The Male Rape Victim Speaks Out
Yesterday, I did a short post asking if my readers think it’s possible for men to get raped. This is something I’ve had a hard time believing. And since 99% of my readers are men, I wanted to see what thety had to say. A few of them also expressed doubt.
However, the victim of the case, “Mike” contacted me earlier today. It’s always nice to see people reading my stuff, and taking the time to write me. “Mike” was polite, and he expressed gratitude that I covered his case without attacking him. Anyway, here’s what he has to say about his ordeal:
I am the “Mike” mentioned in Dr. Smith’s article on rape of men by women.
It is hard to believe that a woman could do something like this and I
don’t fault you for being skeptical. I took my own sweet time getting the
guts to acknowledge it myself. My counselor believes that getting
deployed to the Gulf War shortly after the rape and then getting married a
a few years later and some very serious family matters caused me to keep
it pushed to the back of my mind for so long until I was ready to deal
with it.I wake up with it and go to sleep with it and shower with it and eat with
it and work with it and spend my day with it.It is not something I find particularly funny or cute, unlike many of
PJM’s posters who seem to have had no exposure to sexual assault. It is
something, however, that I intend to turn into a positive by working with
other rape survivors through organizations and online resources like Toy
Soldiers, RAINN and MaleSurvivor – especially with men who’ve been
emailing since relating my experience publicly. After seeing the reaction
I received last week, I can see why more men don’t come forward.What is there for them? Mockery? Shame? Victim blaming? Degradation?
Namecalling? Threats? – mostly by anonymous, cowardly cyber-bullies who
delight in re-victimizing rape survivors as if this somehow makes them
important or gives them powerThis rape is something I’ll have to live with the rest of my life – not as
a victim, but as a survivor of an experience that will hopefully help me
help others.There are more men out there like me who have swallowed it down and
suppressed it like I did. A common thread among male rape and CSA
survivors that I’ve noticed is that we seem to take a long time, usually
longer than women, often 10 years or more, to finally seek help after
something triggers us out of our self-delusion.Thank you for expressing your skepticism in a non-personal manner. You
wouldn’t believe the horrible and disgusting things that I’ve been called,
said about me or directly to me by both men and women (a large amount of
whom I believe actually consider themselves liberals and progressives).Again, thank you for not raking me over the coals. I don’t necessarily
expect you to believe me and it doesn’t change my daily situation one iota
either way, but I am appreciative for how you expressed it.The civility really does matter.
Thank you.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I sorta agree with everyone who commented on the original entry — especially OCM on the arousal issue. Truism — most men would have sex with most women most of the time. (NOTE the words ‘most’) Another point, I’m almost 65, and damned if I know any women personally who could physically subdue me — even assuming the arousal issue was solved. I CONCEDE that they’re out there.
The next issue is WHY in hell would any woman want to force sex on me? I’ve been married almost 40 years, and I’ve had only TWO women ever offer. THE MAIN REASON — I don’t send out signals. That’s different for women also — they get hit on whether or no.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
One qualification. Have you read “Stranger in a Strange Land”? This is an important issue, true, and hilarious at the same time. I’ve paraphrased this from Heinlein.
Rule: When a men is unmarried, and not sworn to another woman. Likewise, the woman he’s alone with is unmarried, and not sworn to another man. When the aforesaid woman woman makes it clear that she wants you, do not hesitate or ask questions. This is called “Cooperating With The Inevitable”. If you refuse, you are a scoundrel and a poltroon.
NOTE: This rule does not apply to women.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I guess the problem I have with Mike’s situation is calling it “rape.” All the experts say rape is about violence and control, not sex. Like he said more than once, he could have thrown her off of him at any time, so the threat of violence that a woman in the same situation would experience was not there in Mike’s case. Mike also mentioned the threat of blackmail – if he protested SHE would have cried “Rape!” so I guess that is an element of control. This, however, brings into play the whole issue of arousal. For me, that would have been the end of it right there; I would have went softer than cookie dough at that point. So, from my perspective he must have been enjoying it, and it cannot be called rape. Taken advantage of, maybe; but not rape.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I think that the counseling Mike is/was receiving is creating more trauma than he actually suffered; kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy thing. That is to say, the “counselor” keeps telling him, “You were raped,” and he ends up believing it and accepting all the baggage that comes with the term rape; just another reason I think counseling and therapy is a load of huey and often does more harm than good.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
OINK and Joe:
An erection does not = arousal, nor does it = consent. This is an old myth that bears no resemblance to fact.
