays a major role in sexual abuse cases, one can determine that in this situation many children have suffered a significant amount in an environment in which they would never expect it would happen. Bringing in other viewpoints like accusations of false testimonies stating they did not “even meet the common-sense test” (Duggan) allows for a juxtaposition to be made within the authors own article comparing its opposite views. The author illustrated two opposing viewpoints and still managed to portray his purpose of exposing every truth against the accused individual. This allows the reader to expand their thinking and encourage them to consider that when someone has too much power or wealth, they can buy off their freedom and little to no cost. Adding on to this social norm, the authors of the article “To keep or not to keep? Decision making in adolescent pregnancies in Jamestown, Ghana” make it clear that the purpose of their study is to be able to provide information about why there are high numbers in teen pregnancies and although the author did not mention anything about sexual abuse stance, this allowed for a flexible stance on the topic. Having both authors successfully include accurate information was very important in being able to portray their purposes. Although their purposes were distinctive, one can say that there are attributes in similarities to the tone being made to bring information to the reader.

 Sexual abuse, whether experienced by a woman or a man, is abuse that can lead to long term psychological trauma. The right action must be taken and no more people can be silenced by it. The efforts made in all genres were extremely useful in trying to bring light to the situation. Raising awareness and make it okay to converse about is an important factor when helping other individuals since they need all the support they can get. Overall, abuse in any standard or form will always leave or alter and effect on an individual and bringing awareness to this is one step forward in hopefully reducing the number so sexual abuse cases. 

 

Barna, Mark. “Half of the prisoners abused as children.” The Nation’s Health, May 2019, p. 3. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A586902866/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=OVIC&xid=5b0e8ed7. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.

Engelbert Bain, Luchuo, et al. “To keep or not to keep? Decision making in adolescent pregnancies in Jamestown, Ghana.” PLoS ONE, vol. 14, no. 9, 2019, p. e0221789. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A598389841/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=f93aed39. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.

“Male Survivor.” Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2018. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/CSFZUB491104794/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=OVIC&xid=1c6370f0. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.

“Trial begins for D.C. Catholic priest accused of child sexual abuse.” Washingtonpost.com, 6 Aug. 2019. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A595769064/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=def99884. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.