This website is intense. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

 Words and images can be incredibly powerful. One of the reasons that I have created this website is that I firmly believe that words and pictures have the power to comfort, provoke and create a diverse set of feelings. Words and images can be used for good, but they can also, though no fault of the writer or creator, cause extreme pain and suffering. 

 I have heard a lot of people argue, including medical professionals, that trigger warnings are a new phenomenon, a symptom of an overly emotional generation who need to be wrapped in bubble wrap, say soothing things to and who need handholding, essentially we are coddling people. In fact the concept of trigger warnings began in the early sixties when PTSD, then known as “shell shock”, emerged as a legitimate medical condition to diagnose soldiers suffering from symptoms after the Vietnam War. 

 Around the same time, the feminist movement began and started to develop a language around “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” to help women who had been sexually abused avoid re-experiencing symptoms such as flashbacks. 

 Today trigger warnings are used to protect vulnerable people from content that might retraumatise them. 

This website contains material that can be sometimes confronting and disturbing. Sometimes words and/or images can cause distress, or trigger traumatic memories for men, particularly survivors of past abuse, violence or childhood trauma.For some people, these responses can be overwhelming. If you need to talk to someone, support is available.

If you are reading this website you may be the one of an estimated one million men in Australia that have experienced and survived (Heroic men) a sexual assault or rape, whether it was when you were a child, as an adult that has been raped by another man, a member of the LGYBT community who has been assaulted or raped or a man who has been assaulted or raped by a woman or a inmate who has been raped or assaulted while in prison.

You may be a family member or close friend of a man who has been sexually assaulted or raped and you wish to understand a little more about what he is going through and how you can to assist him during his healing journey.

I have designed this website to help, support and advocate for the men in Australia who have been sexually assaulted or raped from the perspective of someone who has “lived experience” and who is traveling on his own journey . I also wanted to create a safe space for men to tell their stories without fear or judgement.