Michael Caven, Author Of Spilling The Tea And Advocate For Male Victims Of Sexual Abuse And The Hope Of Recovery

 

In this episode, host Timothy J. Hayes sits down with Michael Caven, an inspiring individual who has lived a life full of unique adventures and challenges, including co-founding the first LGBTQ-themed restaurant in the United States and confronting a predator in his high school, a pivotal moment in his journey of overcoming sexual abuse. From the beaches of Vietnam, Michael reflects on his colorful past and shares the journey that led him to write his memoir, Spilling the Tea. With stories of resilience, self-discovery, and forgiveness, his memoir is a testament to embracing life’s unpredictable twists. Tune in as Michael opens up about the process of writing his memoir, the powerful themes of his story, and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

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Michael Caven, Author Of Spilling The Tea And Advocate For Male Victims Of Sexual Abuse And The Hope Of Recovery

Michael Caven is a visionary restauranteur who co-founded the USA’s first LGBT-themed restaurant Out On Main in Columbus Ohio. Before Out On Main, Michael Caven was enmeshed in the gay bar empire soap opera of his adopted father, mogul Frank Caven in Dallas Texas. Michael Caven was also the main student witness in the New Hampshire pornography trial of his former high school teacher Larry Lane Bateman, ensuring that Bateman was permanently removed from the education system, including his final position at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Michael Caven is semi-retired in central Vietnam. He is a Business Communications specialist at the University of Economics in Da Nang, as well as a practicing clinical counselor at Psychologist Vietnam Mental Health Clinic. He’s currently spearheading Vietnam’s Suicide Prevention Hotline. Michael earned a BFA from Southern Methodist University and a Masters of Science and Education from the University of Dayton. Michael Caven received the Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign; Living Legend Award from Outie Magazine. His memoir “Spilling the Tea” is in development.

Please note that this interview covers rather intense topics related to child abuse, sexual abuse, sexual, abuse of children, and child pornography, as well as Michael’s work to recover from the abuse he sustained earlier in life and his work to advocate for male victims of sexual abuse.

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Michael, thank you for joining me.

Thank you for having me, Dr. Hayes. Greetings to you and your audience from Da Nang Vietnam.

Writing The Memoir And Life Reflections

It’s an exciting thing for me to be able to talk to you about your Memoir that’s in process. I’m hoping you can tell me what went into your decision to write a memoir like this.

Vietnam played a role in it. Back in the summer of 2023, I was sitting out on the beach. One of the reasons why I semi-retired and moved to the other side of the world was to find a place with beautiful mountains and beaches. I certainly found it here in Da Nang, Vietnam, a coastal city in the central part of Vietnam. I was sitting out on the beach and reminiscing about my Dallas years. They were quite colorful years of my life and I began writing. I began writing about my arch nemesis, my big rival during that time, Dennis.

A few paragraphs became a chapter, and 1,000 words became 5,000 words. I kept going with it. I did some research about memoirs, memoir writing, and what’s expected in a memoir. I learned that each memoir, generally, should have three acts. I looked back in my life and I have three acts that I can be talking and writing about. My writing expanded from my Dallas years to more recently, the last part of my story, which was co-founding the first LGBT-themed restaurant in the United States in 1996 in Columbus, Ohio.

Much earlier than that, I also write about my adventures in a gay bar empire back when I was twenty with $20 in my pocket and quite destitute. Also, another story or another one of my acts is confronting a predator high school teacher and bringing him to justice. Those are my three stories. Those are big stories, but they did end 22 years ago.

What have I been doing in the last 22 years? We were just talking about I’m semi-retired and I live here in Central Vietnam. I decided to downsize in 2015. I was worn out of life in Philadelphia and the West in general, just lots of overhead, lots of stress, and unhappy relationships. I had always wanted to come to the other side of the world. I sold my house, gave away my clothes and my professional clothes, sold my car, and started in Australia.

I spent a month in Australia, then I looked at the map. I went to Indonesia and spent some time there, then I looked at the map. I’m like, “Why not Vietnam? I’ll spend a month or two here.” I wasn’t even quite sure about the relationship between the two countries. I didn’t even know if I would be welcome as an American. I didn’t know back then, but I learned pretty quickly that the relationship between the two countries had normalized. I was very welcome here.

In my first year in Vietnam, I stayed in Airbnb. I was on my own. I lived with many different types of families in North, South, and Central Vietnam as I explored this beautiful country. I developed fantastic friendships. I was deeply moved by the authenticity of the people and their genuine interest in chatting with people like me and getting to know people like me, foreigners, practicing English, and wanting to engage with the world.

Slowly but surely, I learned that this is the place. In 2017, I realized I can build a life here. I left Vietnam and traveled to other places that were on my bucket list, but I did make it back here in 2017 to build a life. That’s what I’ve done. To be current about what I’m doing now, I’m a Business Communication specialist lecturer at a university here in Da Nang. I’m also a practicing psychotherapist at a local mental health clinic, where I see clients on Saturday mornings.

It’s an unexpected life that I get to live here. I didn’t know when I left in 2015 what the future was going to bring, but I had faith. I knew that it would unfold and it has unfolded. I am so grateful that I get to live over here on this side of the world. The rules are different but it’s okay. I respect where I live and I’m keen to be respectful and follow the rules, and I certainly do.

That’s how I came to be here and that’s how I came to be out on that beach here in Da Nang back in the summer of 2023 when I began writing. All of that writing, I didn’t know at the time that it would substantially change my life. Before that, my life and the interesting parts of it were pretty compartmentalized. If you put my name into Google, there are 7 or 8 Michael Cavens around the world and their stuff comes up, and none of the colorful stuff of my past would come up.

This whole writing a memoir, having coaches, working with editors, working on story and structure, we all have a book within us. We all have a memoir. It’s just a matter of getting the words on the page. I dove into it and learned as much as I could about the craft. I put together a memoir. The name of it is Spilling the Tea, which is a gay expression of letting out all the news, the gossip, and the interesting adventures of your life. Spilling the Tea is like sharing gossip. That’s the name of my memoir.

While I’m thinking about it, if you’re tuning in to this, check out my Facebook page of Michael Caven, writer. If you want to help me out, follow me because what I’m doing now is a budding memoirist. I’m getting my story out there. I’m doing interviews like this to get my story out there to build a following because it’s an interesting story. It’s a compelling story. You and I are going to talk more in-depth about it as we proceed here.

