NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte Observer
Fort Mill doctor says he was sexually abused as a child
By Elizabeth Leland
eleland@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Thursday, Mar. 14, 2013
Dr. Jason Peck, a psychiatrist and sleep expert, is doing what not so long ago would have been unthinkable for a man who claims he was sexually abused as a child:
Peck is speaking out.
So much stigma is attached to child molestation that men who bring charges often don’t want anyone to know their names. “From the day it happened, I’ve tried very hard to push away the dark, terrifying, and sickening memories fearing what would happen to me or my family if I spoke out,” said Peck, now 45. …
For a man to speak out candidly would have been unthinkable not that long ago, said psychologist Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, co-director of Presbyterian Psychological Services and a nationally-recognized authority on sexual abuse. Women began talking openly about sexual abuse during the women’s movement of the 1970s. But Frawley-O’Dea said it took the sex scandals surrounding the Catholic church and Penn State for men to feel comfortable stepping forward.
“It liberated more men to feel that this is something that happens and they can talk about it,” Frawley-O’Dea said. She said that as many as one-third of all women worldwide and 20 to 25 percent of all men are sexually abused before age 18.
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