Erections can be created while drugged, passed out drunk or using prostate massage, or a rapist’s hand on the penis, etc. Further, erections can be caused by fear, shock and, of course, morning wood as well. I was unconscious, unable to consent and she got me hard. Sexual arousal, consent and blood flowing to your penis are separate concepts. See Myth #3: http://www.malesurvivor.org/myths.html and http://www.secasa.com.au/index.php/survivors/10/207
While you may think that you’d never have your body betray you, until the situation presents itself, you can’t say so definitively.
Further, my counselor did not convince me I was raped. She didn’t need to. I was raped. It was that simple. Every rape crisis organization and rape survivor I’ve spoken with agrees. On that point, we will have to disagree.
I’m not some tragic creature confined to my room crying my eyes out all day long, but I do have some things to work through and I’m already feeling a bit better for talking with someone. I’ll be fine once all is said and done. I get your point, but seeing it from this angle provides an entirely different perspective.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
To me the story was something you would read in an erotic novel or men’s magazine. When a guy touts his sexual longevity in the legacy of a porn star, it always makes me wonder.
“She had apparently brought me to erection — not hard as I’m one of those men who can hold one for hours, awake or asleep, sober or drunk”.
Another thing, he was apparently sober enough to realise he couldn’t drive, get a motel room, agree on just sleeping, and split the cost with the woman. But, he says he was destroyed by alcohol in that he didn’t feel his clothing being removed, the woman getting him aroused, and then mounting him. He was unable to move or speak coherently because he was still inebriated and half conscious.
It may have happened that way but I have a hard time buying it.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
BobF:
It did happen that way. While up and walking, I was relatively okay to speak and reason – with diminished capacity. Once in the prone position and asleep, my body began its work to repair my body as it does every night. The combination of fatigue from dancing at the club, working all day and alcohol consumption made it harder to wake me up. Further, I’ve always been a sound sleeper, even today.
As a point of fact, I did not “tout” my “sexual longevity”, I simply mentioned it factually. I was 19. The erections were a fact of life for me then. I can see how someone may see it that way though. I simply considered it a factual observation that explained how she was able to mount me.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
I’m really astonished by the responses people are posting. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
Our bodies are made to respond to physical contact that is pleasurable. However, a response does not mean that the person is enjoy what is happening, and it also doesn’t mean that the person consents. ‘Yes’ is the only word that can truly mean the person consents. Sexual contact absent from consent is RAPE. And sexual contact where arousal is involved is rape.
This person was courageous enough to share his story. So few male survivors are able to do so because of the very responses that are being left here. Why would anyone willingly choose to receive these responses?
I commend him for having the courage to speak out, and furthermore, I have great respect for anyone who, in the face of such criticism, is able to keep their composure.
Rape is rape. End of story.
-Julia
July 9th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Saying a male erection ‘implies’ consent is analogous to saying female ‘lubrication’ implies consent. I fail to see why the standards for male consent should differ from the standards set for females. Erection or no, stated refusal is explicitly not consent. And pushing someone, blackmailing, whatever, is mere cajoling, and I doubt there’s a court around that wouldn’t convict a male on female rape if these circumstances were reversed. Diminished capacity seems to be forgotten in this thread too – again, if a woman were given a rufi, we wouldn’t be arguing this matter. In law and social policy, the standards of proof set as good for the goose ‘should’ be good for the gander.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Jules, “Rape is rape. End of story.” Yeah, that makes a lot of sense…
Rick, there is a big difference between somebody slipping another a rufi unbeknownst to them and/or against their will and a person voluntarily getting him or her self too drunk to give OR deny consent and putting themselves in a compromising situation. Lame analogy.
Mike, with all due respect, spare me the bullshit, mate. I have a dick, too, and I know exactly what gets me hard and what doesn’t – I’ve had 43 years of personal research in that department, thank you very much. Quoting some crap from a victim survivor website doesn’t wash with me. Just because they say this or that is a myth doesn’t make it so. I had some sympathy for you, but now you’re starting to sound like some government pamphlet.
I think it’s this whole thing of what now defines “rape” is where I have the problem. I just can’t see how having a woman take advantage of you while you were asleep and drunk is as traumatic as if she had beat you up or held a gun or knife to you and sodomized you. THAT is rape, and I could see how you would have some issues to work through in that case.
As one former Marine to another, I wish you luck, and we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Joe:
Indeed, we will have to agree to disagree.
By the way, your dick wasn’t the one that was raped, so what gets it hard is completely irrelevant to my experience.
Had I “taken advantage” of her while she was asleep, would you be defending me from the charge of rape?
I’ll bet not…
July 9th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
A further point, the issue of violence and control – control need not be in the hands of the rapist, it only needs to be wielded. She used the threat of STATE force to keep me under her control.
