Trigger warning for description of rape.
Hello all. I thought about doing a nice introductory first post about me and my views and what I’m all about, but I think I’m still kind of figuring that stuff out and besides, I think it’s a little late for something like that now, isn’t it? So I’m just going to jump right in.
Most people reading this blog are pretty familiar with rape statistics. We look at the numbers and we’re horrified by the prevalence of rape all around us. We look around at our friends and family and lovers and we think “Maybe one of them was raped and didn’t tell me. How would I know?” It’s sickening and disheartening.
But at the end of the day, they’re just numbers. Women have more than numbers. We have stories and rape shelters and visibility beyond just the statistics. Sometimes its negative visibility. Sometimes it’s really disgusting visibility. And sometimes, that very visibility is what gives female rape victims a support system. One can go one the internet and find any number of strong, successful women who have survived sexual assault. Women like Jaclyn Friedman who have yelled a rallying cry for strength against sexual assault, who have written books and blogs and started whole movements and created safe spaces for abused women to lick their wounds in the comfort of friends who understand them. I’m not trying to belittle the experiences of female survivors, or deny the horrors they have to go through whether or not they come forward with their experiences of rape. I’m not trying to create an oppression olympics between male and female survivors, or denying the really bad shit that comes from rape of women having visibility.
But I have yet to see men talk about their abuse and how they have healed from it. I have yet to see men join in solidarity in a community of kindness and safety, of healing. I have yet to see one man turn to another and say “I know what you’re going through, and what you’re feeling is okay.” I’ve yet to even hear about experiences of male survivors of sexual assault and rape more personal than a list of statistics extrapolated to real life.
It is quite likely that these things happen, just not in the areas of the internet that I frequent. But when I think about how easy it is to trip over a female survivor safe space, or how easy it is to hear about an uplifting, painful story of a female survivors road to healing, it becomes clear to me that if this happens, it does not happen nearly enough. Male rape, unlike that of women, is all but invisible in mainstream media and discourse.
I cannot alone give visibility to male survivors of rape. I can’t provide the sort of community that visibility can create. I can’t tell male survivors I’ve been where they have been and I know how they feel. Hell, I can’t even refer them to a sexual assault hotline that I have any confidence is any help for men. All I can give is a personal story, instead of statistics. I can inject something personal about an issue that is almost completely talked about in statistics, and maybe do my part in making the issue of male rape more visible. So that is what I shall do, under the cut. Once again, trigger warning.
One day, I was having dinner in a diner with a man I love very much. He’d been taking a recent breakup very hard, and I wanted to try to cheer him up. We talked about a lot of things and generally had a pretty good time until, while we were drinking coffee, the subject turned to a mutual friend of ours.
Neither of us were best pleased with this mutual friend, not the least because she had gone a long way towards initiating the breakup that was causing my friend so much pain. It was obvious to both of us that she wanted my friend, but he wasn’t interested for obvious reasons. As the conversation went on, he got more and more visibly uncomfortable, and i was getting worried.
“So… I had sex with her,” He said, finally. I was shocked, because he had been going on and on about how he had wanted nothing to do with her. With the statement, he seemed to shrink in on himself, and got smaller and smaller as he described what had happened. He told me how they had been hanging out together and how she had brought up his ex and started wearing him down, bringing up all the shit that he had been going through before the breakup. When he was depressed and upset and emotionally vulnerable, that’s when she pushed him for sex he didn’t want. He felt guilty and ashamed after, and I was horrified by what I heard and that he would describe such an experience as “having sex”. He’d had no other words, though. He hadn’t been tied down or pushed down or violently sodomized. He’d been on top of her, and he’d had and erection so in his mind, and in the public discourse around male rape, no rape — or even assault — could have happened.
It didn’t end there, though. When a women says she was raped, she’ll generally be met with skepticism and slut shaming, but there will usually be some close friend who can help her through it and be a support through the internal and external horrors she will have to go through. But if my friend were to say that he was raped or assaulted by a girl smaller than him and deeply entrenched in his friend group, well, all of his close friends would have laughed in his face. My friend was well known for being something of a horn dog, so to his friends minds, there’s not WAY he wouldn’t want sex from someone who so obviously wanted him.
He had no way to avoid her, either. His abusive parents simply LOVED this girl and invited her over all the time, for one thing. Even if they didn’t, avoiding her, without explaining WHY (which, of course, he couldn’t) would mean completely isolating himself from his entire social circle. So he had to go on like everything was all right.
It got even worse, though. Before she assaulted him, they had planned a trip together with a couple of friends, and she had payed for his part because he was strapped for cash. After the assault, he had no way to bow out of the non-refundable trip without looking like a complete ass to his entire social circle. So he went along. The other friends on the trip saw nothing wrong with leaving the two of them alone, even though he asked them not to, and he ended up sharing a hotel room with his rapist. The only thing he could do was make it explicitly clear that he wanted no sex at all ever.
Naturally, she got drunk, stripped naked, and decided it was a wonderful idea to give him a blowjob while he was sleeping.
At this point, you may be spluttering in rage and shouting “what the FUCK!?” over and over. Don’t worry, this is normal; It’s what I did when I first heard what she did. The worst part is that even though this is SO OBVIOUSLY RAPE OH MY GOD YOU DON’T PERFORM SEX ACTS ON SLEEPING PEOPLE WITHOUT NEGOTIATING CONSENT ARRRRRRRRG, there was absolutely NO WAY he could tell any of his friends about this (especially the male ones) with out them replying with some variation of “Dude, you got your dick wet, what are you complaining about?” And that, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, is seriously, SERIOUSLY fucked up.
This is what “boys will be boys” and “men are animals who want sex all the time and will do anything to get it” means for men. This is what the idea that men always want sex always all the time means. It means that “no” never really means “no”. This is rape culture, and it seriously fucks men over.