It’s a story worth reading, not just for its entertainment value but for the universal themes of resilience, not giving up, and dealing with incredibly difficult situations as best as possible. Now, as a 61-year-old, extending compassion to myself, and forgiveness for my follies, for the craziness of my 20s, which are bonkers. I can look back at it now with hopefully some sobriety. We all can perhaps learn from some of these adventures that I’ve been on.

That’s why I come to be here, Dr. Hayes. I want to say thank you for your legacy of 50 years of being a caregiver and supporting your clients. I know you’ve worked extensively with PTSD. Thank you for your legacy and what you have given back to the world as far as helping people, helping others, helping us to recover, helping us to heal, and helping us to be our higher and better selves.

Life Challenges And Personal Growth

You’re very welcome and deserving, as I like to say. Take a breath, get centered, and get us started on this journey. How did you come to be?

I was born in Augusta, Georgia at a military base. I don’t remember much at that time. My mom and dad didn’t have a whole lot in common except the passion that they share. They were done after about a year. My biological father had a lot of severe mental psychiatric issues, bipolar ones, psychotic issues, psychotic features, and so on. They didn’t last, but I began life surrounded by very powerful and strong women who had opinions about who I should be and what I should be.

At the time, I was a kid with a lot of hair. I was very feminine. I wasn’t quite sure if I was a boy or a girl half the time. I think that my femininity was quite alarming for my mom. She wanted me to have a male figure and have a stepfather. A few years later, by the time I was 9 or 10, she did remarry so that I could have a male influence. That was a big part of it. As I write in my memoir, that’s mostly to bulldoze the homo out of me. They were determined to make me a man and that I would not be feminine, sound like a girl, and act like a girl.

My stepfather taught me how to throw a baseball. I learned how to play lacrosse. I manned up. I was put in a very uncomfortable position in sports and athletics. I was a very artistic kid, bashing into people and banging into people, and that type of physical thing. It wasn’t what I was up for but I didn’t have a choice. I became a star lacrosse player in the 9th and 10th grades in high school, but things at home were worsening. There was a lot of chaos between my mom and stepdad. It was like War of the Roses with them. Me and the dog were on the side as bystanders to all of this insanity.

In high school, I was befriended by a drama teacher. He taught English, Speech, Drama, and so on. I would chat with him. His name was Dr. Larry Lane Bateman. We called him Doc Bateman and he was adored. We worshiped him. He was an amazing teacher. I would chat with him when he was on hold duty during lunch, just the two of us. He seemed concerned about my family life. I talked about what was going on at home. He asked many questions. He seemed very concerned in class. I got all high marks with lots of written comments about my strengths in Speech and English.

I worshiped him and looked up to him. He was a male figure who was listening to me talking about what was going on. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know that I was gay. I knew that I was different for sure. I knew that I didn’t fit in for sure. He was a welcome respite. I didn’t know at the time that everything he was doing as far as befriending me and gaining my trust was grooming. I was fifteen years old on Long Island.

He knew what he was doing. He’d been to this rodeo numerous times in the past. Unbeknownst to me. I don’t know about my high school but he had built a career writing about the joys and great things that go with male teachers seducing male students. That’s what he wrote his dissertation on if you can believe it. It’s true. I guess my school never read it, didn’t care, or didn’t understand, but that’s what he was all about. That was his whole deal.

The Betrayal And Abuse By A Teacher

A year later, he suggested an out-of-school or away-from-school video project at his home, which I was complimented and I was eager and I felt special. I thought he had identified me for my talents and my ability on stage and so I eagerly agreed. He said, “Keep it a secret. We don’t want anyone to get jealous.” He picked me up from school one Saturday morning. I had walked there from home. At his house, the manipulation and the seduction process continued. He gave me alcohol and marijuana. He had pornography in different parts of the house. Wherever I would go, there would be pornography magazines and pictures.

He laid out this scenario for this video project that he wanted us to do. In that scenario, my character is a sixteen-year-old male student who has just returned home. He’d been outed at high school as being homosexual, and he was in a lot of shame, embarrassment, and feeling exposed. This character that Dr. Bateman was talking about goes home with lots of shame, looks in the mirror, tears, and decides to kill himself.

This is an old trope with gay life in the ’50s and ‘60s. It was always a bad ending. Many times, it led to suicide. That’s how he operated. That’s what we did. He was able to manipulate me out of my clothes. I willingly took my clothes off in the bathroom for this slitting my wrists in the tub. It sounds awful but it’s true. It’s awful that he did that. He put tea leaves on my wrist. When you put your arm in the water, it looks like blood is coming out, so we did that.

I don’t want to traumatize your audience. I’ve done a lot of therapy on this over the years so I can talk about it. I feel emotions but I’m not traumatizing myself by talking about this stuff, but I don’t want to traumatize your audience. I’ll just say because I think we all know where this is going that we eventually wound up in his bedroom with pornography, marijuana, and amyl nitrate, which is known as “poppers,” which temporarily leaves you out of your body, and he did what he did. He framed it for me that if we don’t do this, I’m going to lose him as my friend. What he was holding over me was our friendship and his role in my life. I thought that he had a lot of answers to the questions that I had about my emerging sexuality.

He was an authority figure and was paying attention to you. You felt appreciated and heard.

I did. In many ways, on my forehead was a neon sign saying, “Needy boy from a crazy family, ready for taking.” Any predator will tell you that a 15-year-old or a 16-year-old adolescent boy is easy prey, especially for somebody who knows what they’re doing, especially someone who uses pornography, alcohol, and drugs to lower your defenses and to have his way.

 

Did this develop into a relationship?

It did. Let’s go back though to the bedroom to memorialize this thing that he did. He said, “I’d like to take Polaroid pictures of you to memorialize your young beauty and all of that. I agreed, so he took sexually explicit Polaroids of me. Let’s be clear. I was a vulnerable kid and I did fall in love with him. I fell in love with the image that he and I could wake up together as partners, that he could be my protector, and that he could answer all of my questions about who I am and who I’m going to be in my emerging sexuality.

I had emotions and I had a feeling. I wanted something like any sixteen-year-old who was vulnerable would. There was a big age difference and he was not my own age, and I didn’t find him particularly attractive, but I did find the attention to be very appealing. It pulled me in. The attention that he gave was a big hook. We did meet a few more times after that. About maybe three weeks later, he announced to me that our relationship had to end and that we couldn’t go on like this. He encouraged me to connect with other people my age.

At the time, I did not know what he had done. It’s not that I was in denial. How could I be in denial for something that I didn’t know? I thought he was my friend. I thought he was on my side. I thought he had my best interest. I thought he helped me to find out stuff that on my own, I could not find out. Let’s remember, this was before the internet. This is before as a young person, you could go on and find resources online. There was nothing. I was living on Long Island. He was a bridge to my future. That’s at least what I envisioned.

