Girl-on-Guy Rape

[Taliesin]

This article about men who've been raped showed up on my Facebook wall this evening, and I have to say it was a real eye opener. Like most people, I probably didn't give it much thought, but having read this... well, I think male victims should be taken just as seriously as women who've been raped. And I can see why a lot of guys who have gone through this kind of traumatic event would be afraid to speak out.

I would really like to see what others here make of this issue, so please feel free to click through to the article, read it, and comment. I'd love to get a dialogue happening here.

[raoh]

This stuff popping up on facebook seems a little too topical. I'd contest that it is MRA propaganda pandering for attention by trying to pull the heat off of marginalized voices by saying that cis white men suffer too. There is even a line in that article that sounds apologist to the MRA crowd on reddit which is the hotbed that has spurred on the feminist movement by being so transparently asinine.

I'm aware I'm a little radical on this issue but given the circumstance I'm hesitant to hand out my pity.

[Firiath]

Somewhere I've read that around 40% of rape victims are male. I have no idea whether that number is correct or entirely made up, but I also think it doesn't matter. Person-on-person rape is wrong, no matter which genders are involved. And to make it short: slut-shaming against women is just as bad as making fun of men who have been raped (or claiming they had wanted it because they had an erection, or similar cases).

[TAZ]

I recall they did a law and order SVU episode about it, never really thought about it otherwise

[elcid]

Turning this into a feminism issue is really kind of disturbing. But I guess that's the nature of social justice.

Rape is a despicable crime and blaming it on misogyny or sexism is misguided and allows for society to miss the actual issue. That is, that people get raped. Rape is the issue, not underlying social issues. Anyone who gets raped or sexually assaulted deserves help, both medically and psychologically. They need support, not to be told that their issue has to do with men's rights. Reddit may be a cesspool, but places like tumblr are on the opposite extreme.

[raoh]

Jun 16, 2014 14:16:16 GMT -6 elcid said:

Turning this into a feminism issue is really kind of disturbing. But I guess that's the nature of social justice.

Rape is a despicable crime and blaming it on misogyny or sexism is misguided and allows for society to miss the actual issue. That is, that people get raped. Rape is the issue, not underlying social issues. Anyone who gets raped or sexually assaulted deserves help, both medically and psychologically. They need support, not to be told that their issue has to do with men's rights. Reddit may be a cesspool, but places like tumblr are on the opposite extreme.

I'd normally agree with you 100% but I can't detach myself from the entirety of what is going on. Everybody knows the MRA and feminist stuff is peaking in relevancy with the killings and such. This article is nearly a year old, why is it getting popular again now?

The issue alone is unrecognized and tragic, but if their stories are being used as propaganda in a timely manner then others are taking advantage of these rape victims for their own means.

[Taliesin]

I can appreciate your concerns, raoh, and they're not unwarranted. However, for the purposes of this thread could I ask that we put things like perceived political agendas aside and focus on the issue of male rape itself? I for one would never want to be in a situation where I was raped and all anyone could discuss was misogynist or feminist agendas. Such talk would leave me feeling like I didn't have much worth as a human being.

The issue will always be a tragic one, and will remain unrecognised the longer we question why we're talking about it. Let's just talk about it.

So, with that in mind, I guess this is what I'm asking:

1) Do you think male rape can be as much of a physical, emotional and psychological violation of its victims as female rape?
2) Is this something that needs to be talked about as much as female rape, or should guys just get over it?
3) What do you think a guy going through the actual violation should do? Should he attempt to stop it occurring, even if it means having to fight off his aggressor (and potentially causing harm to her)?

These are some of the difficult questions that occurred to me as I was reading that article. I'm pretty sure I know my answers to the first two, but the last one isn't nearly as cut and dried for me. Feel free to add your own questions to this list.

[raoh]

Jun 16, 2014 16:42:41 GMT -6 Taliesin said:

I can appreciate your concerns, raoh, and they're not unwarranted. However, for the purposes of this thread could I ask that we put things like perceived political agendas aside and focus on the issue of male rape itself? I for one would never want to be in a situation where I was raped and all anyone could discuss was misogynist or feminist agendas. Such talk would leave me feeling like I didn't have much worth as a human being.

The issue will always be a tragic one, and will remain unrecognised the longer we question why we're talking about it. Let's just talk about it.

So, with that in mind, I guess this is what I'm asking:

1) Do you think male rape can be as much of a physical, emotional and psychological violation of its victims as female rape?
2) Is this something that needs to be talked about as much as female rape, or should guys just get over it?
3) What do you think a guy going through the actual violation should do? Should he attempt to stop it occurring, even if it means having to fight off his aggressor (and potentially causing harm to her)?