‘Once when I turned around fast enough to catch who did it before she let go, she looked at me straight in the eye and said “well that’s all the action you’re ever going to get.”’
There needs to be a word for this. When women abuse their sexual gatekeeping role in order to hurt men.
I definitely argue with the idea of women having a “sexual gatekeeping role”– that’s a cultural narrative that’s a part of rape culture. It presents sex as a thing men do to women, as opposed to a thing that people do to each other. It erases the women who have initiatory sexual desire of their own (hi!). Besides, both genders should be capable of being “gatekeepers”: a man has the right to stop sex the same way that a woman does, and it shouldn’t be assumed that he’s in a state of consent simply because he’s male. Also, I argue… Read more »
“I definitely argue with the idea of women having a “sexual gatekeeping role”– that’s a cultural narrative that’s a part of rape culture.”
Regardless of the appropriateness of it, women are placed in a social role as the gatekeepers of sex. And, functionally, there are more men who have never had sex then women.
This can be abused; hell, I’d argue the entire concept is abusive.
All right then, we agree. 🙂
I appreciate your response and I admit it feels weird having someone actually say that something that happened to me amounted to sexual harassment. I felt some difficulty writing it because it seemed silly at first. I had to reverse the genders and ask myself, would this have been a big deal if… But at the time I had severe insomnia and skipped a lot of school and I would say a lot of it was due to that abusive gatekeeper behavior. I could name a hundred instances. What I find most shocking is just how brazen women can be… Read more »
I don’t think that’s rape culture. I think that’s really disgustingly awful women. There is no culture in place that says it’s okay for you to insult a sexual partner, among men or women; our culture at least has a modicum of respectability in that case. What you describe are some really awful, shitty people. I’d like to think that most people, men or women, aren’t like that. Taunting someone about the sex they are likely to get (or the lack thereof) isn’t fulfilling a gatekeeping role; it’s bullying and shaming. I’d like to reiterate this isn’t a cultural discourse… Read more »
I think you’re calling a large proportion of women awful disgusting people, including some people’s mothers. I guess you’d have to be on the male end of a hetero life to really experience it, so I don’t blame you for jumping to the conclusion that it’s my choice of mate that’s really the problem. Keep in mind the historical statistic that only 40% of men ever manage to reproduce. If accurate, it doesn’t leave much of a chance to improve the quality of their partner for a lot of men, which makes a lot of the dating advice given to… Read more »
Also, you’d be surprised at the way women set sexual boundaries based on how they judge their partner. What they allow a guy to do depends on how much they like him. It’s not about having wild crazy fun sex, it’s about a transaction – a man of a certain stature gives them attention, they are willing to put out to a degree that’s in keeping with his status. I’ve been told so many times that she’ll only give a blowjob to a boyfriend and I haven’t qualified while others would only give head. Others claimed that only men who… Read more »
I think there are two distinct issues here. One is that women are allowed to stop sex at any point. So are men. I’ve had sex stop after my partner came when I didn’t come sometimes; I’ve had sex stop after I came when he didn’t come sometimes. At least in my experience, it’s roughly 50/50. If it isn’t and you have a problem with this, you should communicate this with your partner; if they respond like asshats, either live with it or dump them. Also, people are allowed to set their own sexual boundaries; consenting to one activity does… Read more »
I agree that there are hang ups on both sides and there’s not a lot of positive things that I could say about it from either direction. But I think that context matters and even though a man might not be able to satisfy a woman just as often as the other way around, as a rule there’s never, ever the implication that he gave her enough as it is and if she really wants it that bad she can just go finish it off on her own. While I’m sure there are exceptions to every rule, it rarely stems… Read more »
DTMFA, dude. 🙂 When I say rape culture, I mean “the set of cultural narratives in our society that systematically minimize, apologize for and lead to a greater instance of rape and other forms of sexual violence, harassment, etc.” (I am considering retiring it, the way I’ve retired ‘patriarchy,’ but I’m not sure if the risk of being misunderstood is quite as bad as it is with ‘patriarchy.’) In this case, the idea that women can’t sexually harass men (presumably because male sexuality is thought to be “inherently” aggressive and unwanted and women are thought not to have initiatory sexual… Read more »
Okay, now I got what you meant about rape culture. That’s a very broad definition of the term that could be used to describe almost every aspect of our gender roles, but it was still clear once you defined it and I’m happy to accept how you used it. I’m aware of outlier men such as Genghis Khan and it’s an interesting take on polygamy by men at the top being the root cause, but that isn’t very obvious to me. What I see today and what I learned from reading across history and culture is that women choose men… Read more »
Also, extremely genetically successful men such as Genghis Khan could literally have 1% of people currently alive descended from them, while women are limited to, at most, maybe twenty children. All it takes is a few Genghis Khans to really skew the numbers. In this case, I think it’s a case of both women and lower class men getting oppressed by upper-class men. And while Genghis Khan does have more decedents than more men I think its more than just upper class men vs women/lower class men. Bear in mind that Khan was a notorious rapist who was know to… Read more »
Ozymandias
Where do you stand on the use of “cant get a date”, “can’t get laid enough”, “pro-rapist” etc shaming rhetoric employed by the Marcotte types to dismiss legitimate claims and victim advocacy and awareness by the men’s movement?
“Small penis” and “gay” seems to have been abandoned by feminists in the debate, but up until a few years ago, this sort of attempted sexual shaming was very common too.
It depends! If you are saying a sentence like “women only like jerks, they don’t like nice guys,” a response like “I think you are saying that because you can’t get laid and instead of figuring out why you are taking the face-saving maneuver of claiming it is because you are too awesome and women are all stupid”* is pertinent (possibly inaccurate, but pertinent). Similarly, calling someone a rape apologist if they proclaim that “if women wear short skirts, they should expect to be raped” is completely fair, because they are. However, responding to a debate about the wage gap… Read more »
Ozymandias, you seem to have answered a different question to the one I asked you.