This is violence by proxy used in the commission of a rape.
Let’s stop making excuses for a rapist just because she has a vagina.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Joe you said “there is a big difference between somebody slipping another a rufi unbeknownst to them and/or against their will and a person voluntarily getting him or her self too drunk to give OR deny consent and putting themselves in a compromising situation. Lame analogy.”
Oh sure, there’s a difference, no argument from me: One voluntarily takes the drink and the other does not.
Yet they are the same in that both have diminished capacity.
See, the problem with claiming “Oh he had an erection, therefore he wanted it” is that there is no connection between explicitly ‘wanting it’ and having an erection, or being lubricated and wanting sex. Female rape victims may experience lubrication, for example, or young children, if raped by a male even, may experience erections. So that’s where your point about erections becomes flaccid, Joe. True, in the same situation, YOU might have gone soft, maybe I would too, but a good many people when raped still experience arousal when raped. It’s physiologically based, not rooted in the social context, and it’s certainly no good reason to release a sexual abuser back into the public, or to allow a crime to go without proper justice.
A decent test for fairness of a law is to substitute in ‘female’ victim for ‘male’ victim and their arousal and see if the law is fair. The alternative, Joe, is a two tiered legal system where we have one set of standards for females, and one set of standards for males. Still, even if you did that, such a two tiered system would have to withstand various scientific tests and be supported by a scientifically grounded data base. That scientifically grounded base would still say males can experience arousal under rape, just as females, and your two tiered system would collapse under the weight of scientific scrutiny, so I don’t think that’s a good way to go.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Again, what this comes down to, I guess, is what constitutes a rape. I simply don’t agree with the current definition. To me it’s simple in that it has to involve forced penetration, and for a male to be raped, it has to involve sodomy. I simply just can’t see how what happened to this guy can be called rape, and how, as a man, he could be so traumatized by the event. I just don’t see how a man could carry on like this and go on a crusade, bringing attention to “drunk males who get ridden hard by horny women.”
The more we discuss this, the more it seems to me that this is all just a bunch of feminized, metrosexual horse shit. Respond if you must, but nothing is going to change my mind. I choose to wallow in in my macho ignorance.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Then that is your hangup Joe.
And that fact that you bring up “metrosexual” to call into question my manhood makes it all too clear that it is a hangup to make you feel more macho or to mask some other insecurity of your own.
Rape is rape. Penetration is merely one form of rape, but the the defining factor.
This is legalistic hairsplitting to make excuses for a rapist or to make yourself feel safer by eliminating women as potential rapists.
Further, your lie that I am on a crusade to save “drunk males who get ridden hard by horny women” is pretty childish and a distortion of the facts.
But then, your reason for objecting is clearly based in something other than this particular rape…
March 21st, 2009 at 12:20 am
After reading the responses, I am quite shocked and disgusted at many of the replies. I thought that people would definitely be sympathetic and understand where the guy was coming from, but it seems some people think that James is overreacting. He got RAPED. If this was a woman people would be screaming their heads off at the rapist. However, just because he is a man it seems this is less serious. He suffered emotional trauma, so how is this not detrimental to him?
April 21st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Joe, I have to add to some of the things that have been said…your definition of rape may be your definition, but it doesn’t wash in real life. I don’t blame you, though. You’ve said you are a marine, and frankly as an ex military person with just a few years on you myself, your comments sound like pretty standard macho BS marine-ese. I am seriously not intending to disrespect you, just to put things a little more into perspective for all of us.
It seems the biggest difficulty you have with a definition of rape is twofold: 1. there has to be physical violence (beating, weapons use) 2. there has to be a penis or penis substitute involved, and it has to be stuck into some orifice other than someone’s mouth. By what you’ve said, you wouldn’t be calling it rape either if a woman who was drunk and asleep/passed out woke up to find a man penetrating her…because there was no violence involved. If that’s inaccurate, and you WOULD call that rape, there’s still a serious double standard in your words…because you’d be saying women can be raped without that kind of violence but men can’t. Another pointer to standard macho BS, I’m afraid.
I’m not someone “without sin” myself. I had the fortunate experience as a young adult almost three decades ago of talking with a man who had been raped. Up till then, I hadn’t been able to believe it was possible for one woman without a weapon to rape a guy. One conversation put me straight on the issue. How? Just by listening to a guy as courageous in talking about it as the fellow here is.
Rape produces a fairly distinctive psychological trauma that takes some effort to deal with. If you spot the trauma, why should it matter which way the gentalia of the person trying to deal with it points?