I did fall and it hurt when he made that announcement, but life went on and I was on my way. As the prosecutor would say years later at his trial, “We don’t know what the future from Michael Caven held. Although we have our suspicions, we do know that Larry Lane Bateman helped him along his way.” Nothing that Larry Lane Bateman did was a positive affirming choice. Nothing that he did was mentorship, coaching, and looking toward the future in a professional way with correct boundaries like many teachers do. Many teachers inspire their students. Some teachers are in their students’ lives for many years as mentors. That is a good thing.

This wasn’t that.

It was not, but there I am. He left my high school when I was a senior. He got laid off and he wound up getting a plum job at Phillips Exeter Academy as their drama chair. He left my senior year and he was gone. I didn’t know the impact that he had on me other than I knew that it was time to get out there, see the world, and see the gay world on my own. I discovered some gay bars in Long Island.

What year was that when you graduate?

How Early Life And Family Influence Shaped Michael’s Worldview

1981, In my last year at school, things were beginning to go downhill. Let’s just get back to my family of origin. I was born with alcohol in my breath practically. Alcoholism on both sides of my family goes back many generations. I was born an alcoholic. I was drinking alcohol. The first drink I had, I was there. I was home and I loved it. I was like, “This is much better than sober life to be drinking.” I’d be drinking my parents’ alcohol and taking my mother’s painkillers and pills.

I’d be watching The PTL Club, praising the Lord with Tammy Faye Bakker, and crying. She was crying because she was taking Valium. I was crying because I was taking Valium. Years later, I would meet Tammy Faye Bakker. I said, “Tammy Faye, I was calling PTL Club, asking them to talk to you. I was a mess, girl. I was taking Valium just like you were crying.” We laughed and she said I was not the first that she’s heard that from.

It was chaos and going into my senior year was chaos. Eventually, I would leave Long Island, head to Florida of all places, and try to find my way. I was unequipped for life. I was unequipped to deal with the reality of life, but before I left Long Island and before I left New York, I had discovered hustler bars on the east side of Manhattan, which at the time were quite notorious. Young men are hustling on streets, the whole trade thing.

For myself, I love the attention. I love going into these bars and sashaying around, showing off, getting people to buy me drinks and dinners, and want to take me out. I love the attention. In a lot of it, I saw my self-worth as a sexual object. That was the message I got from Doc Bateman. It was the message I got from some other caregivers when I was younger who were inappropriate with me. I was off to the races.

I felt like I differentiated myself from other hustlers because I wasn’t taking money. I would only accept gifts, dinners, and clothes, but mostly the attention. I love the attention, and drugs. I love the attention and I love the affirmation. It made me feel full and it made me feel a larger self. It put all of my inner doubt to the side at least temporarily as I became this sought-after creature on the East side of Long Island.

I did that for about a year. It got tough. I loved. I’d leave Long Island and leave New York, and head down to Florida where I wound up being destitute. I was arrested a few times for public intoxication. Things were looking pretty bad. It was 1983 and I had run out of all options. I had $20 in my pocket. It was July 4th, 1983. I went to a bar on Kennedy Boulevard called The Old Plantation with no future.

I sat at the bar and looked over, and there was this older man. He looked like my grandfather. He reminded me of my grandfather. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or what. He smiled, and he had a Buddy Holly glasses on. He was very large and bloated, with lots of broken arteries in his face from the years of bite of whiskey. He smiled and he seemed kind. We chatted and got to know each other.

I didn’t know that I was talking to Frank Caven, who at the time was the biggest gay bar nightclub owner in the country. I didn’t know that when I met Frank, but I learned pretty fast. He could tell that I was hungry. He said that he had an organization back in Texas and that they were always looking for young talents and so on, We proceeded to a drunken Chinese dinner, which then proceeded to his bed. His nickname for it was the workbench. For those of your listeners who watch RuPaul, RuPaul says you better work, and yes I got to work.

A week later, I’d gone from being destitute with $20 to moving into Frank’s penthouses in Dallas where he lived. Going from rags to riches overnight. It was remarkable. It was a remarkable change. We pulled each other up and gave each other what we both needed. I certainly wasn’t the first number one in Frank’s life, but I was the first young man in his life who wanted more than a car, a bar, or money. I wanted an education. That’s what I wanted. That’s what differentiated me from the others because I was unique and different, “He wants education,” and I did.

I wasn't the first one in Frank's life, but I was the first young man in his life that wanted more than a car, bar, or money. I wanted an education, and that differentiated me from the others. Share on X

I started school at SMU, Southern Methodist University in Dallas. I settled into Frank’s life, settled into a life on his arm. When we would go out to his bars, there was always the parting of the waves. I was on his arm and people would look at me, snicker, make snide remarks, laugh, and point at me like whore or hustler. I heard that. Some others looked at me with admiration, but it was easy for them to hate me, and hard for me not to hate myself, but I carried on.

Let’s be clear that when I met Frank, I was twenty and destitute, but I certainly had other options. I could have been a busser in a restaurant and struggled to get by. I could have done “legitimate” work, but that’s not how I was wired. Let’s be clear, no victims here with me and Frank. We were adults. It was not a level playing field financially, but this is what we signed up for. It’s what I engaged in of my own volition.

I don’t view myself in that relationship ever as a victim at all. Frank and I were both trying to find our way. He had his needs that he wanted to get met. I had needs that I wanted to meet. As in all relationships, what you bring to the table is what you work with. We did the best that we could with what we had at the table that we shared.

Certainly, you can say that within the context of that relationship and with your age. In hindsight, knowing about the effects of trauma and childhood trauma on a person and the grooming that you went through from your teacher, it’s a whole different story.

It’s a mitigating factor.

What sets you up for that lifestyle is the fact that you hated yourself. You’ve already said it at least once. You’re scrambling around from a position of not feeling that you have value. You’re trying to find comfort and distraction from that painful internal life, so it all fits together.

Meeting Frank And Rags-to-Riches Story

It does, and thank you for saying that. It is important to remember that. We haven’t talked a lot about my parents and my mom, but they had some bonkers expectations for me to be something that was out of reach. I wanted to please them. I wanted to make them proud. These bonkers expectations were a lot off my shoulders that I was carrying, wanting to fulfill their dreams for me. This is the path that I went down. Fate dealt its hand on that July 3rd, 1983 when Frank and I came into each other’s lives.