Shora, there are tons of stories like this and I’ll share a couple in a minute, but I want to point out that there are several dimensions to this that are worth bringing up as a teachable moment. Men have, for a long time, come to grips with the idea that it’s possible to give consent after the fact and that one does not necessarily have to ask in order for it to be implied. This isn’t only because men are used to doing this to women and feel a sense of entitlement, but because that’s what women do to… Read more »
‘I have yet to work with a female coworker who has not placed her hand on me without my consent. I never felt it polite to ask them to stop, but the thing is that I was actually trained to think of this as a good thing ” I’ve personally worked a lot of jobs where both men and women have put their hands on me without express consent. Most of these have been restaurant jobs, to be fair, so the habit of putting ones hand on someones back is more of a “I’m behind you, so don’t back up… Read more »
I’ve personally worked a lot of jobs where both men and women have put their hands on me without express consent […] But even then, it’s really fucking obvious who’s cool with it and who is not, and if anyone expressed a problem with it people would stop immediately. I personally don’t see a problem with casual touches, except when I actively dislike or feel uncomfortable around someone doing the touching. I’m not the same as everyone else though, and I should make more of an effort to not touch people I’m not close with. Touch is really important to… Read more »
For people like myself who have almost no social awareness, it’s really okay to ask before you touch someone. “Want a hug?” is a little awkward but hugging someone who hates touch is even worse. Once you roughly know someone’s rules (and they know you’ll stop immediately if they say no), you don’t have to ask so much anymore.
It’s also really important to stand up for people who don’t like to be touched. A lot of times people pressure them to hug someone or whatever anyway or make fun of them when they don’t, and that’s really not okay.
Here’s an interesting thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/i7470/iama_man_who_was_raped_by_a_woman/
Since we’re talking about male rape victims I’d like to mention a fairly strange but extremely fucked up phenomenon. This is the first example I could find of a case in which a woman statutoraily rapes a young boy, has a child as a result, keeps custody, and then manages to get the court to force the boy (or the boy’s family) to pay child support. That has to be painful as a parent to have to pay the woman that raped your son for a grandchild you don’t have contact with (or at the most limited contact with) and… Read more »
That is horrible! Imo, the victim should (barring extreme mental illness or criminal behaviour) always have the primary rights to the child, and demanding people who didn’t have sex willingly to pay for the consequences of it is just cruel.
…What. The. Fuck.
Good post material, there.
There is more here on raped boys paying child support.
http://feck-blog.blogspot.com/search/label/Raped%20males
I have heard many, many people defend this practice as “in the best interests of the child.” There’s also an account of a woman saving a used condom and using it to impregnate herself and then getting child support. Whether or not the man made the story up, the bottom line is it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. These are just the natural consequences of what happens when men in our society do not have the same reproductive freedom that women enjoy. Every time a man isn’t given a choice and people say that he should have kept it in his… Read more »
I know of at least one case where that decision was hastily reversed, but don’t know if it was this case – the links are a bit old.
In my state (as in others), a rapist has no parental rights, by law, to a child they conceived through rape – so neither custody nor child support can possibly be an issue, as legally they’re a stranger to the child. The statute here is gender-neutral, thankfully.
I’m glad they were reversed in the case you mention but its pretty absurd such a decision was made in the first place.
Speaking of. Didn’t that teacher Mary Kay Letourneau who had sex with her under aged student have two kids by him while he was still under aged? I don’t recall her losing custody of those resulting children…
Shora said… But I have yet to see men talk about their abuse and how they have healed from it. I have yet to see men join in solidarity in a community of kindness and safety, of healing. I have yet to see one man turn to another and say “I know what you’re going through, and what you’re feeling is okay.” I’ve yet to even hear about experiences of male survivors of sexual assault and rape more personal than a list of statistics extrapolated to real life. Then you are very unfortunate for it does happen. You would see… Read more »
You are absolutely right; I do have a lot to learn. I’m very grateful to ozy; by creating this blog, she really opened my eyes to men’s issues, and how myopic the feminist movement can be (and I myopic I can be; I even wrote a blog post touching on it. My views then seem so silly now). “YOU could not and should not be there. ” I read this sentence and felt my hackles rise. And then I thought of all the female-only spaces in general, and the survivor spaces in particular, and i feel it’s not really appropriate… Read more »
Man, this blog is opening MY eyes all over the place… 🙂 It’s a learning experience for all of us, I guess.
@doctormindbeam: I think women also need to be taught not to slut-shame, but that said, in addition to messages that affect everyone (“your body is yours; no is a complete sentence”) there’s room for addressing the ways myths about sexuality are applied differently to men and women. For example, women need to know that men do not in fact always want sex and that it’s wrong to shame anyone as “gay” (as if that were shameful, but I digress) or unmanly for saying no; but men are the ones who generally have to cope with being on the receiving end… Read more »
I don’t disagree, but it does raise an interesting idea about the differences. Some of the examples — “your body is your own,” or, “always solicit enthusiastic consent” — seem to come from within. In other words, they’re education about, “Here’s something about your/his/her body that you don’t know,” and are “positive education” (instilling an idea). The others — about slut shaming, “men don’t always want sex,” etc — come from without. I don’t think they’re things people would inherently believe, but rather, are “negative education” (removing an idea instilled by society).
Makes sense. The differences I was thinking of, though, are more “here is something that directly affects men/women, and while women/men should be aware of this and not make the problem worse, men/women will likely want to know about how it affects them personally.” If you’re male, you probably already know you don’t want sex with anything slippery at the drop of a hat, but you may need to hear that this is actually normal and ways to rebut that myth interally, as it were; whereas if you’re female, you’re a bit removed from that.
