Eminem's Child Abuse Story

Eminem was sexually abused as a child by his step-father as a result he has irrational fears of gay men that they are justified in fearing attack.

This is especially disturbing in the context of the promotion of Eminem’s new album, Relapse. Relapse is chock-full of songs that are directly and without question about rape. This is not really new to his literary discography. As in other albums, most rape scenes in Relapse are enacted by Eminem’s sociopathic persona Slim Shady1, who is often blamed for the actions of more ethical personas Eminem and Marshall Mathers. But Insane casts Eminem as the victim and not the actor in rape:

Insane is an extremely graphic and in my analysis autobiographical story about a stepfather raping the narrator. The the second verse seems to refer to “Shady” in Insane and indicate that this is part of the mythology of the Slim Shady persona, but the first and third verse seem to be about Eminem’s “real” persona, Marshall Mathers, his usual vehicle for expressing serious emotions. Most of these references do not suggest self-identification of “Shady”, but being called that by another. Furthermore, Shady’s persona is outwardly violent and rarely introspective, and only the second (and half of the third) verse poses the narrator as the actor and not victim of violence. Shady is not one to say “help me” in any context, as the narrator does in the third verse.

http://www.deeplyproblematic.com/2009/06/eminem-and-sexual-abuce-in-insane-and.html

Personal Response: Being raped as a child has obviously changed Eminem's whole perspective on life. He doesn't like homosexual men for the simple fact that he thinks he's going to get attacked. Listening to some of his lyrics, I can tell that he had a horrible child hood and that being sexually abused was the worst thing that ever happened to him. In his music you can tell that he has very bad anger issues and has strong animosity towards his mother for not doing anything to help him. Eminem made a song called "Mom" where he explains how his mother made him take perscription drugs against his will just because. He explains how he is addicted valum and other perscription drugs because his mother forced him to take them when he was a young child. Also in the song called "Insane" he explains how his mother knew he was getting sexually abused by her husband, and didn't do anything about it. You can tell that Eminem is still being affected by this and it hurt him really bad.