A Book Review of: Lew, Mike. Leaping upon the Mountains: Men Proclaiming Victory over Sexual Child Abuse. Small Wonder Books / North Atlantic Books, 1999.
Guest Written by Mike Lew
In Mike Lew’s second book, Leaping upon the Mountains: Men Proclaiming Victory over Sexual Abuse, Lew features recovery experiences of transnational male survivors of sexual child abuse expressed in their own diverse, creative, and empowering use of words. He showcases accessible resources outside of what the realm of authoritative voices of the late 20th century offered, and traces a loose temporal pattern of their utilization as a suggestive reference that could be flexibly tailored to individual survivor needs.
The feminist movements during the 1970s and 1980s exposed the problem of child sexual abuse and characterized it as an inherently patriarchal violence. Activists and scholars during this period contributed to the burgeoning literature on sexual violence, but still operated within a problematic male-perpetrator/female-victim binary that “relegated [sexually abused men] to a dismissive footnote” who were further silenced by the HIV/AIDS epidemic-induced homophobia during the 1980s and 1990s. Although the 1990s saw an increase in visibility of male survivors of child sexual abuse, psychiatric treatment, and inclusive policy making, discriminatory forces persist.
Leaping upon the Mountains is then significant not only for being one of the first few published books on male survivor issues, but also for centering survivor discourse without ignoring the diversity within this community. By centering male survivor (and ally) discourse, Lew avoids the gendered and racialized conceptualization of “child” and “sexual abuse” demarcated by institutionalized forms of knowledge production that claims to be the objective truth. Although Lew compiled survivor experience and insight through a questionnaire (given to everyone he encountered, professional mailing list, organizations) asked survivors to respond to four questions (1. An important resource(s) during the early part of my recovery was… 2. As my recovery progressed, I found help and encouragement from… 3. In support of my recovery today, I focus on… 4. Something I would like to say to other male survivors is…) that asked for respective answers in two or less sentences, many responders ignored the suggested restriction and “offered their contributions in the form of essays, poetry, fiction, or personal history.” By pleasantly including these creative responses submitted by a diverse community, Lew produced a survivor discourse that resists abstracting dimensions of social identities that challenge barriers to resources enforced by hegemonic ideologies of gender that interlock with race and sexuality.
Leaping upon the Mountains is not only significant as a bibliotherapeutic material for featuring male survivors of child sexual abuse, but its inclusion of multidimensional analysis. Lew invited M.E. Hart, an African American survivor of fifteen years of sexual abuse since the age of four, to share his personal and professional insights (he was a fromer Legal Advisor to the Director of the Office of Human Rights in Washintong, D.C.) on how racism inhibits access to recovery. According to Hart, the dominant belief of African Americans being less intelligent and more violence prone marginalizes Black and other survivors of color from communication within a mixed-race group counseling setting, especially when their abusers were also men of color. Furthermore, hypersexualization of African American men, rooted in chattel slavery, traps African American survivors between a paradox of unrecognizing their child sexual abuse trauma and social emasculation.
Indeed, concerns with gender conformity (conflated with sexuality) play a large role in the recovery of child sexual abuse as well. Many parents of male survivors of child sexual abuse fear that the experience threatens the privileges of cishetero-normative masculinity of their children, and “relied on athleticism, emotional detachment, and the promotion of heterosexuality” to (re)affirm male survivors’ gender. This adds a further level of shame on survivors, especially those who do not conform to such hegemonic masculinity, and can result in hypermasculinist activities such as “disruptive behaviors, emotional detachment, violence, and homophobic behaviors.” Lew’s inclusion of survivor statements against such “old negative, shaming messages” not only exemplifies how writing activities remain an important part of recovery for survivors ‘today,’ but as a form of empowerment for survivors who do not conform to hegemonic masculinity. Lew features a poem written by a 57 year old Chris from Ohio, whose mother perceived him as a disappointment for being “a less than six-foot-tall, athletic, HE MAN son.” Throughout the poem, Chris repeats that “It’s OK to be” a non-gender conforming man, including being short, gay, loving classical music, cry… and ultimately an incest survivor.
