Child abusers and rapists mostly get away with it. That’s the harrowing truth. “The problem is much bigger than shown in official statistics, as most crimes are not disclosed and/or reported,” says the NSPCC. “Most sexual abuse isn’t reported, detected or prosecuted. Most children don’t tell anyone they’re being sexually abused.” The vast majority of abuse isn’t committed by random strangers: it’s by relatives, carers, people in positions of authority. It’s about exploiting a disparity of power, with the belief that the victim wouldn’t dare speak out. A society that leaves survivors of sexual abuse and rape with internalised shame and guilt silences them, too.

That’s why Eric Bristow’s disturbing tweets matter. They are extreme but indicative of a mindset shared by all too many. “Might be a looney but if some football coach was touching me when I was a kid as I got older I would have went back and sorted that poof out,” he tweeted. “Dart players tough guys footballers wimps,” continued his tirade. “U got to sought him out when u get older or don’t look in the mirror glad I am a dart player proper men.” An apology did eventually come: “Sorry meant paedo not poof.”

‘Bristow’s tweets underline a toxic form of unreconstructed masculinity.’ A screengrab of one of Eric Bristow’s tweets, now deleted.

Where to even begin. Crude homophobia mixed with shaming survivors of child abuse as “wimps”. The survivors of child abuse at football clubs who are now speaking out are showing astonishing courage. The lives of many of them have been nearly destroyed by what they suffered. If the ignorant raving of the likes of Bristow are left unchallenged, then other survivors will be deterred from coming forward. Such comments inflict genuine damage on people too: if you’ve internalised a “maybe it was my fault” sense of shame, if you feel emasculated, then Bristow’s rant will be a source of hurtful anguish.

Predictably, Bristow relied on the “you can’t say anything any more”-type defence, claiming: “Everybody that works on TV is frightened to say the truth because they are frightened to lose their job.” Well, Bristow has lost his role at Sky Sports: Sky has, quite correctly, dropped him

Eric Bristow MBE (@ericbristow) what i was saying was when the football lads got older and fitter they should have went back and sorted him out

What Bristow’s tweets underline is a toxic form of unreconstructed masculinity, and the damage that it inflicts. This form of masculinity defines itself by being “tough” and aggressive. Real men don’t cry. Real men get into fights. Real men brag about how many shags they’ve had and how little they care about the women in their lives. And so you end up with a society where violence against women and children is rampant on the one hand, and the biggest killer of men under 50 – partly because they’re unable to open up because it’s “unmanly” – is suicide. A form of masculinity that is so toxic that survivors of child abuse are deemed weak and therefore intimidated into silence. And unless it is challenged, then many more people will suffer.