@AB: No, the reasoning of male rapists raping women is usually that they can get away with it. Or alternatively, that women owe sex to them for being such teases. The reasoning of rape apologists, when it comes to women, is that she obviously didn’t make sure enough that he was aware that she didn’t want it. Or alternatively, that women who don’t act sufficiently conservative or demure deserve to get punished for their behaviour. While that covers most instances of stranger rape (or met him earlier that night) that doesn’t cover things like rape of a wife or girlfriend.… Read more »
You’re right there’s more at work. In fact, I don’t think it would be possible to sum up all the things at work here. But I also believe that the transactional model of sex (with the woman being supposed to give sex in return for something else, and the man being supposed to always want sex in exchange for whatever he gives) is one of the major factors fostering tolerance of rape and enabling rapists to excuse their actions. Because sex is considered something men get from women (and opposed to something people of all sexes are supposed to mutually… Read more »
99% of all rapes are committed by men? I call ALL the bullshit on that. Quite apart from the fact that every time someone quotes a statistic in the nineties I call bullshit, I’ve seen that feckless (i think?) blog post making rounds. That study looked pretty legit, though it had it’s limitations. I think a not insignificant portion of rapes happen when the raping party thinks that no rape is actually occurring. No one actually wants to be a rapist, after all; rapists or horrid psychopathic monsters who deserve to be locked up! But that wasn’t REALLY rape, they… Read more »
@doctormindbeam: I’m going to need you to moderate your commentary there. The truth is simply not that cut and dry. Not all women get off free every time, women and girls can’t simply do whatever they want, women are not always acquitted of murder, and for the vast majority of people, abuse will not be treated lightly. At the risk of getting on your bad side here I don’t think Eagle was trying to imply an “all” to the things you quoted from him but merely pointing out that it does indeed happen (just as you could say the same… Read more »
It’s possible that he didn’t have bad intentions, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t like, and won’t allow, blanket accusations or generalizations to be made about any group here — men, women, blacks, tall people, old people, whatever. It’s at best argumentatively lazy, but more frequently dangerous. It helps foster stereotypical thought and pigeonholing. That’s antithetical to what we’re trying to accomplish here.
I don’t have any bad intentions. Never have. I’m simply talking about something deeply personal to me. I’ll tell you why that is. Well, a number of reasons really. And they all have to do with the abuse I suffered as a child and young man. #1 – When I was six years old, I was diagnosed autistic. For this label to be made official, I had to go to a hospital for all sorts of tests. The caregivers there forced me to participate in activities and scolded me for doing it wrong. One even yelled at me right in… Read more »
I’m really sorry to hear that you suffered those things. That’s awful.
And of course for men who were assaulted by a male perpetrator, there’s gay-shaming. Hey, maybe you didn’t *want* it the way you would have obviously wanted sex from a broad, but now you’ve been made somebody’s bitch and maybe you really did like it, amirite? (Please understand that the gender of the abuser makes the rape “better” or “worse.”) I have so many close male friends who have been raped and told nobody else that, just as with my female friends, it’s a surprise to me if I found out a guy I know wasn’t raped at some point.… Read more »
Wow, editing fail. What I was trying to say at the end of that first paragraph was “Please understand that I am not trying to say that the gender of the abuser makes the rape “better” or “worse”.”
Oh I (and probably most people here) took that to mean that you were speaking about how society thinks about male rape victims, but thanks for the clarify. And you’re right. Male raped by a female – “Oh he’s so lucky!” Male raped by male – “Oh you must have really wanted it.” Speaking of the presumption that men want sex all the time (which has been mentioned here) it ties into the “hetero is good homo is bad” thing. So if a guy is raped by a woman its not that big a deal because men are supposed to… Read more »
Got that.
Extra problem sets for same sex victims regardless of gender. Absolutely true.
Caveat. Regardless of the abuser’s sex it will frequently be referenced in some way to discredit the male victim either individually or collectively.
Banned, I think this really highlights the need for clearer rules about sexual conduct. After being exposed to a lot of material about domestic and sexual violence against men, I’ve taken to asking more if something is alright. But it doesn’t seem to matter, because in all cases, consent has already been (implicitly) given My boyfriend once told how his ex woke him by giving him a blowjob and how hot he found it. I guess that technically, it doesn’t mean it would be OK for me to do the same, but I still felt rather silly asking. I’ve also… Read more »
“On one hand, it doesn’t feel right to engage in a behaviour I wouldn’t accept in him” Damn right. And it shouldn’t only “not feel right”. “I would also be treating him like a child if I didn’t trust his ability to give consent.” That question shouldn’t even occur to you. Either you approve of violence or not – he doesn’t get to decide that for you or it is you who’s being treated like a child. Also, consent only goes so far, beyond that his consent is invalid. I’m not sure about the laws in the US, but in… Read more »
You do realise your argument would render most S&M illegal, right? Not to mention martial arts practices, a good deal of stage fights and LARPing, and all the “Say something deliberately offensive/insulting, hold up your hands in mock fear, and giggle as someone else slaps you on the top of your head” I see among my male friends. I’m not sure I’d accept that kind of limits on freedom for the little safety it can bring. It’s far better to pay attention if someone doesn’t seem comfortable with the situation, and make sure to talk about what’s OK and what’s… Read more »
“You do realise your argument would render most S&M illegal, right? ” Well this is an interesting response because in the UK S&M is in fact illegal as ruled by court. I don’t actually agree with that ruling though. As I see it, there are two kinds of violence. The one being out of anger and hatred with the intention of doing harm and the other being as part of a game in an erotic fantasy. The first is unacceptable the second is not. But that is only my opinion. The ruling was justified with the line “violence is always… Read more »
In my opinion, violence in anger doesn’t have to be bad. Or rather, it doesn’t have to be worse than the alternative and it doesn’t have to be non-consensual. There’s also a difference between carefully negotiated S&M, and the type of casual rowdiness I see among a lot of guys.