I know this is hard for some of you listeners to hear. We would proceed to engage in what at the time was the only way that two adults could have a legal connection. We decided a year later, it was my suggestion and I’ll take full responsibility for it, that Frank would adopt me as an adult. Back then, it was not uncommon or common, but gay people adults would sometimes adopt each other as a way to have a legal connection. That was before gay marriage.

We proceeded to do that. Frank did adopt me as an adult. We were in the courtroom in Dallas with all these kids, their adoptive parents, cakes, and balloons, and there was Frank and me. The judge was like, “I’ll grant the adoption but you don’t have to come sit on my lap if you don’t want to.” We all laughed and everything. Frank did adopt me and we proceeded into a father-and-son relationship with benefits, to be quite honest.

Frank had an interest in politics, so we began doing political work. Frank was gay, but he was a staunch Republican. Frank became a major donor. I know this is crazy for the Republican Party. This was in 1984, the Reagan era. Reagan, I think at that point, was reelected. Maybe, I don’t know. I think he was reelected in 1984 maybe. I forgot the history, but in any case, we went to Washington. We went to fancy parties. We went to the White House a couple of times. Frank and I met Ronald Reagan and George Bush and we have pictures to prove it.

He enjoyed being a major donor. I don’t know if the Republican Party eventually caught on. There was no internet back then. It wasn’t so easy to do checks on people, but still, they were happy to take his money. We had some very interesting experiences. We went to the inauguration in 1985 and there was this big gay party in this room full of Republicans. Frank always had deals going on in his career. He had over 60 brands that he developed. Most were successful. There were a few duds but most were very successful, and some were very successful brands that have gone on in multiple cities.

Struggles With Addiction And Mental Health

His two big brands were JR’s Bar and Grill and the Mining Companies. Those were the two big brands of his. I did PR for his company Kevin Enterprises. I was going to SMU and I brought along with me to Dallas from my rags to riches, my addictions, and my psychiatric issues. None of that got better, although I did start therapy because I needed some help but still, my issues were raging.

On one hand, you can say I was an obnoxious brat back then. I was at some point but also, I was way over my head in a world and a gay bar empire full of intrigue. Everyone was vying for Frank’s attention and to be Frank’s number one, Frank’s right-hand man, Frank’s this, Frank’s that. I was amongst people who were in it to win it and I was way over my head.

I did the best that I could at the time. I was going to school, but I was acting out and had alcohol and drug relapses and wound up in treatment. For my first treatment experience, Frank came to treatment. We talked a lot with the counselor. We decided that this father-son with benefits needed to end, and we just needed to be father and son. I would move out of the penthouse in the sky and move into the dorm at SMU, and have a more realistically-based life.

Frank and I decided to do that. We then proceeded into a hopefully healthier relationship. He was proud of me. He was proud of me going to school. We loved each other. We did love each other, but he also had his needs. With me out of the house, it was time for him to find another number one, and on and on. We also worked at a bar in Washington. We’ve been going to Washington for those political things, and we felt that the bar scene was pretty light for gay people. We wanted to bring his JR’s brand to DC, so we did.

I did a lot of traveling those few summers, studying overseas. When I returned from an SMU Russia trip, Frank asked me, “At the university, you’re learning to be a drama ballerina. I need you to be thinking about the business. I need an heir for these businesses.” I took a year off and went to Washington and learned the business. I opened and ran his JR’s brand in Washington DC. Unfortunately, two weeks, after I left DC to do that, Frank had a stroke. He was never the same. He was always under the eye of other gatekeepers, and I was on my way out.

Long story short, that chapter of my life ended when Frank passed away. I graduated from school thankfully. Frank did a lot for me in his lifetime. One of the best things he did for me was he did not leave any percentage of the business to me. I’m so grateful that he didn’t. At the time, he did leave me some money. At the time, I wasn’t, but now when I look back on it, any amount of money back then would have killed me, and I would have missed this life ahead. In his wisdom, he knew that.

Also, I had been disloyal because I had resigned and left to finish my last year at school, and all the other gatekeepers, again, there was all this intrigue. I write about it in my memoir. For your audience, especially gay men of a certain age, back in the day when they were gay bars, gay bar owners were always the most interesting people in the world. There was always drama and intrigue with gay bars.

 

I write about these characters a lot in Spilling the Tea, There were some very big characters in his life and part of that whole drama. It was a soap opera. In the end, I didn’t fulfill my commitment to Frank. I didn’t fulfill my part of the arrangement. I look back on that now and I own it. I do feel bad about it. I wish that I could have done better but it was a very complicated relationship.

That’s doing it mildly.

Yes. I had a future ahead. That future was not as a gay bar manager or even as a gay bar owner. I had many other things ahead that I wanted to do that were on the horizon. I just didn’t know what they were. I graduated from SMU and made my way to my first job after graduation, which was with Neiman Marcus in their Buyer Development Program. They found me interesting. They knew some of my stories and they like interesting characters in fashion retail. I got this plum job after graduation when Frank passed away.

The Impact Of Childhood Sexual Abuse And Manipulation

Maybe six months later, I’m working in the job and I’m not good at it. I’m not good at retail but I’m a great actor. Somehow I’m getting through with all of the stuff going on and dealing with Frank’s passing and with going into a new chapter of my life. I received a package in the mail from New Hampshire. It was a videotape. It was an envelope filled with Polaroids. Those sexually explicit Polaroids that Larry Lane Bateman had made of me ten years earlier.

I opened up the package. I looked at the Polaroids. I recognized I sold myself. It had been around ten years since that had happened. I was probably 26 when I received this package from Larry Lane Bateman, and it was ten years earlier when he had done what he did. I remember looking at my face and going, “Who is this boy? Is he having fun? He looks lost and intoxicated. My eyes were glazed over. I was smiling, but what kind of smile was that, with my legs up in the air, and other parts of my body being objectified in those Polaroids?”

I’m thinking to myself, “This guy had the audacity to send those to me.” He must have thought he had me in the bag. By then he must have thought that I would be a fellow perpetrator like him and that he could send that and not worry that it wouldn’t be a red flag for me. It was a red flag but I still was not conscious. I still wasn’t putting it together, but I was beginning to. I was writing at the time. I wrote a play about my life and these very dominant women in my life. I even sent it to him.

I think it was a warning flag for him that I was beginning to get warm. I was beginning to look at my life and look at things that had happened. Eventually, I might set my sights on what he did. In any case, I looked at these Polaroids and I was shaken up. I felt a lot of sadness inside. I wasn’t connecting the dots. The pornography was similar to the pornography that he had shown me when I was sixteen. A mix of pornography, some of it legal, some of it illegal. In subsequent days and weeks, he would send more tapes and picture books, big cases of it. Again, the pornography was mixed.