Sexual violence against men, including male child sexual abuse, can be theorized as a “part of an array of institutionalized and socially sanctioned violence that serves to empower certain groups of men as heterosexual, masculine, and dominant.” Thus, centering survivor discourse as a site of production for self-help resources may be described as an intersectional approach that offers narrative, empowerment, and resistance for male survivors of child sexual abuse. Mike Lew’s intention for Leaping upon the Mountains: Men Proclaiming Victory over Sexual Child Abuse thus appears to me as a beginning of an intersectional (though depoliticized) project: it focuses on self help through survivor discourse, highlight the diversity within the male survivor community, emphasize the individuality of pace and level of intensity in recovery, and analyze how different forms of oppression inhibit recovery.
Mike Lew, M.Ed., is a psychotherapist and co-director of The Next Step Counseling and Training Center. With a background in Psychological Antropology and training in Counseling Psychology, he is a leading expert on trauma recovery, and continues to be a foundational resource for adult male survivors of sexual child abuse.
This November, the Mental Health Association in Tompkins County (MHATC), the Advocacy Center at Tompkins County, and THRIVE (The Healing Resource Institute for Victim Empowerment) are welcoming Mike Lew to our Ithaca community for a 3 day event.
Thursday, November 6 — Community Talk & Discussion
- Survivors, allies, and the general public are invited to join Mike Lew at 7:00pm for an open, compassionate conversation about the unique challenges male survivors face, and ways communities can foster healing and support. This is a free event taking place at Hilton Garden Inn, 130 E Seneca St, Ithaca, NY 14850. doors open at 6:00pm for networking and access to local resource tables.
Friday, November 7 from 9:00am to 4:00pm — Professional Training
- Led by Mike Lew, this is a one-day training designed for professionals addressing the experiences of male survivors of childhood sexual abuse, different therapeutic approaches, and key concerns faced by professionals working with male survivors. Please register online HERE.
Saturday, November 8 from 9:00am to 5:00pm — Male Survivor Workshop
A free workshop for adult male, non-offending, survivors of childhood sexual abuse. In this transformative, day-long workshop participants will explore a range of healing practices designed to empower and support recovery. Activities will include sharing personal stories, guided writing exercises, emotional expression, small group discussions, relaxation techniques, and creative exploration. Additional details and registration form online HERE.
References
Angelides, Steven. 2005. “The Emergence of the Paedophile in the Late Twentieth Century.” Australian Historical Studies 36 (126): 272–95. doi:10.1080/10314610508682924.
Krane, Julia. “PATRIARCHAL BIASES IN THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE: A Review and Critique of Literature from a Radical Feminist Perspective.” Canadian Social Work Review / Revue Canadienne de Service Social 7, no. 2 (1990): 183–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41669347.
Lew, Mike. Leaping upon the Mountains: Men Proclaiming Victory over Sexual Child Abuse. Small Wonder Books / North Atlantic Books, 2000.
McGuffey, C. Shawn. “‘Saving Masculinity:’ Gender Reaffirmation, Sexuality, Race, and Parental Responses to Male Child Sexual Abuse.” Social Problems 55, no. 2 (2008): 216–37. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2008.55.2.216.
“Mike Lew Three Day Event.” Mental Health Association in Tompkins County. Accessed October 23, 2025. https://www.mhaedu.org/mike-lew.
Naples, Nancy A. “Deconstructing and Locating Survivor Discourse: Dynamics of Narrative, Empowerment, and Resistance for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse.” Signs 28, no. 4 (2003): 1151–85. https://doi.org/10.1086/368323.
Severs, George J. “Male rape: survivors, support and the law in late twentieth-century England and Wales.” History Workshop Journal, Volume 97, (Spring 2024): 196–220. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbae002.
The Next Step Counseling & Training. Accessed October 15, 2025. http://www.nextstepcounseling.org/.