I think the essential difference comes down to consent. I can lightly thwack my boyfriend on the head when I’m mildly annoyed with him (or him to me– it’s reciporcal), because we have both agreed on this as an okay method of communication, and because if he or I said “no, stop” the “stop” would be immediately respected and followed with a lot of apologies. That’s clearly different from an abusive relationship, in which there was no negotiation (even the “I’m going to thwack you every time you say something that stupid” “kay” level of negotiation) and no ability to… Read more »
You keep mentioning this. What kind of “rowdiness” among guys are you talking about exactly?
Stuff like the “Say something deliberately offensive/insulting, hold up your hands in mock fear, and giggle as someone else slaps you on the top of your head” I mentioned earlier. Impromptu wrestling matches. A (usually bigger) guy hugging and squeezing another guy, perhaps lifting him off the ground. An occasional punch to the upper arm. There’s also verbal abuse involved, but since Danish humour tends to rely heavily on sarcasm, absurdity, and breaking social taboos, a lot of it is more about affection than anything else. The same group of guys also engages in a lot of friendly physical contact,… Read more »
@AB: Well, in the States the male bonding via feigned conflict looks slightly different, but I think I understand what you mean now. I think there’s a difference in intent. Even if the action is the same, one guy playfully slapping another on the arm is very different from one guy slapping another the exact same way — but when actually angry. The same holds true between the sexes. Even if you aren’t doing any more damage, one is done for humor and getting closer to someone, while the other is an expression of anger.
I’m currently in a relationship in which BDSM is a pretty big part of our sex life. I’m regularly tied down and hit with a variety of implements (crops, floggers, bare hands, ect.) often to the upper limits of my tolerance (which isn’t very high, to be honest). Things like this are heavily negotiated, and there is the occasional broken scene, but all and all the experience is deeply satisfying physically and emotionally. If you are uncomfortable doing something, then don’t do it. It’s the same if you are uncomfortable having done to you; no means no, and “no” is… Read more »
You believe that if a guy and his girlfriend are into spanking her, that each and every time he spanks her with her enthusiastic consent he’s committing a crime, and he’s wrong because he wouldn’t like being on the receiving end?
Yes, in an abusive relationship where consent is a sham, “do you mind if I hit you?” is bullshit. But in a relationship where both partners understand that “no” is the default and there are no consequences to saying “no”, that’s a little different.
“You believe that if a guy and his girlfriend are into spanking her, that each and every time he spanks her with her enthusiastic consent he’s committing a crime, and he’s wrong because he wouldn’t like being on the receiving end?” See my comment above on this. To be clear: In some countries, yes this is a crime but I personally don’t agree with that. However, spanking and BDSM based violence is very different from using violence when arguing. The one is out of love and the other is out of anger. So, when it’s not part of a mutually… Read more »
However, spanking and BDSM based violence is very different from using violence when arguing
While I agree with you, from the context it seemed as though the poster was describing a slap as part of BDSM play and not during a fight.
My boyfriend and I worked “wake up with a blowjob” out ahead of time. I read something on the internet raving about it, was like “hey, would you like it if I did this to you sometime?” and then that was that. This means that in the morning, if he’s asleep and I’m awake and horny, I can consider him defaulting to yes instead of the usual no. Of course, that’s still totally revocable, but to date it has always gone well.
Well this is kind of complex. As far as sexual assault is concerned, if you asked me I’d say I experienced it once at school when I was around 15. But not until many years later would I have called it that. I just knew that it was very upsetting and something kept hidden. But by many people’s definition I probably had a lot more of it than I would think myself. My ex regularly forced herself on me – often when I was asleep. I didn’t see it as a bad thing because I trusted her and I knew… Read more »
You are absolutely allowed to define your experiences however you want, just as it is your right to draw your boundaries wherever you want. If it helps you to define any of your experiences as rape or assault, then do so. If it doesn’t help you, then don’t. No one gets to define your experiences for you. As far as the problems of male abuse go, I think they’re not impossible to solve. They can’t be solved the same way women did for female abuse, because I think that female abuse and male abuse come from different assumptions, culturally. Especially… Read more »
Shora said…
They are actually much more alike than different. For example among child sexual abusers both sexes display very similar motivations and behaviour.
I kind of put child abusers in a different category. I’m really talking out of my ass here, but I would imagine that child abuse has a very different dynamic that abuse by adult to other adults. If only because adult/child dynamics are different from adult/adult dynamics. I’d imagine that the rationalizations and motivations of rapists are similar among all genders, but the cultural assumptions that support rape are different among different genders, and it is when we as a society dismantle those supports (rape culture!) that we prevent the creation of victims and promote the healing of survivors (if… Read more »
I have a comment for the author of this article. One thing that always irks me to the nth degree is when there’s talk about why men don’t let on to the fact that they’ve been seriously hurt by women/girls, the usual reasoning dolled out is “It’s unmasculine to know you’ve been violated. You’ll be deemed a pussy, gay, etc.” You ask the question, Shora: “But I have yet to see men talk about their abuse and how they have healed from it. I have yet to see men join in solidarity in a community of kindness and safety, of… Read more »
Uhhmmm… I’m really not sure where you are disagreeing with me here? Because, yea, I agree with everything you said. Perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough, but when I said “Men don’t do these things” I didn’t mean “Because they’re silly menz with silly menz brains always so macho, I have NO idea why! hurr hurr hurr” I meant “Because we live in a toxic culture that doesn’t allow men to express themselves fully or be vulnerable without retribution.” I know full well that we live in a culture that thinks that men and boys can’t be attacked by… Read more »
Good point Eagle (you the same Eagle that hangs out at Feminist Critics?). Society has created a culture and environment where a woman can say and do whatever they want to a man and get away with it! I would dare say that this actually feeds into why men and boy victims don’t speak up. It seems to me that there is a bit of a double standard when it comes to addressing victims. People seem to be willing to move heaven, hell, and earth to figure out why female victims don’t speak up with crimes are committed against them… Read more »
