An article in The Atlantic exposes the reality of male survivors who’ve been assaulted by females, including Don Draper, the main character in the show Mad Men.
That’s what one of my friends said to me as we sat at a picnic table at a barbecue with a bunch of other parents. I looked at her curiously and asked why she was worried less about her son than her daughter. She explained that when she was growing up, one of her friend’s dads had abused his daughter, and also some of her friends during sleepovers. She’s still traumatized from the stories she heard.
That’s when I became the downer of the party, as I am sometimes wont to do, as a writer in the field of sex and gender.
“Did you know that 1 in 6 boys are sexual abused by the time they reach adulthood?”
The table went quiet. Another dad, one of the sweetest guys I know, said, “Wait a minute. Is that statistic for real?”
Relying upon what I’ve learned from Chris Anderson of Male Survivor and the guys at 1in6.org and other male survivor groups, I explained that somehow we’ve come to believe that sexual abuse and rape only happens to girls—or that sexual abuse that does happen to boys is extremely rare.
But it’s not rare.
1in6 is an organization whose mission it is the support survivors of unwanted sexual contact in their childhood. And as they explain, that statistic is probably low.
We looked around the party. Coincidentally, there were exactly 6 men in attendance, and many more little boys—our children—running around and playing.
The dad went on to explain, “I’m going to sound like an idiot here, but since I only have boys, I honestly thought that just wasn’t something I had to worry about.” He was shaken, I could tell.
I felt bad introducing such a heavy topic, but after that people started opening up about men and boys they know who have been sexually abused. It’s not exactly ideal barbecue conversation, but I truly believe that the more we bring subjects like these into the light, the healthier our society becomes. If one of the men in that group had indeed been abused, he may not realize he’s in such good company. If one of our boys, God forbid, were ever assaulted, perhaps we would be more equipped to handle it—to realize there are resources and that boys who are survivors are not alone.
A few weeks ago, writer and professor Abigail Rine wrote about the reveal that Don Draper, the main character from the hit AMC series Mad Men, had been raped as an adolescent by a prostitute in the brothel where he lived with his pregnant stepmother after they’d become destitute.
Ms. Rine didn’t mince words. It didn’t matter how sexy that prostitute was. It didn’t matter that the prostitute believed she knew what Don wanted and needed (sex). It didn’t matter that Don was a boy. It was rape because Don said no and was clearly scared. Not to mention that he was a minor (Though in the 1930s that may not have been a crime as it is today.)
Rine revisited this subject in more depth today on The Atlantic, where she wrote an entire article, Don Draper Was Raped, about the importance of this scene in bringing the sexual assault of boys and men to the surface. Particularly the assault of boys by women and older girls. Rine explains how Dick’s assault unfolded (for those of you who don’t follow the show, Dick Whitman is Don Draper’s real name):
Throughout most of the episode, Aimee serves as a surrogate mother for Dick; she lets him recuperate in her bed and offers him rest, comforting words, spoonfuls of warm broth. However, in their penultimate scene together, Aimee’s maternal kindness turns oddly predatory. She approaches her bed where Dick is lying weakly, fever newly broken, and asks, “Don’t you want to know what all the fuss is about? “No,” Dick replies forcefully, averting his eyes and hugging the blankets tightly against his chest as she reaches under the covers to touch him. “Stop it,” he says, clearly uncomfortable, even afraid. But Aimee doesn’t stop.
Rine then takes to task many writers who summarized Don/Dick’s assault as consensual—or simply of the loss of his virginity. She challenges folks to consider how we would interpret the scene had Dick been an adolescent girl:
The most unsettling account I read was Paul MacInnes’ recap for The Guardian, which somehow concludes that Dick not only consents to Aimee’s advances, but actively desires them: “Aimee knew what young Dick really wanted and was prepared to do what was necessary to give it to him.”
Let’s pause for a moment and imagine a parallel scene between, say, a slightly older Sally Draper and an adult man. He tries to seduce her. “No,” she says, when he begins to touch her, “Stop it.” He ignores her; she lapses into silence; he has sex with her. Now let’s picture the feminist outcry if a writer for a mainstream publication were to describe this as not only consensual, but as Sally getting what she “really wanted.”
