After #MeTooInceste in mid-January, #MeTooGay is sweeping the networks. Online testimonials focus on sexual assault and rape experienced by gays in childhood, adolescence and young adults. But what follow-up to these stories?
“I was 10 or 11 years old. They didn't believe me when I said it. It partially shot my teenage years and my family, delayed my coming out of I-don't-know-how many years. It took me years to be able to talk about it again ". Here is the story shared by Matthieu Foucher, journalist and director, on January 21, 2021 on Twitter. A speech accompanied by the hashtag #MeTooGay and which echoes a survey that Matthieu Foucher himself conducted for the media in September 2020 for Vice. A work to put words on the taboo of sexual assault and rape, experienced by homosexuals when they are children, adolescents or adults.
If he is silent, the problem remains nonetheless real and even more important in gay minors than in others. In April 2020, a Virage study by the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) thus looked into gender and intra-family violence. It showed that the frequency of sexual violence against gay boys committed by a member or close relative of the family was 6% and 5.4% for bisexual boys. In comparison, the figures are 0.5% for heterosexual boys and 2.5% for heterosexual girls. Another secret of incest and / or child criminality is involved: that of sexual violence committed by one man on another. A double taboo, which the #MeTooGay movement brings to light.
Read also : How to recognize incest and help a victim?
The birth of #MeTooGay
At the origin of Matthieu Foucher's approach, a quest for truth. "I have had the intuition for years that this is an important subject: both this high prevalence of victims of sexual abuse in childhood among gays, then the multiple sexual violence encountered in adulthood. Concerning abuse in childhood, the subject has long been (and still is) extremely taboo ", he explains. It was during the #MeToo movement, relaunched in 2017, that our interlocutor realized how much "the silence in which the gays have remained" and heavy. “Because they were men, they kept silent. Maybe now was not the time, I don't know, asks the journalist. We probably did not necessarily have the tools at that time to think about the systemic nature of this violence, its inclusion in the patriarchy and its articulation with violence against women. But the wounds of gays are no less violent than others, they are also patriarchal, and they deserve to be heard today. "
When asked why the movement took a long time to launch, the co-founder of Friction Mag evokes an absence of empirical data. “No one had so far approached the issue of sexual violence from this angle. Structural homophobia, and the pathologization of gay identity in particular, acts as a powerful barrier. The ambiguous place of gays within the patriarchy makes it more difficult for gays, as a social group, to think about these issues. The conflict of loyalty that can arise for any minority does not help at all", he says. Difficult indeed, when one belongs to a stigmatized group, to denounce his peers. Yet this is what many concerned courageously choose to do, to the point that this Friday, January 22, the tag was leading trends on Twitter France.
The role of words and their diffusion
Behind this avalanche of poignant stories, often mentioned without too many details, Matthieu Foucher sees a way of being reborn individually by freeing himself from the secret. But also, a collective struggle, via a hastag in the form of a bridge between the victims: homosexual men on one side and women on the other. "Doing #MeTooGay, and registering this violence in the continuity of #MeToo, is also to allow (I hope and I hope) to build new complicity between gays and feminists who have many more interests common as they can sometimes believe, on this question and on others. My own political camp is that one ", insists the reporter.
Like those women who were able to use #MeToo, gays find here a hitherto non-existent space to be able to say: "me too". And finally, understand the impact of what they went through on their lives. "Many gays who have experienced this violence sometimes very early in their life are confronted with real obstacles in their identity construction and their relationship to sexuality, 'a combination of difficulties" https://www.aufeminin.com/ ", rebounds Matthieu Foucher. The links between sexual violence, overexposure to HIV, mental disorders and addictions have been demonstrated by numerous studies. Homophobia and sexual violence, two very violent systems of domination which each produce a great deal of shame and guilt, collide in extremely explosive ways, and crush individuals. " It is this analytical work that we will now have to carry out, so that the movement does not only remain a catalog of poignant stories.
Testify, but after?
For two days, and this is probably only the beginning, testimonies have multiplied, as well as comments from supporters. But what follow-up to give them? How to move from words to deeds? Thursday, January 21, 2021, the French Communist Party asked one of its elected officials from the 14th arrondissement and councilor of Paris, Maxime Cochard, to step back following an accusation of rape and sexual assault, shared in a tweet (which does not use the hashtag #MeTooGay). A case which shows that yes, an online denunciation can lead to concrete acts. The fact remains that getting organized to influence an entire system remains difficult. For example, and despite its real impact on mentalities, #MeToo has not succeeded in establishing a sufficient balance of power in favor of the victims.
On this debate afterwards, Matthieu Foucher announces that "to realize that for gays, the collective liberation of speech had never really taken place. It is necessary, it is absolutely necessary to go through it, to overcome the shame that society imposes on us, in several places. it is indeed essential to get out of it not to stop at the individual narrative and to think about the systemic character, to re-register these narratives in those of MeToo, and of patriarchal violence. " For the moment, the time remains for a heard speech, of which "collectively we can learn lessons". This is an essential first step if we then want to fundamentally change our society.