Compulsive Behaviors As Coping Mechanisms

I would say to him after a few shipments, “Thanks for sending this, but stop sending me this kid stuff because it doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not comfortable with it.” He’d stop and then a few weeks later, he’d start to include it again. I’m compulsively masturbating 3 or 4 times a day with this mother load of pornography collection. You’re a psychologist. Sexual compulsion and compulsive masturbation are very similar to drugs and alcohol.

The dopamine released in the brain is a tremendous painkiller and distraction.

Nobody wants to talk or think about compulsive masturbation, but it is something that a lot of people struggle with at various times in their lives for various reasons. We know that masturbation and sexuality ought to be healthy and joyful. It’s a great gift that the universe gives us to have. We can have good experiences. Where was I? I’m sorry.

You were saying that because he was sending you all that stuff, you were having times of getting lost in that stimulation and numbing out from it.

You’re right, numbing out. By then, I had come to see that sex was my friend. If I was feeling bad, I’d have sex with someone hot and feel better about myself, then again, there was always the emptiness inside after they would leave, after the one-night stand. It was the same thing with compulsive masturbation. There was always the hole inside afterward. Temporarily, dopamine floods the brain, but then afterward, we’re stuck with ourselves. I was stuck with myself.

Temporarily, the endorphins flood the brain, but then afterward, we're stuck with ourselves. Share on X

There’s no healing happening when you’re distracting, whether it’s drugs, spending money you don’t have, gambling, or sex. There’s no healing happening with that.

That’s right. It’s not empowerment in the way that you and I know empowerment can be. It’ll take a little while but eventually, I get to the empowerment. Let’s pick it up where I got a job opportunity in Ohio, a few months later. I moved to Columbus Ohio, took all of his porn in the big cases, and started this new job with The Limited. Within a few weeks, I bottomed out yet again, drinking and drugging and bad situations. The Limited gave me some time off to do some outpatient therapy. I was making more money and I had better insurance, so I could afford the copay for my mental health and therapy.

I began therapy. I could finally do it. I wanted to do it for years. My psychologist, Dr. Howard Fradkin, unbeknownst to me at the time was a budding advocate for male survivors of sexual abuse. He would go on to become a national advocate with Oprah, Tyler Perry, and so on. I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know any of this. I only know him. I was as close to his door to bolt out of his office as possible in the first few sessions. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anybody, but he was the first gay man in my life in a position of power who didn’t put the moves on me, which was new.

About the third session after this outpouring of my life story and going through all of the history, I looked at Howard and it was as though the ceiling came off his office and the sky was up there, and then the sun was shining down into my face. I went, “He wasn’t my friend. He took advantage of me.” The tears began to flow and it was as though the white light was overpowering me as I came to see what I had been in denial about all these years that Larry Lane Bateman had taken advantage of me. It was not a level playing field. It could never have been a level playing field. I was 15 and 16.

He was nothing more than a predator in that role with you.

That’s right. This realization in counseling, then I learned about empowerment because I learned that I could be empowered and that jerking, having a one-night stand, snorting coke, and drinking is not empowerment. That’s not empowerment, but I could find ways as a male survivor to believe in myself, to tell my story, and to work through the shame. We know and you know that shame is so overwhelming.

Shame is why we are where we are now, where male survivors of sexual abuse are concerned. This is part of my argument and why I’m doing what I’m doing, besides the fact that I got to the point of no return with my memoir, meaning it got to the point where I must publish this. This story must be told and they say you got to the point where it becomes non-negotiable. Where was I? I am sorry.

In the room with a therapist. You finally realized that a teacher from high school had been a predator, not a friend.

Therapy And Empowerment

I then began to move into real empowerment, which is what I described. It is much different than the old lies, which were not empowerment, which continued to deepen the shame, deepen the pain. I was on the right track now and he introduced me to a book. At the time, it was the only book available for male survivors by Mike Lew called Victims No Longer. It was a game-changer for me because he was writing my story. I came to see that I’m not alone. Others have been through this. We did a lot of gut-wrenching work together.

I had also partnered up with someone my age in Columbus, Tom. We would go on to be partners for ten years. He and Howard, I said to both of them, “Here we are. I’m getting well now. I’m not as depressed. The depression is lifting. I’m seeing things now that I have not seen before. What do I do with all this porn? What do I do about the teacher?” Howard said, “It’s your decision. There’s no right or wrong, but if you’re thinking about the legalities of it, talk to a family attorney and get the family attorney’s feedback.”

I did and I found a family attorney in Columbus. I told her everything and her question to me was, “What do you want?” I said, “I want him not to do to other boys what he did to me. I want him removed from the education system.” She said, “Okay. Here’s how,” and then the bad news came because to do this, first of all, he can’t be held accountable because of the statute of limitations. He couldn’t be prosecuted on that, but then there’s the porn and the Polaroids that he sent me of myself, sexually explicit Polaroids that he sent me that he took of me at sixteen.

Tom and Howard were concerned, my therapist and my then-partner. They were like, “You have to follow your heart for whatever you feel is best.” The family attorney, I was very clear with her about what I wanted. She said, “This is how you do it. If you’re going to do this, then I will arrange an immunity for you. You’ll turn everything over to the New Hampshire authorities. You’ll testify but eventually, your story will become public and you’re identity will become public. The teacher has the right to face you in court. You are his accuser. Everybody has a right to face their accuser.”

I had to think long and hard about that, not just from myself and the vanity of people learning that I had been in a relationship with a sugar daddy, a big daddy, or other questionable things I did in my twenties with alcohol and drugs on the East side of Manhattan. Am I prepared for that to become public? Yes. What about him, the people in his life, his then-partner, and the Phillips Exeter Academy? I knew that this would be an explosion. I thought long and hard about it for months. I want to make the right decision that I can live with.

I want to make the right decision, one that I can live with. Share on X

Within a few months, I got to the place where I wanted to be and where I needed to be, which meant I had to live with my decision. I’m not taking all of this porn to the dumpster and then have them in my conscience that that man is still there at Phillips Exeter or wherever else he winds up perpetrating boys. That was unacceptable to me. We proceeded and I began the process with the New Hampshire authorities. Eventually, I went and testified to the grand jury.

Eventually, his on-campus apartment was raided. They found a multitude of pornography. They found evidence of him perpetrating other boys on campus. The trial was set at the state level, and then it was transferred to the Federal level, and there we were. There was lots of publicity because a lot of the political elite and royalty’s kids had gone to Phillips Exeter. The issue was are any of those kids in any of these tapes. It was a meltdown. The school melted down. We carried on. The trial took place. His defense attorney did what defense attorneys do, which is why many survivors don’t want to come forward.