An outcry to that statement would be appropriate, and it is appropriate here. This boy was raped.
In talking with friends about this scene, most agree he was raped but many also say, “It just seems like that’s every guy’s dream.”
That thinking—that all guys are turned on all the time, that all guys want sex all the time, that guys are undiscerning about their sexual partners, is incredibly dangerous. I wrote about this last year, explaining the case of a young man I know who was raped by a girl named Maria whom he was interested in. I talked to Maria about the situation a few years after it happened, when she was in a state of profound remorse over what happened.
She was 16 when it happened and had been fed a story her entire life about how all guys want is sex, and how guys will screw anything that walks. She also had a profound problem with insecurity and only later did she realize that her main sense of validation came from being sexually desired.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeMaria simply couldn’t conceive of a guy saying “no” and meaning it. Not a guy like Rob, at least, a guy whom she knew had hooked up with, and even had sex with, a few girls from our school. She also thought it would make him like her more if she were sexually dominant, like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, whose no-panties leg-crossing scene was considered the sexiest thing ever in the 1990s—when in reality, it is disturbing and intrusive.
One reason the myth of men always wanting “it” is so pervasive is because we’ve never really had a model for male survivors of assault by women—we’ve barely had models of male survivors of assault by men. That’s why we’ve been so grateful to writers like James Landrith and Levi Greenacres, who have shared their stories with The Good Men Project community in the past. A year ago, Mike D’Amora bravely wrote about his terrifying and frantic rape at the hands of a violent female perpetrator on Thought Catalogue. Survivor stories—true ones and fictionalized ones in media such as Mad Men—help us to understand the realities of sexual assault against boys and men.
Don Draper (née Dick Whitman) survived the assault, but we see severe damage in his adult life. He didn’t have support. He grew up to be incredibly self-destructive and destructive to those around him as an alcoholic and sex addict, as I wrote about a few weeks ago. Obviously not all survivors face these challenges, but some do. A prostitute, even a sexy one, violating you sexually is going to have some long-term effects and thank God some mainstream media is finally recognizing that rape is never sexy. Not when it’s against a woman, and not when it’s against a boy or a man. And despite what we’ve seen in TV and movies, like the Adam Sandler flick “That’s My Boy“, statutory rape is not funny.
Yes, I agree with Abigail Rine. Don Draper was raped, just as too many other boys have been in this country. And it’s time we started talking about it.
What do you think? Do stories like Don Draper’s help raise awareness about male survivors of sexual assault?
How do you think we can we better support male survivors in our society?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/us/in-debate-over-military-sexual-assault-men-are-overlooked-victims.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Thank you for telling your story. We must stay strong so other brothers can tell their story.
Richard
Can I ask the OP, after years of being given the information and stats by various regulars here, how is it a TV show rather than the regulars was the catalyst for an article?
Absolutely important to start saying this stuff out loud, and it’s courageous of you to go against the grain of what society wants you to think. Not all childhood rape victims are girls. Not all child rapists are men. It’s really that simple and should be totally obvious. We could argue endlessly about the percentages or how commonly each gender falls into each category. Let’s say for the sake of argument that the figure for male victims of women rapists is really “low,” like 1%. Well, 1% of American men and boys is over 1-2 MILLION people. Not sure what… Read more »
Its weird, jezebel post many article about Mad Men, and no single article mention that Don raped by woman. Even in the article about Don Draper is a sex addict. Maybe because the perpetrator is female?
John I think you are on to something here. For instance, even though an organization like NOW knows that women rape too and that women rape other women, they only go after men. Why? Since they don’t openly discuss these things or encourage the discussion of these issues relative to women, we can only speculate as to the reasons. Clearly, they stand to lose quite a bit of credibility and with it funding and membership if they do. One must understand that the rape of women by men has been a cornerstone of feminism and used to great effect as… Read more »
Not weird, normal and deliberate.
