I honestly believe she [his mother] had probably been sexually abused herself,” he says, adding: “I feel pity for her.” One gentleman, sadly, was completely house bound. He basically just felt that it was completely impossible to trust anybody or to be out in society because he had so little self-regard,” she says.

I was shunned, I wasn’t wanted. I felt that even from my cousins, uncles and aunties, grandparents,” Ian says. Quietly reflecting on this, he says: “It’s really hard to tell someone you love, ‘By the way, my mother abused me and I had sex with my mother’.” Marcus died by suicide two years ago and when he did, he left University of Canberra researcher Lucetta Thomas a message. It’s an incredibly confusing situation for victims, explains Lucetta, because “the boys still love their mother” and just like Hamish, “they don’t want the family to break apart.” How can you have a healthy sexual relationship? How can you become a father, husband, grandfather?” he asks.Our marriage was never the same after I told her about my mother … just telling her wasn’t enough, we needed to get help,” he says. He was not only sexually abused by his mother from a very young age but when he became older and was able to physically prevent her from abusing him, she engaged another friend to be her strong arm so she could continue the acts of sexual violence against him,” Lucetta explains. I wish we’d got help together, you know? I might still be married now if I’d got help. But I’m not,” he says with unmistakeable grief.

Only in the last six years — and after decades of counselling and therapy — does Ian feel he’s started to recover. Lucetta says men who were victims as boys are deterred from disclosing what happened due to the very real fear of not being believed or being blamed for their maternal abuse. University of Canberra researcher Lucetta Thomas has interviewed dozens of men who have been sexually abused by their mothers. Picture: Ginger Gorman Lucetta recruited the men for her research with relative ease. This may lead one to assume this type of abuse is common. Frustratingly though, there seems to be no reliable data on its prevalence — including the Personal Safety Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.About 10 years ago a television news story prompted him to briefly mention the childhood sexual abuse to his wife. After the disclosure he promptly told her: “I never want to talk about it ever again, ever.” I hated her because of abuse,” he says, “I had a list of people who I wanted dead and she was on that list.” While some boys were mentally coerced into “a full sexual relationship” with their mother, Lucetta explains that others were on the receiving end of “incredible violence” if they tried to resist. Mothers might also withdraw of basic human needs, such as food and shelter. For Ian, the childhood abuse “manipulated my sexuality and impacted my ability to operate as a person.”

According to Lucetta, society’s beliefs about gender are effectively stopping a cohort of male victims disclosing their abuse and accessing support.Despite growing up in a wealthy suburb and going to a private school, home life was difficult. His single mother suffered frequent physical illnesses, such as pneumonia and pleurisy. In retrospect Hamish thinks his mother was also mentally unwell. In the context of Lucetta’s research, Ian is unusual because he considers himself mentally healthy. The sexual abuse of “these men when boys is often highly traumatic and at times extremely violent and impacted on their psychological, biosocial and physical development,” Lucetta says. Society says that males are actually instigators of any sort of sexual relationship, so the child copes with the trauma by telling himself: ‘I must have actually instigated it,’” she says. She preyed on the fact I was coming into puberty and made me feel important and special,” he tells me.

I AM very sorry I brought you so much pain,” Marcus* wrote in his final letter, “Thank you for caring for me. I know I didn’t deserve it.” She saw me as like some sort of de facto relationship, I’ve got no doubt about that. She’d say: ‘You’re the man of the house’,” he recalls. Throughout adulthood, Ian has been plagued by feelings of isolation, guilt, low self-esteem, depression and anxiety. He’s also battled a “dysfunctional sex life” and attempted suicide a number of times. This isn’t an easy interview. When I ask what went through his head during that period in his childhood, Hamish struggles to form an answer. Like so many men in his position, the distress lies not in the words but in the silence.They have experienced the same forms of trauma, the same forms of sexual abuse and emotional and psychological abuse as any victim of sexual abuse or sexual assault and they need to be taken seriously and they need to be believed. True to his word, Hamish never did discuss it again with his wife — something he has lived to regret. Ian describes “a paralysis” inside him and states: “I don’t think I’ve loved anybody in my life [and] didn’t know what love was.” To an outsider, these could be understood as simple words of encouragement. Lucetta knew their real meaning; this was an urgent final plea.