Scott Brown reveals history of sexual and emotional abuse on 60 minutes.

Scott Brown, the Republican Senator that garnered tremendous attention after he won the seat of the deceased Ted Kennedy as Senator in Massachusetts, has a memoir coming out. He will be on 60 Minutes this Sunday promoting the book. In the preview for the 60 Minutes special, Brown reveals that he was emotionally abused as a child by his mother’s many husbands and then sexually abused by a camp counselor.

The interview not only details some of the circumstances of his assualt, but this is also the first time his wife and mother are hearing about it. Via the Daily News,

He said he never told anyone out of shame and fear, and even his mother and wife would be hearing about the molestation for the first time.

“He said ‘If you tell anybody, I’ll kill ya. I will make sure that nobody believes you,'” Brown told Leslie Stahl in the interview which airs Sunday. CBS released an excerpt in advance.

“That’s what happens when you’re a victim. You’re embarrassed. You’re hurt.”

“When people find people like me at that young vulnerable age, who are basically lost, the thing that they have over you is, they make you believe that no one will believe you.”

Brown described being touched, and being forced to touch the counselor.

“Fortunately, nothing was ever fully consummated, so to speak, but it was certainly, back then, very traumatic,” he said.

Brown also described being beaten by his stepfather and says he once thought about buying his childhood home in Wakefield, Mass. – so he could burn it down.

Kudos to Scott Brown for sharing a personal story of sexual assault, that in and of itself, helps other survivors come out, especially men that are often not given the cultural space to talk about sexual assault. It is common for politicians that are running for office to put out memoirs and to give us compelling stories that will urge us to vote for them, right before they are about to run for major office. At the moment Scott Brown doesn’t have any serious opponents in Massachusetts, but I have to wonder how this story will impact his political future. And I have to wonder, would this be as big a deal if a female politician were to reveal similar information or is this story going to get him extra political lasting power because he is a man? Or will it hurt him more because he is not what the public considers a typical victim?