Look how this site tried to gloss over the fact that most guards that rape prisoners are female, for another example.
http://feministing.com/2013/06/12/study-shows-an-alarming-rate-of-young-inmates-are-sexually-assaulted/
or look at the policies for rape data collection being deliberately made to omit female perpetration, for another.
http://www.genderratic.com/p/2551/male-privilege-defining-male-victims-out-of-existence/
This was an interesting read, as I had thought about this issue for a long time, but never thought anyone thought similarly. The scene in “40 Days and 40 Nights” has always been disturbing to me because it contains a scene that, to me, clearly depicts male rape, and yet it was such a popular and “funny” movie. I’m not sure what that says about our society, but it can’t be good. Why do we think that’s okay? Rine’s parallel between the nonchalant response to a scene depicting male rape, and the sure-to-be-raging response against a such a response to… Read more »
I things have changed in my industry. Whereas “addictions” so to speak, were typically treated with the traditional 12 Step approach (still shows good results and needs to be incorporated into recovery), treatment centers are now delving further into the individual persons life and life experiences. These experiences, although may not be the core of a persons problem, at the very least has had a profound affect which contributes to the problem. For example, the mom that said her son was looking for attention. This poor kids issues go far beyond the incident with the adult female, he has a… Read more »
Wow, Tom. I wonder if the rate has changed. Or if we’re just having more people come forward.
I’ve been doing a lot of research in the area of men who are survivors of sexual assault and rape by women. I initially thought that the seeming increase in the number of women on men sexual assaults and rapes merely appeared to be increasing because women were becoming more sexually aggressive. However, long-standing research in the field (e.g. Female Pedophiles, by Michelle Elliott) indicates that women have long been predators of men and boys. It seems that many experts believe that we have suppressed and denied the real rate of sexual assault and rape of women on men and… Read more »
And with 14 years of being an addictions counselor in a 38 bed residential unit for adolescent boys, ages 13 to 18, I have experienced it. I’ve also experienced children while in their family sessions disclose these incidents for the first time to their family. I’ve also experienced mother claiming the boy is not telling the truth and he’s only looking for attention. And not long ago, a mother went so far as to admit that she knew about it and he(the young man) has to deal with it and get over it as SHE did. Boy after boy? No,… Read more »
Yes, in general, I think you’re probably right. From tales of my students and research, I think alcohol, in particular, plays a negative role in sexual relations, and I wish we didn’t turn to it so much. But I think one reason we do is that the sense of repression has increased since the 1960s-1970s, so many people manage their sexuality as “breakthrough” behavior. As the rationalization of sexuality has increased, we often depend on a notion of “I didn’t know what I was doing” to excuse our forays into sexuality. As I alluded to, though, I can remember a… Read more »
Would you feel the same about your neighbor if you had been 13? 11? Granted, even drunk and silly, she would likely have drawn the line with the 13 or 11 year old you. Which if true, means that she had some sense that you could be too young for her to accept your advances. And speaking of sobriety, do you think anything would have happened had she been sober? If not, why not? I think the onus is on the adult to take the less experienced person’s needs into account, and if that means passing up the opportunity, is… Read more »
I’m also a little chary of the way that language critiquing sexual practices has been stepped up. I’m not sure I’d characterize my drunk, silly 35 year-old partner as a “predator.” (If anything, I was the aggressor.) Actually the term “predator” would have been impossible to use in the 1960s, and I’m not sure it should be used now. A friend of mine (female) called another friend (male) a predator because he dates a lot. Whew! I was called a perv and a skeev for lightly flirting with someone on-line. Just complimenting her looks. It was others BTW who used… Read more »
Thanks for the humanism in your response, Adrian. I’m always a little suspicious of society’s attempts to constrain sexuality. Probably because of the tendency to retreat to Victorianism (very evident since the 1970s.) It’s too easy to heap more “rational” regulations and laws on top of the “sex is dirty” taboo most of us learned as children. I suspect we experience two levels of sexual repression. One (appropriate) warns us off from incest, child molestation, and the like. The other (inappropriate) represses us into the sorts of bureaucratic laborers society would like to see. This second level makes much of… Read more »
Hank
Interesting theories you share with us here.
I have always wondered why so many societies repress female sexuality but after some months here in GMP I see it happens to men as well. On a grand scale. All sorts of insecurities and taboo around sexually ..