These are some of the difficult questions that occurred to me as I was reading that article. I'm pretty sure I know my answers to the first two, but the last one isn't nearly as cut and dried for me. Feel free to add your own questions to this list.

I don't think anything can be viewed from a void. My posts were not to demean the victims to express concern that their stories were being used for the wrong intent regardless of how we discuss them responsibly here.

These questions seem fairly redundant too, of course this is an issue that deserves attention and where the victims suffer. The third question is still easy, it is a lose/lose scenario all the same for a woman. Do you fight back and hurt or get hurt or do you just suffer humiliation?

As for the whole "worth as a human being" thing it would be entirely ignorant of these victims to also put themselves in a void. It is a sad reality that people use each other as tools for their own means but that is how many things work. Publicizing your suffering and then seeking responses from people that read about it is a bad idea not just because of the volatile nature of the internet but because many of these "clickbait" sites just use tragedies as fuel to grab attention on what is topical dehumanizing any aspect of the story preemptively.

 My main concern is that the way this article is presented it makes it sound like MRA organizations are a safe haven for these victims when really they propagate virulent ideologies that victims can easily latch on to. As a result these groups could be spreading this material online to take advantage of the victims and victims they have indoctrinated.

Sure it is important to discuss this problem with all this aside, but if the prompt is going to be an article of that nature, in this year, on the internet we need to take a look at all the framing circumstances if we want to synthesize anything ourselves beyond nodding at what the article says. Essentialy this will just become a thread where everybody is agreeing, if you want to patronize me for trying to dig deeper on the cumulative trend of all this go ahead. If you think a hint of what I say is drivel just say so, I'll take it to heart and I won't post.

[sjfaerlind]

I can't speak to the validity of the article in question but here is a summary of the CDC's 2010 study of sexual violence:

www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cdc_nisvs_overview_insert_final-a.pdf

I'd hazard a guess that their data should be reliable though I'd also guess that a lot of violence toward men goes unreported because of cultural bias.
To my way of thinking, it shouldn't matter what sex the victim is. Consent should never be assumed because of an absence of coherent communication.
As for violence against men perpetrated by women, I know it happens 'cause I've known men that it's happened to. I'm sure it's just as scary an experience for male victims as it is for female ones. I absolutely don't think that victims should just "get over it". Post traumatic stress disorder isn't something a person CAN easily just push aside anyway. I don't know that there's any good answer for what to do during an actual attack. I think the victim should unequivocally let the aggressor know that they absolutely don't have consent for what they're doing so there's no doubt about that later. As for fighting back physically, I think that would depend on the circumstances. Most importantly I think male victims need to be brave and report the attack to police. The more of these that are reported, the more likely it is that something will get done about them.

[Taliesin]

raoh, if you feel that what I wrote was in any way patronising, then I owe you an apology. That was not my intent. Nonetheless, it does matter to me that I may have offended you.

Here's how I see it. While I get that none of this happens in a cultural void, I did want to keep the discussion at a personal level... you know, discussing the victims' feelings and what they've personally gone (and are still going) through. I do agree that there is a larger social context that feeds into all of this though, so I appreciate where you are coming from with your responses. I'm sorry I didn't adequately convey that.

I read through the link you provided, sjfaerlind, and the statistics are shocking. I think those "Opportunities for Prevention and Action" are spot on as long as male victims aren't left out of the loop because of some quirk of legal definition or some such.

[Crouton]

I feel like a lot of people do limit rape and sexual assault in their mind to just one thing, but it's way bigger than just man on woman rape or woman on man rape. We also have girl on girl rape and man on man rape and everything in between and all should be taken as seriously as the rest. Society has unfortunately put some men in a position where being raped by a female makes them feel embarrassed or "less manly" some way which is beyond ridiculous, and sad, but it's how things are. It goes all the way back to being kids, when you think about it very few young boys want to admit that a girl beat them in a fight, and this mentality grows with people as they age. Maybe this will change one day, we can only hope it will. Men and women, boys and girls alike all need to feel safe an unashamed to talk about these situations, no matter who the aggressor was.

[Liv the Librarian]

I don't buy into statistics etc when covering things like rape. Most victims never talk about it, which is sad. The numbers are never going to properly reflect what is really going on.

That being said, my little brother was raped by a girl when he was a freshman in high school. I didn't stop to think "hey, is that possible" or anything stupid, I marched right up to that girl and told her that if she wanted to keep her teeth she'd avoid me as best as possible (I believe in giving people a fair chance to avoid a fight). I'm very protective of my brothers and my other brother was just upset about it as I was. My little brother never really said much about it, but he's a man of few words.

I think MRA is pretty stupid, to be honest, but I think that if we're going to get equality, real equality, it's necessary to talk about things like female to male rape. It's real and serious and should be treated that way.