“Almost like they want the discussion to be framed up in sense that there are plenty of external factors that keep female victims silent but male victims only have themselves to blame.” Which is really disgusting and victim-blaming. Especially because culturally, there’s this message that if men experience abuse, it’s a joke and it’s their fault for being weak and being effected by it, or even for letting it happen in the first place. I’d imagine (although I obviously have no personal experience with this) That masculinity is a huge part of many men’s identities, and having it questioned has… Read more »
I’m really shaking my head at this paragraph: “I’d imagine (although I obviously have no personal experience with this) That masculinity is a huge part of many men’s identities, and having it questioned has an extremely powerful effect. I mean, think of all the gender policing that goes on around men! It has a huge impact of the friendships and social circles of men, but when it comes to abuse, they’re being silly for worrying about being masculine? It makes no sense.” Masculinity is only PARTIALLY why men don’t talk to people about being abused by women or girls. Did… Read more »
Meanwhile the girls who did this to him can live free knowing that abusing boys like him, violating their personal boundaries, is perfectly acceptable since the worst they’ll get is a scolding by their parents. … It also has to do with women and girls allowed to get away with whatever the hell they want to do to men and boys. … We also live in a culture that allows women and girls to get away with murder against men and boys. I’m going to need you to moderate your commentary there. The truth is simply not that cut and… Read more »
@doctormindbeam… My state amended it’s sexual assault laws in the late nineties because the gender specific wording prevented the conviction of female predators(when it happened to me as a child it was effectively legal). Of the several dozen females found guilty since that time ONE went to prison. The typical media coverage presents these perpetrators as worthy of sympathy, the judges get sucked in by the rapist’s tears and the victims watch as justice evaporates. The broader discourse makes it very clear where our place is. Among the contingent of male survivors known to me there’s a sense that collectively… Read more »
@gwallan: Is it really this bad? I understand what you’re saying, but when you say,
I have to wonder. I’m not outright saying that you’re wrong, but I’d like to see some examples of this. If it’s true, it’s pretty horrifying. I just want to be careful to avoid hyperbole.
Girls are, or at least used to be, raised with the message that you can always say no. My mother didn’t talk to me about sex much at all but she did tell me that, and that if you say no you don’t owe anyone a reason. I told my daughter the same thing. Do boys get that, I wonder? If I’d had a son I know I would have talked to him about respecting women but I don’t know that I would have talked to him about not having to share his body with anyone if he didn’t want… Read more »
As I mentioned in my first libido post, I found it very difficult to say “Not tonight, honey” to a lover who I’d cheerfully had sex with many times, and intended to continue schtupping in the future. Not wanting sex even once, that particular evening, was painfully difficult for me to admit to, and felt like a real blow to my sense of identity and masculinity.
That’s just my experience; I don’t claim it as universal, but it’s one reference point.
If you had a son you certainly should. I implore every to extend this lesson to their boys as well. I wish I had been told a more balanced message on this rather than the one-sided one about how girls have the right to say no and that it always should be respected by me. Then it probably would’ve been much easier for me to reconcile the anger I felt against the expectation from around me that I should feel lucky.
Everyone absolutely SHOULD give this message to children of all genders! The problem is that a lot of people, even good, well-meaning, educated people with their hearts in the right place done even THINK to. These tropes are so subversive and pervasive throughout our culture that something that seems as obvious as “boys are allowed to say no as a complete sentence too” is completely missed by people with think about this thing all the time. It’s not because they’re malicious or misandric. It’s just that it’s difficult to pick up on on the subtle ways that culture can screw… Read more »
I didn’t. I did get a talk about predators/kidnappers, but they were older strangers (and male I think?) in the examples – stuff like “don’t get into cars with people you don’t know” and “if the person claims your mom sent them, but they don’t know the password, run away.” In Boy Scouts (back in the old days, before the Mormons took over), the talk extended to relatives- the creepy uncle stereotype was invoked, if I remember correctly. Similarly to Noahbrand, I’ve found it hard to turn down lovers. I usually try to compromise somehow – “I’m too tired now,… Read more »
In a way, that seems even worse than not having an implicit right to say no. Can you imagine if we told women that they couldn’t say no — that the farthest they could go was to delay sex and make apologetic excuses for not delivering it immediately on demand? It’s perverse.
I agree and should add for the record that no one ever actually told me all of that- it’s been cultural all the way.
Relatedly,
Have there been any studies on the economy of sex in relationships? Do people strategically provide or withhold sex? How are differing libidines managed? How do, e.g., a morning person and a night person in a relationship work it out? Answers to those might provide some interesting context and food for thought.
Well, on the question of the economy of sex, I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen Cosmo et al. advocate using sex as a weapon in relationships. “He won’t buy you the new dress? Don’t give it up for him! He buys you the new shoes? Reward him!” It turns sex into a currency and a weapon and treats your significant other like an animal to be trained. (Which fits nicely into the stereotypical “your man is a dog, so train him” line of thought.)
For me (night person) in a relationship with my boyfriend (morning person), the person whose time it isn’t is strongly encouraged to initiate if they’re horny at the other person’s time. We also tend to have a lot of sex in the late morning or early evening, when one person isn’t going “mphrlgh I love you but I’m asleep.”
I wish there were studies! Or, rather, studies I knew of… I’ve never seen any. All I’ve seen is anecdotes and folk wisdom. I was in an argument recently with someone who insisted that sex is *always* strategically provided or withheld in relationships, at least sometimes, and that I was unrealistic to think that there were ever relationships in which it wasn’t, and if I claimed that *my* relationship was such a one then I was naïve and self-deluding… not that I’m bitter about that. Anyway, it seems to me that people absorb such folk wisdom, supported by anecdote and… Read more »
I don’t strategically withhold sex, but then my social skills are way too poor to manipulate people except unintentionally. 🙂
@Ginny: Anecdotally, all the couples I’ve known who have sex used “strategically” instead of an act of love have ended up having really shitty relationships. I think it’s just an unacceptable thing to do, personally.