And i see men that in 2013 look for women with a ” lower number ” of sex partners than themselves.
Virgins or “half-virgins ” are the ideal.
I appreciate it when men share these feelings with us,but it makes me sad.
I think sexual encounters where one person is not able to give genuinely informed consent are always a problem, regardless of gender. In your case, Hank, I really wouldn’t be all that concerned either. At 16 you probably had a pretty good idea what was going on, and your sense then and now that it wasn’t coercive counts for a lot. To me, that indicates that you probably were consenting in the general sense of that word. However, that doesn’t mean that the 35 yr old wasn’t something of a predator. If this sort of behavior was common for her,… Read more »
For a comprehensive bibliography of scholary articles on female sex offenders from late 19th century up until now anyone interested can check out this ideology neutral site: http://www.female-offenders.com/bibliography.html
And yes, they also include papers on female-on-female abuse.
Hi Tamen
You know a lot about these things. Thank you for links!
May I ask you something?
Since you know a lot about Norway,then I think you know about the trial against Anders Behring Breivik.
A book was written after the trial claiming that Breivik had been sexually abused as a small child by his mother. Do you have any more info about that?
During the trial all facts from his early childhood was keep a secret from us all to protect his mother.
But now she is dead.
Iben, I am not privy to any redacted documents from the trial nor have I read the book by Aage Brochgrevink you refer to. But according to reviews of the book there are a couple of lines which implies sexual abuse in the report from the CPS worker/psychologist involved in the 1983 CPS case when Breivik was 4 years old. The report according to the book states: “[the mother] confused the boy by alternatingly pushing him away and drwaing him towards herself”, “[the mother] projects her primitive and aggressive sexual fantasies on the boy” and that after the divorce the… Read more »
Hi Tamen
You are well informed.
I read with interest that many psychiatrists this week question his diagnoses,the personalty disorder.
I am not qualified to do that ,but I tend to agree whit those that see him as psychotic .
When all this happened I tried to understand him.I read his compendium ( e-book) and followed the trial. He writes a new book now.
Rape by women and men who anally rape or use objects may not be illegal in some states because some states only define rape as inserting a penis into a vagina. The statues are that specific in some states. Which means that orally or anally raping with penis is legal. Raping with an object is legal. Forcing someone to touch you sexually is legal. And women raping is legal since women don’t have penises. The New York State Assembly just expanded the definition of rape to include all the above. Glad attention is being brought to this topic. People also… Read more »
I’m always reminded that Theodore Adorno thought that the urge to control others sexually was part of the authoritarian personality. I don’t know if my post above was approved, but I warned Tom not to threaten me, even hypothetically.
I don’t like being threatened, even hypothetically. Let’s put that aside, though. I assure you that I do conform to the norms and laws of the society we have now, although I don’t always agree with them. Your use of personalization here is inappropriate. Hypothetically, though (probably if society weren’t as dangerous as it is now,) I’d argue that statutory rape laws should be sunseted. I’d keep laws against pre puberty child molestation. Many societies don’t have adolescence, and it’s sort of an artificial construct that we do. So for me the question of the desirableness of protecting teens is… Read more »
Hank…. I respectfully disagree with you. I Understand what you’re saying about children “experimenting” but there is a big difference between two same aged little children and an adult with a child/adolescent. It’s rather confusing to me that you’re okay with having a make out session with an adult women yet 1.) had that adult women been a man and you a girl, he would be labeled as sexual predator. Had that women been a man, same label and let’s take it a step further, had that women been a priest, you would be in line for the kabillions of… Read more »
I can’t help having a really bad feeling about spreading the discourse of sexual abuse to woman or girl on boy. For one thing, I think it’s a type of moral entrepreneurism, and, for the most part, moral entrepreneurism around issues of sexuality has been destructive. Now of course I admit that very occasionally we have women or girls fellating or inserting their fingers into underage boys, perhaps incestuously. I realize that that indeed could be destructive in the same sense that a man or boy doing it to a girl might be. (Except that I can remember inserting my… Read more »
Hank, I hear you. I don’t disagree entirely but I want to assure you that I am very far from being an MRA. I’m a 3rd generation feminist but my eye is on men’s issues and equality for everybody. I don’t think we need to talk about who does what how often. I think we need to make room for the diversity of assaults that happen. When you get to know male survivors, you learn that their rates of suicide are massive. Their rates of drug abuse are massive. It’s devastating. Then you add in the cultural implications that females… Read more »
Joanna, I’m not yet persuaded that a male teen’s sexual encounter with a woman can be abusive/injurious. It’s likely that such encounters could arise in circumstances where other “dysfunctional” things are present in the environment, so injury could be due to other things, even overdetermined.
