The following is an expansion of my comment on this excellent article on the Good Men Project, by Kile Ozier:

Men are Being Sexually Assaulted in the Military, but Nobody is Talking About it

I am a male survivor of rape as a child and as an adult, though I was never in the military. I was born into and grew up in a child sex ring, run by my father. I was raped by both men and women as a toddler and older. The first rape was by my father, when I was four years old. By age five, I was rented for sex and used in the making of child porn. There were many children in the ring, and several of them were boys.

The sad truth is that most people just don’t want to hear that males can be and are victims of rape. Even fewer want to hear that some males are raped by females, and not always in a statutory rape situation. These ignorant people believe males should be strong enough to fight off a rapist, even a small boy should be able to fight off a grown man. They don’t seem to hear how ludicrous they sound. A male can be (and they are) raped in many of the same ways a female is raped, such as ambush, weapons used, rape by a person they trust, drunk victims raped, unconscious victims raped, the list goes on….

I believe and stand by everything Kile Ozier said in the article linked above. I fervently wish fear, disgust, ignorance and resentment wouldn’t blind the majority to the particular horrors that male rape victims and survivors face.

Yes, rape is a horror for female victims and survivors, too. Yet most people don’t doubt that a female can be raped. Doubt and even the refusal to believe (for many ignorant reasons) that males can be raped, along with all the sick stigma and demonizing of homosexuals, are the prime reasons male victims and survivors stay silent.

On the subject of stigma, female victims don’t often have their status as “a woman”, in the cultural sense, thrown into question (and ridiculed) because of rape. Male victims and survivors experience this questioning and ridicule nearly every time if they report the crime, whether officially to authorities, or just to people they know. They are also sometimes attacked, even beaten up, because they were raped. I’ve experienced these things personally.

I can call a male rape victim’s silence self-preservation, because it often is exactly that. Male victims also remain silent and fall into drug and alcohol abuse and suicide because males are told they “can’t” show emotion, ask for help, or tell anybody that they are in terrible pain due to rape.

Male rape, just like female rape, isn’t going to go away or stop by ignoring it. It doesn’t matter if the topic makes you uncomfortable. If your neighbor, brother, son, or best male friend were assaulted with a hammer and needed to heal, would you judge, shun or loathe him? Probably not. So why are male victims of rape judged, shunned or loathed? They are the same man or boy you considered a friend or loved family member before the rape.

Why is “gay” all mixed up and demonized in the stigma surrounding male rape? Rape DOES NOT change sexual orientation. Homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, queer and transmen are raped just as straight men are raped. Being “gay” or not has nothing to do with “asking for it” anymore than a woman wearing a short skirt is “asking for it”. Also, when most male rape help resources only cite “Don’t worry, rape can’t make you gay”, that is a stab in the ribs to any homosexual or GBT rape victim or survivor who comes to your site hoping to find help. Perhaps we need an additional “Don’t worry, rape can’t make you straight” platitude for LGBTQ victims/survivors?

Most males who rape males are not “gay”. They are “straight”. Most pedophile males who rape boys are not “gay”, they are “straight”. So please, America, stop making sick rape jokes about a boy “being gay and getting some” because a male pedophile raped him. Also, a boy is not “lucky” if a hot teacher rapes him. Gay or straight, that boy is raped. If you wish to dispute these points, and you are not a male rape victim or survivor, please sit down and go research statistics on male rape.

I also encounter (many times) a certain type of feminist (though not all of them are like this) who get angry in general if male victims and survivors of rape are mentioned in any context, for any reason. This type of feminist, man or woman, tries to silence me and push their agenda right over me. To my ears, their agenda appears to be this: “Only female victims of rape exist, and even if males are raped, they don’t matter as much as female victims.” Now for those who want to jump in and attack me over this paragraph, you may be the problem. Please sit down and go research the prevalence of male rape.

One of the worst stigmas may be the common rape center/org mantra: Teach Men Not to Rape. How about if we teach all people not to rape? Because some women are rapists, and we should teach girls not to rape right alongside the boys. The prevalent and ignorant notion that “only men rape, only women are raped” needs to be stopped, and stamped out. Why? Because, like it or not, some women and girls rape, and some men and boys are raped.

As a male survivor of rape, I am sick of seeing and hearing others say I don’t exist. Male rape victims exist, folks – whether you want to believe it or not. You can’t make us disappear just because the crime that is destroying us too makes you feel uncomfortable.

~ ~ ~

© W.R.R. 5/21/2013
For all survivors of any form of rape or abuse; you are not alone. Speak out. Find your path to healing.

Child sex trafficking rings are real and they exist in all countries of the world. These monsters use living children to make disgusting films and photos, to sell to other monsters. They rape children. They use children to hurt other children, and the guilt and shame can kill. It will still exist… these children will still suffer… whether you choose to know it or not. Please don’t look away. Knowledge is power, power to save the lives of children.

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