He sat there in that courtroom and waved around those Polaroids for everybody to see. It was disgusting, but that’s what they, trying to get you to react and to get angry. I didn’t. I watched him do that because I knew what he was doing. The trial proceeded and I testified. Other students testified as well. His attorney begged the jury to find Larry Lane Bateman innocent of one of the four counts, just to show that they questioned my credibility. They didn’t give him that. They found him guilty of everything, including sending me those Polaroids that he took. He was found guilty. He went to jail and was permanently removed from the education system. I think he passed away in 2014.

That was the end of that story, but it’s not the end of the story of male victims and how male victims are perceived. Some people and his die-hard supporters felt like he and I should share a prison cell together. The judge during the sentencing was quite triggered when I testified about my family. He said he didn’t believe everything that I said, and that Bateman and I were two peas in a pod. That’s what the judge said.

Stigma Of Male Sexual Abuse

There’s been a lot over the years of conflating or mixing up and falsely proclaiming that homosexuality is the same as pedophilia. It’s part of the stigma that you have to be willing to face if you’re going to try and speak the truth about that situation.

That’s right. Not surprisingly, Vanity Fair, which has written some good articles about adult males who had perpetrated male teenagers in previous issues, got a hold of the story. They wound up doing a story quite sympathetic to the pedophile molester Larry Lane Bateman. He was remarkable. It was breathtaking what they did to try to create a sympathetic figure, that he was a gay activist before his time and all this other BS.

They were determined to make me out to be the dastardly hustler who ruined Larry Lane Bateman’s life. It was a disgusting piece of journalism with lots of nonsense, including creating mysteries that don’t exist, but that’s what they do. Nothing that Vanity Fair could write and nothing that anyone could say could change the fact that Larry Lane Bateman was removed from the educational system and he was incarcerated.

Let’s be clear, child porn is bad. No doubt about it, but this trial of his was a vehicle for him to be held accountable for what he did when I was sixteen. Let’s be clear. That’s exactly what it was because again, the statute of limitations had run out. I didn’t have that option, and I would do it again and again for the outcome that we had. Life did go on. The day after the judge shamed me did not believe me enough to convict Bateman, but he had to put it in there. By the way, if you saw that judge, we were in the same hotel and he had these calm clerks around him.

If you were to look at him and say that he looked at them as his personal harem, you would not be mistaken because that was his mindset. He would eventually leave the bench for sexual harassment of his female clerk. This is a guy that leans perpetrators, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. The day he shamed me in that courtroom in that sentencing, the next day, I started a graduate psychology social work clinical counseling program and proceeded over the next two years to get my Master’s, and to work during my Master’s, first doing an internship, then for about six months, I worked with sex offenders.

You know that drug and alcohol counseling was pretty direct. If you can get into the client’s face to try to break down the ego and denial, it’s even more so with sex offender treatment. I hated the work but I did find it fascinating and I was good at it. It was facing the monster and facing the fact that most of these people, men and women who are sex offenders, will never get well. The narcissism, the arrogance, and the lack of victim empathy are so high for these people. It’s pretty hopeless. The best you can do is contain them if at all possible.

For the rest of his life, he was contained. He was monitored for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t do to others what he did to me. Good. I’m not well-liked by allies of predators. Good. Don’t like me. I hope I’m taking up a lot of pigment in your mind. The reality is there is a bit of a double standard when it comes to victimhood. Male survivors of sexual abuse are as much the victims as women. There is a knee-jerk reaction in our society and around the world, maybe it’s in our DNA, that teen boys and men should not allow that to happen to them. It’s a knee-jerk reaction.

 

There has been progress over the years in so far as awareness and more understanding, but nowhere near with MeToo and the fact that I think that there’s a much better appreciation, understanding, respect, and sympathy for what women have endured for eons. Men have to, but there is not that level of sympathy and support. Let’s look at what’s happening currently.

Years ago, Tyler Perry, who’s quite well-known has come out as a sex abuse survivor. Terry Crews, another actor has come out, but it’s a process. When I’m asked why am I doing this, part of it is to legitimize the fact that men are victims, men are victimized, and men can also be survivors, and eventually get on the other side of the abused, heal, and thrive.

You now have gone through the first two segments of your three-segment story.

The third one is this. I got that Master’s degree and I worked in a community mental health. I worked with sex offenders. I worked with numerous populations and I liked it. My grandmother and queen passed away a few years later. She left me some money. My partner and I, Tom, at the time, wanted to do a business together. He had a family business that he had worked in for many years. I had run Frank’s bar in Washington. I had business experience and we wanted to do something that could make a difference. We’re in Columbus, Ohio in 1995. It’s a cow town, but it’s getting better. There are gay businesses. There are gay nightclubs and bars and gay restaurants, but everything is behind closed doors. There are no windows. Nothing open to the public, all in the shadows.

At the time, we were impressed with the Planet Hollywoods, the Hard Rock Cafes, and the themed restaurant thing. The whole restaurant with a theme and a message. It was very popular in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. We came up with the idea. I said to Tom one afternoon. I say so Tom, “What if Alexander the Great, Willa Cather, the great UK playwright, Eleanor Roosevelt, and other famous gays and lesbians throughout time came around the table, what would they say to each other? What stories would they share?” That was the beginning and the seed of the idea for our restaurant Out on Main.

We wanted to do a restaurant that was all about empowerment. A keyword in my story is empowerment. We wanted to have a place where LGBT people and their allies who at the time we called heteros, could come, feel safe, hold hands, and be empowered. We had big murals of the LGBT story. We had famous murals of 50 individuals throughout time who have made a big difference. We had shadow box tables between, with different aspects of the story. We had an Elton John costume from his 1980 concert in Central Park. We had all of it. We had the whole thing and it was beautiful.

You can see a picture of it on my website, as well as on my Facebook page, Michael Caven writer. It was a magnificent beautiful little restaurant that could and did in the middle of nowhere practically. We opened in 1996, widely acclaimed. We were on CNN and all the local press. We pushed the envelope, but we had great food and great service because people only come back for great food and great service. You can have a beautiful environment but they only come back if you deliver the goods.

People only come back for great food and great service. You can have a beautiful environment, but they only come back if you deliver the goods. Share on X

During our six-year run, we had many celebrities who came to visit us. John Denver was the first celebrity that we served. We served him backstage at The Palace Theater. Our next big one was Grace Jones, then Eartha Kitt. We did think we had a thing about former divas of a certain age visiting us. Lots of authors over the years. Betty DeGeneres, Ellen’s mom, would come once a year because she was doing activism at the time for her daughter and the gay community. That’s how wonderful that woman was and still is in her elderly age.