Listen, certainly not all teen sexual encounters are exploitive, even if the person is somewhat older. It all depends upon the levels of coercion, the age of the child, the power position the adult might be in, etc. I know a man who was 13 when his 19 year-old babysitter wanted him to play a “game” and got him to have sex with her. He felt awful and kept the secret until he was 45 years old. He had addiction issues, sexual issues, and intimacy issues. When he had told people, they were like, “She’s hot! You’re so lucky!” but… Read more »
Good point. I still have some problems with the psychic mechanism with which the abuse is transmitted. Is it because the victim knows it’s against social norms? Does it only seem to be abusive to victims who’ve been raised in repressive families? Is it because the older person has told the victim to keep it a secret? Is it because the younger person knows he should keep it a secret (I did)? Is it “too much, too soon?” I wonder if the abuse here is a social construction– therefore historically and geographically specific. Apparently teens in Samoa were initiated by… Read more »
My feeling is this – assuming that it’s cultural norms that would make him not want sex with a woman assumes that all males want any sex with any woman. And that’s complete bullshit. I think as far as your suggestions go, certainly there are cases where consensual sex becomes a source of shame for a person because of background. And certainly all of those things are true for certain people. But my feeling is that the vast majority of victims simply did not want the sex to occur, and therefore they felt it was abuse. I mean, there are… Read more »
Yes, Jeffs was a pretty disgusting act. Not least because he tried to control women and men in all other ways as well. I read a heartbreaking tale of one of his “wives” where she finally made good her escape after years of being manipulated and imprisoned. Not good.
Yeah what Jeffs was terrible.
I remember reading about the “Lost Boys”, young men (some still in their teens) that were tossed out of the sect so that there would be less competition for wives.
Hi Hank And old friend of mine grew up in Tunisia (1947). He told me it was a costum I that culture that children ( maybe only boys?) learned about sex and lovemaking from older members. So he had inter course when he was 10 years with an old cousin. And I rember his worlds so well:” you people don’t know this about us”. Since he as a Muslim living in the was used to remarks about sexually oppressed Muslims, but I felt we were more oppressed ….. Did he he have symptoms as a victim of sexual abuse? Yes… Read more »
Typo
Since he was a Muslim living in the West…..
I have a generic question about Mad Men.
I don’t follow the show so I’m not entirely sure but how does adult Don Draper treat women?
I don’t follow Mad Men closely, but from what I saw in the first season while the general trend is that he treats women poorly; he makes sexist jokes, cheats on his wife constantly (on occasion with clients,) is callous, cold, and semi-verbally abusive, extremely emotionally distant with his wife (I believe now ex-wife) and his other female partners. He is aloof, haughty, and acts as though he is better than everyone (not just women) around him. This would be looking only at the surface as at the same time he demonstrates more empathy towards the women working at the… Read more »
Okay that’s just what I thought.
At the risk of sounding like I’m invoking Vampire Symdrome (that an abused child will grow up to be an abuser) I was asking because I wonder what if any influence this rape has/had on his outlook on women as an adult.
