Know About It

When we talk about sexual violence there is a tendency to focus only on women as the victim. While this is true of in 90% of the cases and we need to TALK ABOUT IT, men are not to be forgotten. Personally, I find it important to invovle men in the conversation about ending sexual violence, because although they may commit the majority of the assaults against women, they are also our biggest ally in stopping the violence against women. This Know About It, I wanted to focus on men as the forgotten victim.

Rempel (2001) asserts, "Male battery is generally the same as domestic assault. Male battery is any violent behavior between adults in an intimate, sexual or cohabiting relationship. This includes: pushing, slapping, punching, kicking, breaking bones, cutting, killing, throwing objects, smashing items over the victim and choking, etc. Also considered domestic abuse would be some non-physical violence such as locking a person outside the house, leaving them in an unsafe area or destroying their belongings or pets."

Men are socialized to be strong, MANly, and to WANT sex. "Don't hit like a girl", "Boys don't cry", "Don't be a sissy" are all phrases we as society use on little boys to make sure they grow up bold, brave, and courageous. While those qualities aren't necessarily undesirable, it does put a certain pressure on the male gender when it comes to being a victim and finding his voice. My gender will never know those pressures, so I can only speak from what I've read, heard and witnessed. It would be a different conversation about men who are raised to be gentle, caring, compassionate and sensitive. Those gender discussions continue to disrupt the role models of today's boys. It's a tough world, and it doesn't seem to be getting easier.

I remember the first time I heard a man speak out about his experience with sexual violence. Judgingly, I thought he must have been gay. THIS is SO not the case in many of the assaults against men. Heterosexual men, rape other heterosexual men. It's about power and control. His story was no different then other I'd heard, only exception he was a man. He was a young when the abuse started and it was by someone he trusted. At the time he really didn't know any better and eventually it just became a part of who he was. All the while he knew that something wasn't right and eventually he told someone. Justice was sought and he is taking steps to process all the damage that was done during those years.

The majority of times when a boy is sexually abused it is by an older, female in his life. If a man is sexuall violated later in life, a heterosexual man committs the attack. "Although for many it seems hard to believe, men in North American society are being domestically abused by their wives or girlfriends in roughly the same amount as women are abused by their male partners." (Rempel, 2001)

There was one article which I found to be very useful in finding some data on how often men are victims. This is just one article of many, but offers some perspective on the prevelance of sexual violence against men. "In one of the first prevalence studies of female-on-male sexual aggression, Struckman-Johnson (1988) found that 2% of the 355 female college students in her sample reported that they had "forced sex on a dating partner" at least once in their lifetime. Poppen and Segal (1988) reported an overall percentage of lifetime prevalence (including both verbal coercion and physical assault) of 14%. In a survey of 171 female college students, Shea (1998) obtained a lifetime prevalence rate of 19% for verbal coercion. Only two respondents (1.2%) reported having physically assaulted a man. Hogben et al. (1996) found an overall lifetime prevalence rate of 24% for women having made a man engage in sexual activity against his will. Prevalence of verbal coercion was as high as 43%, and 36.5% of respondents reported having gotten a man intoxicated to make him engage in sexual acts. Threat of force was reported by 27.8%, use of force by 20%, and threatening a man with a weapon by 8.9% of the female participants." (Krahe, 2003)

Men are victims. Talk About it.

References:

Krahe, B., Waizenhofer, E., Moller, I. (2003). Women's sexual aggression against men: prevalence and predictors. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research.

Rempel, T. (2001). The Forgotten Victim: Domestic Violence against Men - Statistical Data Included. Indian Life