Boys Don't Cry

Tears are an evolutionary driven behaviour. When we cry, we communicate that we’re distressed and we need comfort. It’s the offer of comfort that eases the pain.

When we suppress our tears, we put strain on our body. As a long-term strategy, suppressing pain is corrosive. It turns pain into anger. It’s displaced onto others or starts corroding our own bodies.

Prisons are full of sad people who’ve learned as children that it’s dangerous to cry when you’re sad. So instead, they transform their sadness into rage with dangerous consequences. In the population I worked with, 66% had experienced sexual abuse (Murphy & Lawrence, 2025).

Most people who are abused as children don’t end up in jail. But of those who are in jail, most of them have been very badly hurt as children. How different our society might look if we kept our children safe from harm.

#InsideTheBoysClub #csa #sexualabuse

Sane Seven, Marius Janciauskas, Andy Woodward, Tobi Tarquin, Rafael Viola, Dan, Joe Sabien, Hugh Venables and Kerry Hopkins have all made this campaign happen

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Murphy, N., & Lawrence, D. (2025). Are we asking the right questions? Assessing trauma histories of men involved in the justice system. Journal of Forensic Practice. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFP-02-2025-0010