Don Draper is a sex addict, and women are both objects and saviors in his life. The women who are his saviors always let him down (because, after all, they are humans and not goddesses) and he needs a new savior. We don’t see scenes of Don hate-fucking in an out-of-body experience like we saw in the movie Shame. But it’s profoundly unhappy. In some ways, interestingly, he’s the most respectful of women among their partners. In other ways, they are utterly disposable. I think that’s what makes it so realistic. A show about a purely misogynistic man would be… Read more »
I think that’s what makes it so realistic. A show about a purely misogynistic man would be intolerable. Instead, we see this immense hurt and pain coming through him, even when he’s doing terrible things and making horrible choices. Yes. I think that’s one problem when it comes to talking about men these days. There’s too many buzzwords that seem to serve the purpose of ignoring experiences like this that could shape a person’s outlook on a group of people. “He was raised with a sense of entitlement.”, “He’s trying to keep his male privilege.”, “He was raised to believe… Read more »
Yeah, and I don’t even think Don is trying to keep his male privilege. I’m not sure if someone said that or if you heard it elsewhere. I think he’s trying to feed his addiction. We have to remember that when Peggy was a mere secretary, Don saved her. He was the one who helped her when she had a secret baby, he helped her get her career and her life back together. Not because he was going to use her for sex, but because he believed in her and he knew what it was like to have secrets. He… Read more »
Yeah, and I don’t even think Don is trying to keep his male privilege. I’m not sure if someone said that or if you heard it elsewhere. Not about Don specifically but men in general. I see something going on with Don Draper here that doesn’t go on with actual living men. Examining past experiences, thinking about how they would influence a guy’s current behavior, and taking steps to correct said behavior (or at least keep future men from picking up that same behavior). When a man is on trial or being charged with a serious crime bringing up his… Read more »
When are you people going to stop trying to find ways to make Don Draper a sympathetic character? He’s the scum of the earth, and I find it amusing that people try to find excuses for him. Is it because of his good looks. His giant c**k?
This isn’t a complex character we’re talking about here. He’s a lying, slimeball, AD man!
Mad Men was all downhill the second that the writers starting giving a damn about him. Characters like Draper have no conscience, even if you concoct a “rape” back story. Sorry, not buying it . . .
It’s not about making Don Draper a sympathetic character its about being sympathetic of an event in Draper’s life.
Stephen, have you watched all 6 seasons of Mad Men? Draper certainly has a conscience. But like most people, it’s flawed. And he’s messed up. But he isn’t evil. Pure evil would be boring.
I’d love to meet any person who is all-good. Who’s never done a bad thing, never made a mistake. Never hurt anyone, was never selfish. So far in my life I’ve never met that person, not even the sweetest people I know.
“Goodness” is such a broad spectrum. To take Don Draper totally off that spectrum is ridiculous.
Yes, of course all characters are black and white good/evil panto characters and could never have any kind of complexity at all.
We should probably treat people that way too, it would make life so much easier.
The majority of sexual assault on boys is perpetrated by men.
Yes, I think that is true. But I don’t think that should make us blind to the assaults committed by women and girls, which are very real.
I have to ask what exactly was your purpose in pointing that out here? No one has said anything about the majority of sexual assault on boys being perpetrated by women. But your comment does reflect a rather common sentiment. A lot of the conversation on sexual assault starts off with “its something that males do to females”. I think this is pretty problematic because it creates this biased inability to talk about males in any other capacity than as perps when talking about sexual assault. When talking about male victims of assault one is already challenging the “…to females”… Read more »
ST: You state that assertion without any support and I have to wonder if it’s based in belief, denial, ignorance or if it really is based on sound statistics. Since you just stated this without any references I am more likely to think that you just reiterated some belief which may or may not be founded in facts or statistics. Two national surveys in 2004 and 2007 among 14-17 year old youths in Norway found that 60% of the boys reporting unwanted sexual experiences reported a female perpetrator: Mossige S, Huang L. The prevalence of sexual offences and abuse within… Read more »
Hi Tamen
Thank you.
And what is your point? Are you maybe trying to say….suck it up?
“The majority of sexual assault on boys is perpetrated by men.”
and how do you know….
“The majority of sexual assault on boys is perpetrated by men.” Let’s be clear and state the obvious, The majority of “reported cases” …. As time has and continues to show, wiomen are right up there with men. The adolescents I work with, if I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it dozens of times … “ I bagged a babe (leaving out the word that is generally used) when I was (fill in the age … but I had one client who was 9 years old). I should note that most of these guys had sex with girls who were… Read more »
There simply are no really good rape statistics that cover men, women, children and perpetrators of all genders. I have asked a ton of experts in the field and so many of them say, “We have so little good data on actual rapes occurring. The best we can do is look at what we have and try to extrapolate what may be happening.” But it seems every study of rape has some sort of problem that makes it hard to universalize. To me, knowing this, I have made a choice to believe survivors – whomever they may be, and whomever… Read more »
There simply are no really good rape statistics that cover men, women, children and perpetrators of all genders. I have asked a ton of experts in the field and so many of them say, “We have so little good data on actual rapes occurring. The best we can do is look at what we have and try to extrapolate what may be happening.”
