I was born illegitimately,” Ian says, “and he [John] knew that because he wasn’t sleeping with my mother.” How can you have a healthy sexual relationship? How can you become a father, husband, grandfather?” he asks.

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.” University of Canberra researcher Lucetta Thomas has interviewed dozens of men who have been sexually abused by their mothers. Picture: Ginger Gorman Far from healing over time, the impacts of this mother-to-son childhood sexual abuse seem to continue. To an outsider, these could be understood as simple words of encouragement. Lucetta knew their real meaning; this was an urgent final plea. 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’.”When he was just 15, Hamish’s mother died. While making it clear he didn’t wish for her death, Hamish is blunt: “She did me a favour … I’ve always felt that it enabled me, in some respects, to get on with my life.” 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. I honestly believe she [his mother] had probably been sexually abused herself,” he says, adding: “I feel pity for her.” There seemed to be a recurrence of the trauma building up over the years,” she says, “so from the late 30s onwards, it was really starting to become an issue for them.” According to Lucetta, society’s beliefs about gender are effectively stopping a cohort of male victims disclosing their abuse and accessing support.

She preyed on the fact I was coming into puberty and made me feel important and special,” he tells me. 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. Although Ian is still married to his wife and has been for nearly 50 years, he confesses to having a number of extramarital affairs and visiting escorts for sex.

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She says: “Out of all the males that I spoke to I would say only one had actually come to terms with what had happened to him.” He worked damn hard to do just that. Hamish married in the early 90s and fathered two sons of whom he’s extremely proud. Three years ago Hamish had an affair and his marriage unravelled. As a result he lost his wife and his business. You can’t just bottle it up and think that it will go away, because it doesn’t ever go away,” he says. And he would know.

In the context of Lucetta’s research, Ian is unusual because he considers himself mentally healthy. I hated her because of abuse,” he says, “I had a list of people who I wanted dead and she was on that list.” 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.”The family dynamic was complicated. Ian, his two brothers, mother and her husband — we’ll call him John — lived in poverty in rural South Australia. From this distance Hamish now understands he was just a child when the abuse occurred; he was unable to consent to sex with an adult in a position of power. 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 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.”

Only in the last six years — and after decades of counselling and therapy — does Ian feel he’s started to recover. 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. Marcus died by suicide two years ago and when he did, he left University of Canberra researcher Lucetta Thomas a message. 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.For Ian, the childhood abuse “manipulated my sexuality and impacted my ability to operate as a person.”