Ginny, I’ve never once used sex strategically. In fact, I’ve never used sex at all. I’ve had sex, of course, and none of it was for any personal gain or leverage except “Wow, we both want to have sex. Let’s do that!” It’s worked extremely well for me so far.
Personally I don’t like the idea of a study on the economics of sex. I think that “What are the economics of sex” is the absolute wrong question.
To be fair, whiskey dick really is an issue; sometimes “in the morning” just means “in the morning.” 😉
Of course.
Speaking only for myself, I was taught very clearly that “no means no” and that I should practice safe sex, and that it wasn’t okay if an adult wanted to have sexual contact with me, but I have no recollection of being taught about resisting rape or sexual assault myself.
I think they do more now than in the past. Certainly when I was growing up girls, let alone boys, weren’t taught things like “your body is yours and you have a right to who does or doesn’t touch you”. I don’t think I’m unusual or Parent of the Year in this regard, but my daughters and son have been brought up to think that their bodies are their own and that “no” is a complete sentence. My son is a little young to read The Gift of Fear as his sisters have, but he will.
When I first began speaking about sexual violence, I was taken by surprise by how many mothers approached me about their sons and consent. I was particularly struck by one mother, a survivor herself, who said she had never thought for a second that she would need to teach her son that he had the right to say no. She thanked me profusely and I’ve seen her online telling other mothers to teach their sons that they too have the right to say no and it should be respected. This message needs to be communicated and while it may seem… Read more »
There’s something really perverse about the idea of “teaching boys not to rape” — like men are naturally rapists and need to be taught not to do it.
You hit the nail on the head: We need to teach enthusiastic consent and personal limits — and to everyone.
There is also a place in that education for rebutting the toxic gender myths which are,in fact, aimed differently at boys and girls. That’s not “men, don’t rape!”
I’m not sure I follow you, sorry.
I believe what mythago is trying to say is that, in the context of a sex education that teaches enthusiastic consent and personal limits to everyone, there is a place for discussion and debunking of misandric myths like “if a girl gets a guy horny, then she was asking to be raped, because it wasn’t like he could stop.”
@ozy: In simpler terms, “teach not to slut shame?” I don’t think that’s an inherent behavior that has to be convinced away either. How about teaching not to slut shame by example: That is, by not treating and modeling sex as a dirty and sinful act? I think that’s your solution.
I wouldn’t ever say that if you get a guy aroused then whatever happens is your fault. But I did talk to my girl about sexual desire in a very bilateral sense. I told her that nature wants healthy young females pregnant, and her body knows what to do. And that if she has decided ahead of time that sex is not going to happen, she and the boy have to limit the necking, or whatever they call it nowadays, because she’ll get aroused just like he will. It’s not fair to either party to kiss and fondle and so… Read more »
Be careful. In some jurisdictions it’s considered domestic violence for a man to refuse his partner’s demands for sex.
Which jurisdictions? Do you have a citation for that?
I guess he was referring to the crime of “indifference” in Mexico, see here: Mexican men who display extreme jealousy or avoid sex with their wives could be tried in court and punished under a new law.
Really great blog, by the way!
Woah. What. The. Fuck? I completely get the stuff about the controlling behaviour — but how the hell do they take that and turn around into making a law that removes male’s legal ability to revoke consent? That’s… insane. I can’t find any second sources on this, though… it’s Reuters (with no journalist credited in the byline) reporting Excelsior (with no references to issue, journalist, etc) reporting on the alleged content of a law (which they don’t give the name or number of) that I can’t find any more details on. I know that our UK newspapers have been known… Read more »
Yeah, exactly. It’s a link from 2007, and the prosecutor doesn’t say anything about consent.
I agree; I would have thought to be able to find far more, more reliable and non-sensationalist (possibly approving) sources for these laws, and was somewhat surprised I couldn’t find them.
It is an extraordinary claim, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was lost a lot in translation; however, if it really does say what it seems to say, then the further silence about it is really telling, and shocking …
You know, it wasn’t difficult to trace back to the original law – it’s called “The General Law on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence”/”Ley de Acceso de las Mujeres a una Vida Libre de Violencia en Estados Mexicanos”. I don’t read Spanish, but I found what I believe is an English translation of the law we’re talking about and here is the pertinent part as far as I can see: Article 6 Types of violence against women are: I. Psychological violence. -Any act of omission that harms psychological stability, which may consist of negligence, abandonment, repeated carelessness,… Read more »
Tamen; If what you quoted is the letter of the law (or at least, the closest approximation; it’s amazing what can be lost in translation) I can see how those points you bolded can be intensely psychologically damaging and so make it’s way into a law trying to combat domestic violence (is domestic violence particularly prevalent in Mexico or entrenched in the culture? I wouldn’t know.) I can also see how a shitty journalist could come up with that sensationalist headline, or how a shitty judge could make such an absurd ruling. At the end of the day, I’m really… Read more »
My friend was well known for being something of a horn dog, so to his friends minds, there’s not WAY he wouldn’t want sex from someone who so obviously wanted him.
Someone that’s kinda known for having an active sex life not being believed when they say they were raped. If you swap out “with that way she was dressed” for “well he is a guy…” it sounds a lot like slut shaming…
But yes when it comes to support/help (on a personal level or otherwise) men don’t have a lot of options.
Mm, I think the idea behind it comes from a very different place than slut-shaming, though. With slut shaming it’s kind of like “Well, you did x, y, and z so you deserved it” and with the other way it’s kind of a “Well, why wouldn’t you want that?” with the added insinuation that if he DIDN’T want it, he’s not a real man or gay or pathetic or something.
Not to say that either one is worse, of course. It’s just interesting to not the very different frames of mind that lead to the same result/conclusion.