She’d say, “I’m going to bring Ellen someday. I want to bring Ellen. She’s going to love it here. We are going to bring Ellen.” Eventually, she did. It was Betty’s 70th birthday. Ellen was playing at The Palace Theater. Ellen was like, “Where do you want to go to dinner tonight, Ma.” She said, “I got the place for you Ellen.” Her mom calls us and there we are. For the first time in my career as a restauranteur, I was a bodyguard keeping the groupies and everybody away from her posse so they could have dinner.

Afterward, Ellen couldn’t have been more gracious with her mom. I toured Ellen around the restaurant. She said, “I had a vision of doing something like this when I first came out doing a cafe like this in LA.” Of these celebrity stories, of course, there’s Tammy Faye Bakker, which I mentioned at the start of this episode. Those were all great, but what meant the most to us was our solo acts who became part of our extended family, our regulars who came in who maybe didn’t have family, didn’t have partners, but became part of our extended family.

We created something special. Also, we did themed dinners. We recreated a meal served on the Titanic. We announced it when the Titanic movie was nominated for all those awards. Back then, it was ink because there was no internet. It was all papers and newspapers and magazines for coverage. We had this great thing going and then, unfortunately, 9/11 happened in 2001.

Everybody stopped going out and it changed everything. It was time for us to reconsider our plans. We had exceeded all of our expectations and we felt that it was time to bring the curtain down. We had a buyer for the building. We did a two-month notice. Everyone could come in for their final meals. We gave a full month’s salary to our staff and brought the curtain down on our terms.

Redemption And Empowerment Through The Restaurant

That is the third part of my story, which is the restaurant. In many ways, the restaurant was my redemption. I felt bad about the publicity that came from Bateman’s trial specialty equating pedophilia and homosexuality. I felt that that was very bad for the movement. I thought that in many ways, the restaurant made up for that because we got so much great press. Tom and I were the It couple in Columbus and we took great satisfaction knowing that young people who saw our story, saw that there was a happy ending, that young gay people can be happy, and not end up in a bathtub slitting their wrists like that teacher had me doing. Talk about diametrically different. They are different.

That’s my legacy. The restaurant has been my legacy. Now, I suppose coming out with my story is the next part of my legacy. I have to say to you and your audience that it has not been easy. I have residual shame. If you go to my Facebook, you’ll see the marquee of the three stories, Dallas, New Hampshire, and Columbus. You see three very different stories there, but for me coming out and moving myself from the compartmentalization that was existing for me in my safety zone. The internet has been challenging. I have residual shame. I’ve had to revisit the male survivor literature to go ahead and brush up on managing that shame.

If you’re like most of us, I’m assuming you’re like most of us human beings, when I was in grad school, they said now you’re going to find your core issues. That’s going to help you do that, a couple of these groups and personal growth and development groups that we’re doing. Once you find your core issues, you will take them with you to your grave.

That’s not in question. The only questions that you need to answer around are these. Are you going to deny it and project it onto your image of someone else, or are you going to own it, accept it, and learn to work with it so you get better and better at minimizing the negative effects in your life from those issues? Every time I get stirred up by one of my core issues, it’s an opportunity for me to bring a new presence to energies that once defeated me, and do that at deeper and deeper levels as I learn to dismantle the negative and therefore false beliefs I hold about myself.

Resilience And Forgiveness

We talked about the different versions of ourselves. I think anybody who writes about their lives and goes back to their 20s and 30s sees that version is pretty different from the version today. One of the messages that I have for your audience is that it does get better and you can find a way to be more comfortable in your skin. It does get better.

Also, I want to send the message that if you are a young person or a minor watching this and there is an adult in your life who is giving you too much attention, talk to another adult that you trust about that because their motivations may not be good. If you are a minor who is engaged in a relationship with someone older, there are resources out there to help you. You have options and you’re worth looking at those.

At the same time, if you are a male survivor and you’ve been keeping this inside for a long time, let’s face it, the science and the research are saying that 1 in 6 men are sexually abused but none want to talk about it. Society as a whole doesn’t want to hear about it because of repulsion and also because of the knee-jerk reaction that the male should not have let it happen. That’s the overall message and my argument for doing these talks. Men are just as much victims as women and we deserve compassion.

I ask your audience to reconsider your views. If you have never gone through sexual abuse, if you have thoughts or convictions about it and perhaps you see men or teen boys as less than victims, reconsider that. Remember, the predators are pretty creative and they’re good at convincing the victim that they deserve it and they ask for it. In some cases, the stimulation of the different things that predators use makes the young person feel like it is enjoyable and unable to see the egregious perpetration that has taken place.

I hope that your audience, wherever you’re at, I hope that you can take from my story a sense of resilience, never giving up, and also getting to the point that I wouldn’t be able to do this if I hadn’t at some level forgiven myself for having let myself down over the years and not been my best friend, and been a self-saboteur repeatedly, on and on. I do write about to some extent that we do not need to be sabotaging ourselves anymore. We don’t need to be making the same mistakes over and over again. There is help and there is support out there.

You went out and went to the next level. A lot of people who’ve had trauma aren’t equipped to do this, but you went ahead and got a Master’s and got training in psychology and therapy. Let me ask you if there’s a particular set of tools that you’ve either learned in therapy when you were being the client or that you’ve learned that you use with people that helped you dismantle that pile of shame you were talking about.

Dismantling Shame

Definitely, for sure. When I started practicing as a therapist here in Da Nang about a year and a half ago, which coincided with my writing, I found it to be unexpected. I found that I loved it. I loved being in the room with my clients and it’s all about them. It’s all about my client. I am sharing this space with them. I’m honored that they’re sharing the space with me. The whole world drifts away. That’s my experience as a therapist. I can be engaged with where my client is coming from conditionally and unconditionally accepting them as Carl Rogers says.

Also, in the same process, knowing that lots of their issues were issues that I too had struggled with. The great news about therapy is that it works. You and I both know it works to have a safe place to express your feelings. You asked about tools. Find a healthy way to express anger, which I did. Howard and I, in the early days, did a lot of anger work. My sessions were in the evening. There was nobody in this big building. I could yell, I could scream, and I could get it out.

 

One thing that I didn’t know from my chaotic family life is that there are healthy ways to express anger in ways that don’t hurt me and that don’t hurt you or anybody else. You too out there can express your anger in healthy ways by talking about it and by putting words of what happened. Part of anger is getting it from inside and out.