But sadly this lack of really good rape statistics doesn’t stop people from quoting whatever numbers just happen to support their side.
This is a topic that needs to be talked about but this article is lacking in substance a bit; since it only gives two examples, one of which is fictional and the other is apparently non-malicious. One assumes Maria didn’t go on to rape again, and she didn’t go away feeling smug and triumphant either. In fact it’s raising that old spectre that I’ve just tried talking about elsewhere but I haven’t seen it posted yet; the contradictory definitions of rape we have – one that it’s a vicious assault that it’s impossible to do accidentally, and the other that… Read more »
Joseph, I hope you’ll read the three other survivor stories I link to in the article for more diversity of the rapes that happen. Four of five examples are real-life stories. Only one is fictionalized.
Also, I’m so sorry you were assaulted like that as a child. It makes me so angry that bullies and sexual predators are able to get away with shit like that, particularly in our schools. I hope you’ve been able to find some healing from that trauma. And I agree, it wasn’t long ago that rape against women wasn’t taken seriously at all. This was one of the main objectives of the second-wave feminists and feminists of the 80s. Rape had to look one very certain way for it to be prosecuted and even have charges filed. Things are slowly… Read more »
I never really understood why rape against women should be taken seriously, but not rape against men. Why not move beyond that, since day one, and targeting all rape and not just a kind of rape (MVF). Honestly, already as a child I understood this concept why it was so difficult for adults during my childhood? People who dealt with rape in the 80’s new very well that FVM rape was not rare or a fantasy. So why didnt they move to stop all rape rather than privileging one kind? Mystery.
It’s because we have a system in this country where men are in power. We see it all around us, so when we hear that a man was victimized in a way we typically think of women being victimized, I think we (collectively) just disbelieve it.
It’s the wrong way for the world to work and it must change.
Regardless of the history of what you’re calling “privileging” of rape, it’s time for everyone to move forward together.
I think there’s more to it than that. Look at the sometimes resistence to efforts to bring up male victimization. I’m thinking that this is more than “because men are in power”. Those men don’t operate in the interests of men in general yet they are propped up as representation of all of us.
I think we (or at least some of us) have gone from collective disbelief to outright denial.
the myth about “men in power” need to go. Its a poor excuse, traditionally, men dont help other men, they compete with other men, we dont help each other. Unless they are in the same affiliation like : family, army, party friens etc…
So its much more likely that men in power will create obstacle for other men, so they can keep the power.
ups I send the message to early…
continuing from before
Intro line :
“So its much more likely that men in power will create obstacle for other men, so they can keep the power.”
[cont]
Therefore the group in power are not representative, they are much likely adversaries.
Well, when we say “power” I don’t think we mean “all men have power” but rather that the legislature, the presidency, judges, police officers, college professors, college boards of trustees, CEOs and upper management in Fortune 500 companies are by the vast majority men. That does NOT mean that men are getting what they need. I feel so strongly about the fact that the very small group of men in power (mostly rich white men who’ve lived very little time in the real world) are harming men, too. Racism in the prison-industrial complex being the first thing that comes to… Read more »
That does NOT mean that men are getting what they need.
Then why is what you explain in the first paragraph invoked whenever there is a need to shut down male voices trying to speak up (I’m not expecting a specific answer from you that’s a general question)?
I honestly can’t say why others do that.
I do it when people say, “Men are NOT in power in this society.” That is when I explain the above. Yes, in general, men are in power. But that doesn’t mean all men have power, or that the needs of men are being met.
I think people TRULY do not understand that.
