It happens to men, too
An EMU student speaks out about his experience
By Amber Showalter
Contributing Writer
I think I knew I was in a bad situation, but I didn’t know what was happening." Contrary to popular belief, women are not the only victims of sexual assault, and men are not the only predators. In some cases, the roles can be reversed.
According to one male victim of rape who requested to remain anonymous, he had consumed a very large amount of alcohol at a small party at his apartment. His girlfriend had already left for the evening. Another girl at the party had gone into his room and yelled to him from the living room if the room was his. When he had entered, the girl closed the door and proceeded to rape him.
"I was almost unconscious," he said. "I was holding myself up, but I couldn't move and I couldn't say anything. I think I knew I was in a bad situation, but I didn't know what was happening."
A few moments later, he realized what was happening and panicked. "I didn't want to have sex with that girl. It had happened so fast. I got up, put my pants on, and left the room." He sat outside on the steps with his friend and talked about what had happened. He made the decision to tell his girlfriend that he had cheated on her.
"He blamed himself for a long time," his girlfriend said. "When I started inquiring about the details, it seemed more and more like it wasn't his fault. So one day I asked him if he thought he might have been raped. 'I had thought of that before', he said. But he had never said anything about it."
Awareness of male rape seems to be growing on college campuses. A survey was conducted by interviewing people at random at James Madison University and Eastern Mennonite University to see what they thought of the issue.
When one girl was asked if she thought men could be raped by women, she said, "Definitely. I have some friends who are in One in Four. It's an organization on campus, and it's all guys that do presentations on the issue of rape and educating males that it can happen to them."
"I think a guy would enjoy being raped," one guy responded to the question. "I mean, no guy would say he was raped. Maybe it does happen and nobody really talks about it, but I think that a guy would like it."
"Lots of people think that men want sex more than anything, which isn't always true," the rape victim said. "But women are the same way. Some want sex more than anything as well."
Some are accustomed to the traditional way that society thinks, that men want sex all the time. "If a guy enjoys being raped, then it is not a rape," Iris Campbell, an EMU student, said. "It then crosses the line to consensual sex."
Others were more open to the idea that men could be victims of acquaintance rape or date rape, which is being raped by someone you know and in many cases involves alcohol, than the idea of men being victims of a rape by a woman.
However, sometimes acquaintance rape can be very vague, because if the victim is intoxicated he or she may not remember exactly what happened and therefore blame themselves.
While some efforts are being made to make people more aware of the issue of male rape, there is still a long ways to go. For those who do feel victimized, there should always be some place or someone to which to turn.
"You could look at it as an advance in feminism," the victim's girlfriend said. "Girls can rape too. Talk about equality," she said sarcastically
In Kuwait, in a bizarre incident three women abducted a Bangladeshi
worker, forced him in their vehicle, beat him up and one of the women
raped him. The women drove him to an isolated area and one of them
demanded sex. When he refused, all three women attacked him, ripped
his clothes off, and one woman engaged in a forced sexual act with the
man. "One of them forced him to commit adultery with her, then she and
her friends beat him up again and drove him back to where he worked,"
Quick question to which I *really* need an answer:
The woman who raped me was manic-depressive. She had been taking a lithium
substitute for several years. She was eighteen years old at the time, and her
psychiatrist decided (according to her, mind you, and I frankly no longer
believe any word that ever came out of her mouth, even if it was "the") to see
what would happen if she was taken off of her medication for a while. She had
been off of her medication for about two weeks, I think, when she raped me.
She became manic-depressive again over the next several months and had been
manic-depressive for some time when her psychiatrist put her back on the
medication. During that time, I suffered lots of emotional abuse and one
physical threat of violence (she held a large knife to my throat; later, I said
to myself "well, some people hit people when they get mad, this is just the
same sort of thing, so its okay"), and she threatened to kill herself at least
twice in order to get what she wanted.
How much of this is she responsible for?
(Aren't Freudian slips wonderful? That last line I originally typed "How
much
of this am I responsible for?"
I saw a TV show once in which men were supposed to be learning for the first
time that when they had been drunk and unconscious, female acquaintances had
pulled their pants down and had sexual intercourse w/them. By any non-sexist
definition, this was an act of criminal, forcible rape. What else could it
reasonably be called? An unconscious person can't give consent. Men who are
sleeping or drunk may get automatic erections periodically or their penises
could be manipulated into an erection.
At any rate, neither woman was embarrassed or contrite about what she had done
and one was clearly bragging, saying, "I rode him like Annie Oakley!"
I read of another case where a women had sex with a man who was drunk and
unconscious. She told her friends, "I saved myself a trip to the sperm bank."
After giving birth to the baby -- apparently this was a wanted and planned
pregnancy -- she sued the man she had raped for paternity. The man contested
it but the court ruled he had to pay child support. That puts him in a regular
relationship of making payments to a woman who showed no respect for him as a
person. Is that a second rape or what?
When I discussed this w/my brother, he pointed out that since the child is
here, someone has to be responsible for it. "Of course," he commented, "I wish
the -------- hadn't done that, but since she did, what could the court do?"
Perhaps the just decision would have been to take custody away from a mother
who would conceive in such a gross, criminal manner.
How do others see it?
I remember that show, Denise.
One of the female rapists was a huge black woman (over 300 pounds at
least) who revealed that she had sex with a white man while he was
passed out drunk (he also appeared on the show). The general reaction
from the audience was cheering and laughter, but there was one woman who
didn't think it was so funny, saying, "as far as I'm concerned, I see
three rapists on stage!" (the third rapist was the aforementioned white
guy, who admitted (?) to having sex with a woman while she was asleep at
a party).
No comments:
Post a Comment