One of the big things that we’ve learned over the years is that for most people, anger is a secondary emotion. It’s there to distract or numb us or help us feel more empowered than the pain fear and sadness that is almost always underlying it. If I can be brave enough to face the pain, fear, and sadness underneath the anger, the anger starts to melt away. As I’m operating from the fear or the belief that I won’t survive facing the pain, fear, and sadness, I can rationalize a tremendous amount of anger and rage.

That anger and that rage come to back hurt us.

It’s far more efficient in the work I’ve done with people over the years to help them understand that pain, fear, and sadness are just information and energy. They can breathe and have other techniques to help move through it, and then there’s no need for the anger to defend because now I’m in direct connection and direct experience with these false negative beliefs about myself. I’m understanding that they don’t hold any power that I don’t give them.

You’re a gem because that’s spot-on. It does bring up a lot for me, thinking about it. In the last few weeks, I’ve decided that although I’m not in crisis, there’s nothing monumental, there are uncertainties. I’ve always been a big believe that therapists ought to get therapy and keep their house in order. I re-entered therapy. I feel that intake recently. It was humbling because I’m usually one having my clients fill out the intake, but I felt like at this point, I do need some more additional support. In the last few sessions I’ve had, by 22 minutes, I am crying.

As long as you keep that willingness to keep looking at whatever upset comes up in you, then the potential to grow is infinite. It’s when I want to shut it down or say I’m done that the growth stops.

What you do with your podcast and having people like me on and sharing your wisdom throughout the years is it helps us to articulate so that the power is diminished of that anger and the rage, and there can be a shifting to healing, understanding, self-compassion, and hopefully at my age, some wisdom.

The Value Of Therapy And Self-Exploration

I encourage people to look into whatever tools resonate with them. The double-edged sword of the internet and all of this connectivity is that a lot of good stuff can get out there and it can be misused, and a lot of not-so-good stuff can be out there. You can find resources for therapy. There are wonderful and powerful tools. There’s Byron Katie’s work. There’s Ho’ponopono. There’s Dr. Michael Rice’s work and his worksheet, which is the foundation for the work that gave rise to Journey’s Dream. There’s the Internal Family Systems work with Dick Schwartz and his books.

If any one of these resonates with a person, they can step into either reading about them and/or having a therapist coach them through that, and develop the use of tools in their life that can facilitate the healing, and speed the release and the dismantling of the shame-based beliefs. That’s why we encourage people to keep looking until you find something that resonates with your personality.

I tell people on a regular basis when they come to see me, “To have a therapy that has any chance of success, you need to have a therapist that knows what he or she is doing and a therapist with whom you’re comfortable.” You can have the very best therapist in the world but if you’re not comfortable with her, you won’t go to her long enough that she can help you, and you won’t tell her the things she needs to know to help you.

On the other hand, you can have your very best friend in the world and get up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning several nights a week, talking about everything that has ever bothered you. While that’s helpful, that person doesn’t have the professional distance, and the professional training the way a therapist can.

Here in Central Vietnam, mental health and mental awareness are not a thing. The government media do stories. I’m very impressed with the media and their coverage of psychological and mental health issues, transgender issues, gay issues, and everything. I live in a country that’s right down the middle. No red, no blue, no North, no South. There’s right down the middle, but it is also a challenge when there is a dearth of therapists, There’s only one of me and I’m the only English-speaking therapist in Da Nang that does couples counseling.

There are not enough counselors for the husband and the wife or the partner and the partner to have their own therapists. What do we do? We try to maneuver as best we can in an imperfect way so that everyone can get their needs met and get support You’re right, Dr. Hayes, there is so much out there. There’s great support out there, great options, ways to get help, and to move toward empowerment, and to move toward healing, and to move toward a more open and happy life with eyes wide open to this mosaic of the beauty and the ugliness of this world that we live in.

I want to thank you for being willing to tell your story, advocate for male victims and survivors, and help them move to a place of thriving. It’s wonderful to know that with all the pain that you have, you have the courage to face it and to do that for your benefit and the benefit of others. I appreciate that.

Thank you so much and thank you for having me on your show. On Your Mind plays an important role in the world. Thank you for your legacy of working with many clients over the years and helping them find healthy living, healing, and a better life. Thank you, sir. It’s been great to be with you. Great to be with everybody. Wherever you’re at, take care. Yes. One step at a time. Be good to yourself and just carry on.

Thank you so much.

‐‐‐

Michael Caven is a visionary restauranteur who co-founded the USA’s first LGBT-themed restaurant Out On Main in Columbus Ohio. Before Out On Main, Michael Caven was enmeshed in the gay bar empire soap opera of his adopted father, mogul Frank Caven in Dallas Texas. Michael Caven was also the main student witness in the New Hampshire pornography trial of his former high school teacher Larry Lane Bateman, ensuring that Bateman was permanently removed from the education system, including his final position at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Michael Caven is semi-retired in central Vietnam. He is a Business Communications specialist at the University of Economics in Da Nang, as well as a practicing clinical counselor at Psychologist Vietnam Mental Health Clinic. He’s currently spearheading Vietnam’s Suicide Prevention Hotline. Michael earned a BFA from Southern Methodist University and a Masters of Science and Education from the University of Dayton. Michael Caven received the Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign; Living Legend Award from Outie Magazine. His memoir “Spilling the Tea” is in development.

Please note that this interview covers rather intense topics related to child abuse, sexual abuse, sexual, abuse of children, and child pornography, as well as Michael’s work to recover from the abuse he sustained earlier in life and his work to advocate for male victims of sexual abuse.

 

Important Links

• Michael Caven
• Michael Caven – Facebook
• Victims No Longer

 

About Michael Caven

Michael Caven is a visionary restauranteur who co-founded the USA’s first LGBT themed restaurarant Out On Main Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio; Prior to Out On Main, Michael Caven was enmeshed in the gay bar empire soap opera of his adopted father, mogul Frank Caven in Dallas; Michael Caven was also the main student witness in the New Hampshire pornography trial of his former high school teacher Larry Lane Bateman; insuring that Bateman was permanently removed from the education system, including his final position at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Michael Caven is semi-retired in Central Vietnam and is a Business Communication specialist at University of Economics Da Nang as well as a practicing clinical counselor at Psychologist Vietnam Mental Health Clinic, currently spearheading Vietnam’s Suicide Prevention Hotline. Michael earned a BFA from Southern Methodist University and a MS in Education from University of Dayton.

Michael Caven received the Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign; Living Legend Award from Outie Magazine. His memoir: “Spilling the Tea” is in development.

 

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