“I honestly can’t say why others do that. I do it when people say, “Men are NOT in power in this society.” That is when I explain the above. Yes, in general, men are in power. But that doesn’t mean all men have power, or that the needs of men are being met.” If I may offer a perspective- I think the difference is that some view gender as the characteristic of power (that power itself in society derived from, & contingent upon, one’s gender) and some others view gender as a characteristic of those IN power- Of those who are… Read more »
Joanna,
Personally I feel that even saying “in general, men are in power” is still ambiguous because it is not clear that you are saying “men” as a group or as a characteristic (Just as Mostly has said.) In my opinion a much more accurate answer is “in general, those in/who have power are men.”
This makes a clear distinction that saying the individuals with power follow the trend of being men not that men, as a group, are the ones with power.
@Joanna: As KC Krupp is saying I think the problem is that “in general, men are in power” is a pretty vague statement because it doesn’t clarify exactly which men are in power. Its not like men are some collective and the ones that are in power are actually representing us as a whole. In short guilty by gender association. We share gender with those in power so we are assumed to have power therefore there is no need for men to speak up on their own. I do it when people say, “Men are NOT in power in this… Read more »
First a suggestion, when you say Yes, in general, men are in power. when you really mean The vast majority of people in power are men I’d suggest you actually say the latter more unambiguous statement and avoid all this back and forth,. That said; the unspoken implication by stating It’s because we have a system in this country where men are in power. is that it would change if we had women in power instead. Would it? Is it really a gender thing rather than a class thing? I think the class aspect outweighs the gender aspect and that… Read more »
Yes and when women were raped, the majority used to say, she was looking for it, or she liked it. But today has changed (mostly). Now thanks to the myopia and dishonesty of the people working with rape back then and maybe even today, lots of people have been abused with no help whatsoever and the worst part is they perhaps are not even aware about their abuse. And in parallel abusers are free to hit again. “Regardless of the history of what you’re calling “privileging” of rape ” With privileged group, I mean, you take care and help only… Read more »
Agreed. Honestly sometimes I think there is a desire to sweep the way male victims have been treated under the rug rather than straight acknowledge it. Which is kind of odd that we need to move forward on male victimization but when it comes to female victimization then it becomes fair game to invoke all the historical treatment of women.
Joanna When you write that the only reason males are not discussed as victims is because men are in power only serves to exacerbates the problem. Why? Because we are disinclined to view people in power as victims. Furthermore, classifying all men as powerbrokers or as being the same is categorically wrong, which encourages lazy thinking and for society to define men in the most simplistic manner..Once again intersectionality has failed when it is needed most! This unfortunately, is par for the GMP golf course. GMP is a part of the problem and has done a poor job of defining… Read more »
I have yet to see an ongoing discussion on GMP of lesbians who rape and commit domestic violence. The same goes for transsexual and bisexual women. We are supposed to believe that this is accidental? For real?
The reason is simple. Admitting to these things would destroy one of the main pillars of feminists thought and logic, forcing them to recalibrate themselves and who they are. They are not ready to do that, nor do they have the courage to do that.
There are some people that genuinely don’t consider a woman assaulting a man as rape. Some of the more arguments I have seen for why sexual assault against a man by a women should not be considered rape include: 1. The women suffer more argument: A woman sexually assaulting a man does not result in penetration which is means that the man does not suffer from physical injury the way a woman does, so since a man does not have to live with the physical scarring and the same “level” of psychological trauma we should not equate the man’s experience… Read more »
yeah, i remember the genderratic threads on that mary koss quote
http://www.genderratic.com/p/2798/male-disposability-mary-p-koss-and-influencing-a-government-entity-to-erase-male-victims-of-rape/
Yes its true, it happens to boys. Some 17 years ago reported this incident to police- at the time there were no laws to address unwitnessed reports by a three year old, but today if a 14 year old boy exposes himself to a 3 year old- no witnesses are needed, they will take the kid in and at minimum get them into counseling besides juvenile offender status. What transpired was at the home of a friend, her 14 yr old nephew kept snarky smiling and trying to lead my toddler boy out of my sight while three moms were… Read more »
However, in their penultimate scene together, Aimee’s maternal kindness turns oddly predatory.
Sounds like grooming. Connecting with the child and then using the trust they’ve built up as a doorway to assault/abuse them.