Romance authors deftly explore sensitive topic of sexually abused heroes

Alpha male.

Just those two words bound together by testosterone make us shiver, don't they? It's hard to find a more prominent, consistent figure in the romance genre than the alpha male hero. He is literally the stuff dreams are made of and elicits a very clear mental image.

Dominant. Forceful. Protective.

Words not associated with your typical alpha male?

Vulnerable. Violated. Victim.

Though we wouldn't naturally pair words from that painful lexicography with our alpha male hero, there are authors deftly handling the sensitive issue of sexually abused males, and in the process, gifting us with some of the most dynamic, complex, and yes, forceful heroes in today's romantic fiction.

I remember the first love story I read featuring a sexually abused male hero, Judith James' historical romance Broken Wing. Since then, a few others resonated and continued to inform me as I wrote my book, Be Mine Forever, featuring Cam, the hero and a sex abuse survivor. Of course, Gideon from Sylvia Day's Crossfire series comes to mind, and a few others, but comparatively few writers tackle this difficult scenario. The potential pathos surrounding male sexual abuse in romantic fiction merely reflects the true-to-life societal stigmas and myths men face, accounting for lower reporting rates. According to 1in6, a national organization committed to helping male sex abuse survivors live healthier, happier lives, only 16% of men with documented histories of sexual abuse report it, compared with women's estimated 64% reporting rate.

"In addition to the many things that silence all survivors, men are faced with a profound conflict," says Dr. David Lisak, 1in6 board president. "We learn from a very early age that we must measure up to the code of masculinity. We must be strong, tough and able to take care of ourselves. We must not be vulnerable, and we must not show fear. How then does a boy reconcile the experience of sexual abuse with this code of masculinity?"

This becomes a central tension for the writer depicting a strong male hero living with the residual trauma of sexual abuse.

Paste BN and New York Times bestseller K. Bromberg addressed this tension head on in her Driven series, featuring Colton Donovan, a race-car driver who suffered childhood sexual abuse. Even into his adulthood, the abuse remains unconfessed and unaddressed. Like so many real-life survivors, Colton uses coping mechanisms and destructive behaviors — alcohol, meaningless sex, unnecessary risk-taking — to cloak the pain and shame that isolate him from meaningful connections and the help he needs to heal. Colton refers to this pattern as "pleasure to bury the pain." The heroine, Rylee, becomes a catalytic figure because to experience true intimacy with her in the context of a healthy relationship, Colton must tear away those protective layers and begin dealing with his past.

"I think all relationships are difficult at some point and are always hard work," says Bromberg. "When you are dealing with someone who has been abused, they sometimes have triggers that cause them to feel defensive or vulnerable in some way."

For Colton, the very concept and verbalization of love is such a trigger because his mother manipulated him into the abusive situation in exchange for drugs. She used his love for her against him, and then the perpetrator perverted the word, causing guilt and shame that hound Colton into adulthood.

"To be sexually abused is to experience acute vulnerability, powerlessness and helplessness," says Lisak. "It feels like the antithesis of masculinity."

Instead of a hero who shunned antithetical masculinity, L.H. Cosway depicted a hero who fully embraced his feminine side, while still demonstrating many of the behaviors we've come to expect from our alpha male. Sexual prowess, possessiveness, and fierce protective strength. In Cosway's novel Painted Faces, Nicholas, a sex abuse survivor, is a heterosexual drag queen employing many of the same destructive behaviors Colton uses and wrestling with the misplaced sense of shame so common to abuse survivors.

Cosway sketches a hero who, when he dons his dresses and stilettos and paints his face, seeks glimpses in the mirror of the mother he lost early in life. In some ways, his profession is tangled up in his pursuit of that pure maternal love in contrast with the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a family friend.

"Deep down Nicholas was always yearning for someone to love him completely for who he is," says Cosway. "He yearns for a person to see him as wonderful because of his quirks and uniqueness, rather than in spite of them."

Freda, the heroine, is that person, and in may ways, her love — unconditional and judgment-free — propels Nicholas to face many of the demons he's been running from, including all the misplaced shame that often plummets him to the bottom of a bottle.

According to Lisak, this misplaced shame stems from children internalizing much of what they experience. If something bad happens to them, they are prone to think it happened because they were bad or they did something wrong. It can take years to unravel these deeply embedded ideas from the psyche.

"Another very common cause of shame is the profoundly personal, profoundly vulnerable core of any sexual abuse," says Lisak. "To have your body used for the sexual gratification of another person, to be unable to control this abuse, is so profoundly violating that it very often produces a reflexive shame. There is no shame in having been mistreated. The shame belongs to the person who perpetrated the abuse."

These truths, so self-evident to us looking from the outside, sometimes take years for the abuse survivor to grasp, to process, to believe. The writer tackling this issue must create a heroine who is sympathetic to the hero's pain and is worthy of his trust.

Lisak emphasizes what a struggle trust can be for survivors. How can you trust someone enough to be truly intimate with them when you have been so cruelly betrayed, often by those who should have loved you?

"Rylee was prepared to deal with Colton because first and foremost she is a compassionate and extremely patient person," says Bromberg. "The fact that she takes care of damaged little boys in her career allowed her to see in Colton the things he couldn't see in himself. Instead of running away when he pushed, she walked toward him with a willing heart and open mind."

Bromberg says the notion that Colton couldn't love because even the very term takes him back to that dark time and place complicated the story, but also drove it. The reader could see both the hero and heroine striving to overcome this so they could find their happily ever after.

Cosway also took great care with the special heroine who bulldozes the protective walls erected around Nicholas's heart.

"Freda is the kind of woman who doesn't care what you do so long as it makes you happy and aren't hurting anyone," says Cosway. "Nicholas' drag performance is what makes him happy, and he makes no apologies for what he does. I wanted to create a story where the characters have been through such darkness, but then find happiness in whatever strange and unusual form it might inhabit."

Lisak asserts that most survivors learn from the relationships they have. They learn to trust. They learn that the hurts and the interpersonal struggles of adult relationships are usually very different from what they experienced as vulnerable children.

"In time, the past separates itself from the present, and survivors become increasingly able to experience true intimacy," says Lisak.

Bromberg and Cosway manage to strike an incredible balance in their stories. With such weighty issues, the books could quickly and easily become heavy, with the abuse overshadowing the romance itself. That never happens because these heroes are so dimensional. Both writers do what survivors must do. They can't allow that experience to fully define them. It happened to them, but it is not the sum of who they are. They emerge in these stories, as survivors must do in life, as multidimensional beings grappling with how a difficult past complicates not only their everyday lives, but the opportunity to experience the very thing they've denied themselves in other human interactions. Unconditional, unfiltered love.

"The reality is that all children are vulnerable, and being sexually abused says absolutely nothing about one's masculinity or femininity," says Lisak. "To confront the abuse, to find the strength to challenge the myths that tell us we were weak, actually requires tremendous courage and tremendous strength."

Cosway says she wanted Nicholas to become someone who turned his poison into his medicine, rather than someone who simply drowned in the poison. That transformation requires strength, a characteristic intrinsically linked to the alpha male. Writers who take the risk of telling these survivors' love stories, trust their readers to look beyond the stigma and myth surrounding male sexual abuse, and to see the strength of their redemption.

If you experienced abuse, you can find help at 1in6, including 24/7 online support. Visit 1in6.org.

Kennedy Ryan writes contemporary romance and women's fiction. Under her government issue name, Tina Dula, she is a wife to the love of her life, mom to a special, beautiful son, and a friend to those living with autism through her foundation Myles-A-Part, serving Georgia families. Find out more at kennedyryanwrites.com.