I think they’re more alike than you think. Slut-shaming is often on the form that if a woman is promiscuous she looses the right to say no – more so than that she deserved it. Men also have lost their right to say no – or rather they didn’t have it to begin with. A woman saying no risk being insulted by being called a slut. A man saying no risk being insulted by being called gay. I personally don’t consider being called gay an insult, but it’s perfectly clear that it is meant as an insult and attack. And… Read more »
Men also have lost their right to say no – or rather they didn’t have it to begin with.
Exactly. Or perhaps that “the right to say no” is a non sequitur; men never want to say no, so how can there even be a right to do something they would never want to do anyway?
This was used against me when I disclosed my own rape experience. I was treated to “what man doesn’t want that”, “this guy has issues”, “can’t rape the willing”, “can’t rape a wet noodle”, “I wish a woman would rape me” and other lovely, mature and intellectual rape denials. This ignorant nonsense came from both knuckle-dragging alpha male wannabe males, women who clearly failed Human Sexuality 101 and even some feminists. The men peddling this were either too immature to even realize how stupid they sound or were engaging in the common practice of “policing the herd”. Policing the herd… Read more »
With slut shaming it’s kind of like “Well, you did x, y, and z so you deserved it” and with the other way it’s kind of a “Well, why wouldn’t you want that?” with the added insinuation that if he DIDN’T want it, he’s not a real man or gay or pathetic or something. I just don’t think they are that different. In the case of a woman x, y, and z could be the way she dressed, the way she danced with that one guy earlier, and/or how kept letting that guy buy her drinks. If she did those… Read more »
Hmmm, on second thought, I think you guys are right; it’s not much different at all, is it?
I have to disagree that they’re the same. Looking at my social psychology textbook, many of the claims of the rape myth acceptance scale (which deals primarily with male-on-female rape) aren’t about the woman wanting sex, but about her failing to adequately avoid it. For example: “If a girl engages in necking or petting and she lets things get out of hands, it is her own fault if her partner forces sex on her”/“If a woman gets drunk to a party and has intercourse with a man she’s just met there, she should be considered “fair game” to other males… Read more »
“If a girl engages in necking or petting and she lets things get out of hands, it is her own fault if her partner forces sex on her”/“If a woman gets drunk to a party and has intercourse with a man she’s just met there, she should be considered “fair game” to other males at the party who want to have sex with her too, whether she wants to or not”. In both these cases, it is clear that the woman’s wish for sex, or lack thereof, is of no consequence (“her partner forces sex on her”/“whether she wants to… Read more »
No, the reasoning of male rapists raping women is usually that they can get away with it. Or alternatively, that women owe sex to them for being such teases. The reasoning of rape apologists, when it comes to women, is that she obviously didn’t make sure enough that he was aware that she didn’t want it. Or alternatively, that women who don’t act sufficiently conservative or demure deserve to get punished for their behaviour. When it comes to men being raped by women, the reasoning of rape apologists is usually that it couldn’t be bad for him, since he was… Read more »
Yeah, I would say it is similar to slut-shaming in regard to the intended effect. Some examples: I am a man, there I always want sex all the time from any woman who offers. You wouldn’t have been hard if you didn’t want it (and 800,000,000 million variations of that ignorant b.s.). I was bigger, than her, therefore I should have been able to stop her. Then there are the rape deniers, both male and female: Women don’t rape. Women don’t rape men. Men can’t be raped. Men can’t be raped by women. Somedays, it is hard not to hate… Read more »
I think I disagree with you about slut-shaming in at least some cases. I think that sometimes the line of thought goes “well, she consented in these other occasions, so we have no reason to think she didn’t actually consent this time, and has decided for some reason to cry rape” or more crudely “she wanted it.” Not that she deserved to be raped, but that no rape actually occurred. Understood that way, the case of the “horn-dog” does look a lot like slut-shaming, on the grounds that guys always want sex.
This needed to be said. Thank you.
Indeed – and it was said in a way that showed genuine compassion. Often when male survivors are discussed, our experience and pain is co-opted in order to make a “patriarchy hurts menz too” argument that at its core is actually about women rather than men.
We need more honest discussions like this one which treat male victimization respectfully, treats us as real people and not as a means to an end in order to support a separate point.
Thank you Shora.
Your welcome. I’m so, so glad people have found something valuable here. I wanted to write about this in a way I hadn’t seen before, and I’m really glad that I seem to have succeeded, at least on some level. Thank you so much for your kind words, everyone.
i don’t know quite where this is going to go because there are so many different and difficult things to say. i am a male (at least that’s what it says on my drivers license) who has been sexually assaulted on several occasions. only one of them by a man. only one of them (the same) by a stranger. of the others, all female, some were bullies who had already been physically violent to me for some time. others were partners, even ones who lived by ‘no means no’ and ‘enthusiastic consent’ … until it was my ‘no’ they were… Read more »
anon, I first would like to say that my heart goes out to you and I’m sorry you have endured the things you have. I do not mean to demean and minimize your experiences by calling what happened to my friend rape, or sexual assault. I used those terms because those are the terms with which he himself defined his experiences, and it is among my deepest beliefs that survivors be able to define their experiences in whatever ways they want or need to without anyone second guessing those definitions. I also think that it is unhelpful to all survivors… Read more »
shora, no, i don’t think you are full of shit at all. i think you’ve maybe misunderstood what i said, or else i said it wrong. either are possible. probably the latter. i wasn’t attempting to label, or minimize, or make a hierarchy of anyone else’s experiences. i am reflecting only on how i personally feel, felt. any comparisons are only relating from the inside how one thing affected me vs how another thing affected me, not how they would affect anyone else or how they should be perceived by others. people aren’t interchangeable. people process things differently. everything you… Read more »
Oh, okay then. I guess I misunderstood. Sorry for implicitly accusing you of making hierarchies ^_^;;
For what it’s worth (which i suspect is very little) I’m really, really sorry for what you’ve gone through, and I hope you have people around you who help and make things easier.