Trigger warning: Rape, depression
I.
Story time.
Take a look at this Reddit thread by a woman who seems lost about what to do when she found out that her partner had drunk sex with someone else (it is a long read but, indulge me):
My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 5 years, starting in high school and all the way through college and part of grad school. We haven’t lived in the same place for most of our relationship, but we worked really hard to see each other whenever we could and we had plans to be in the same place once we graduated from grad school. Throughout our relationship we have deeply discussed various scenarios and how we would react. One such example is cheating- we talked extensively about how if either of us ever felt the impulse, we would end our relationship before anything happened. We also agreed that there is no such thing as too drunk to know cheating, you still have a conscious even when you are inebriated.
Throughout our entire relationship I have trusted him 110%. I never got upset when he went out, I didn’t check his phone, I didn’t pry about his plans. I NEVER in my life would think he would cheat and vice versa.
So this week he went on a trip with his grad program. We texted through most of the trip and facetimed once. I could tell he was well over his limit with alcohol each time we spoke, but it’s spring break and he’s an adult. Yesterday, I get a text that we need to talk about something serious. I thought he did something stupid while drunk like hurt himself or get a crazy tattoo. He tells me he thinks that something happened between him and a classmate, but he doesn’t know what- the guy he was rooming with just said that things looked suspicious and he woke up feeling like “had done something really wrong”. I asked him to please investigate and it turns out it was true, he had had sex with a classmate that I have met before.
I broke up with him right after he told me. I had always said there are no excuses and no one who can betray someone like that deserves a second chance. But now, I am truly a shell of a person. I started that day feeling excited that I would get to talk to him and hear about his day and I really love him so much it makes my heart hurt. He has never done anything to make me feel like he doesn’t feel the same until this incident. I can’t imagine life without him and I haven’t slept or eaten since I broke things off.
I know that he is remorseful, I know he knows he did a disgusting and terrible thing, and I believe that he doesn’t remember how or why it happened. He told me he has never found this person attractive or had any feelings for them whatsoever. He said he felt sick knowing what he had done and didn’t want to see them ever again, but did because I asked him to find out what exactly happened. But, I also can’t get myself to believe that there was no reason. I feel like subconsciously there has to have been, but neither of us know what.
Also- we have had sex before while drunk and he has not been able to remember it in the morning on occasion.
Am I stupid to believe his story? Can people really cheat and have no reason for it or memory of it? I desperately want us to back together but I know that our relationship would not be the same and I don’t know if it ever could be. Is there a way to move forward, and if not, how do I possibly move on?
What do you make of this? I think he cheated on her and that she should break up with him. Many of the Redditors in the comments section seem to be of the same opinion:
Is it possible to have no memory of an event because you were too intoxicated? Absolutely. Does that mean he wasn't aware of his actions? Nope.
You can get drunk enough that your memory is affected in a way that you will never truly remember what you did. However, while intoxicated, you're still aware of the fact that you're in a relationship. You're still capable of making a decision to respect or not respect your partner. You might be more easily persuaded, but in the end, you still sort of know what you're doing.
Here is another one:
Don’t [believe him when he says that he has no memory of it]. He does [remember it]. He just can’t own up to it. Could have been as simple as proximity, availability, and a rare wild hair. He remembers.
And another:
He is responsible for over-drinking and for everything he does while drunk.
All of the above seem reasonable and well-intentioned. It seems like one of those cases where a horny drunk guy goes out of control, willingly has sex with someone who isn’t his partner, and begs for his girlfriend’s forgiveness the next day.
Well, what if this was not the case?
Consider this comment:
This is not as clear cut as it seems. You know your boyfriend, so would this be in character for him to do? Or could it be that he wax taken advantage of? I think you both deserve some more answers.
My immidiate question would be to get to the bottom of if they both were this drunk, or if only your boyfriend was this drunk. Its not only men that take advantage of girls, it happens the other way too. So, has she had a crush on him? Asked him out before? Showed him interest before? All without him reciprocating? If so, was this actually consensual on his part?
Was this in fact a sexual assault on him? Don't you respect him enought to stay and find that out together with him? If this had happened to a girl friend of you, would you have immediately have called it cheating or would you instead worry she had been assaulted without her consent?
….
People saying he is responsible for getting drunk so he is responsible for what happened to him, I'm simply stunned. So if he was indeed raped it was his own fault. What kind of victim blaming is that? Is that what you would tell a girl? Shame on the ones stating this. (emphasis mine)
As to can someone get this drunk and not remember? Yes, that is absolutely possible. Are that person then able to give consent? No.
In the end you have to do what you feel, in your heart is right but from where I'm standing it doesn't look to be a black and white situation.
That he could have been made to penetrate did not even strike me as a possibility until I read this comment. Hell, even the boyfriend does not seem to realize that. When a victim does not even realize that he has been victimized, that is when you know that something is seriously wrong.
We are all fed the narrative that “women are raped by men” so much to the point that we forget to make room for the possibility that men can get raped too.
In theory, everyone knows that men get raped too. In reality, it does not affect the way we view the world. What does affect our worldview is “women get raped by men” and “men always want/like sex”. We have been conditioned to this gender stereotype because that is what the mainstream media and the feminist discourse on social media has been telling us. The reality is far from it.
II.
Let us talk some numbers.
Last week, I wrote about why one should not use “rape” casually. One of my primary arguments was that rape is gendered violence:
Rape is gendered violence, murder is not. 91% of rape victims are female, while almost 99% of perpetrators are male. Rape is targeted violence.
A friend of mine read the article and told me “rape is gendered violence is old-fashioned”. To which I said, “But the data is clear as day. 91% of victims are female and 99% of perpetrators are male”. For me, if the scale tips above 75% it crosses my threshold to call it “gendered violence” and 91% is well above that threshold. He was questioning the legitimacy of that data because, apparently, the rape of males is underreported. I did not pay much heed to it because come on, how bad could it be? Even if we accounted for the underreporting, I did not expect the number to go down below 80-85% (from 91%) because I don’t think there are that many men getting raped1. But, as you will see, I was horribly wrong.
Let us start by getting into the weeds of the statistic I quoted. It was from this Stanford essay that was published in 2009.
The essay quotes the 1997 paper by Greenfield as the source for that statistic. Here is the exact text from the source material:
I perused the entire paper and found something rather disturbing.
When you conduct a study, you need to define “rape” so that you draw a line on which cases count as rape and which don’t. How do you think the term “rape” was defined back when Greenfield published the paper? One of the data sources for Greenfield’s study is Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) which defines “rape” as below:
UCR did not even recognize that men could be raped. Obviously, this led to the overall picture being heavily skewed towards females while ignoring male victimizations. The paper “The Sexual Victimization of Men in America: New Data Challenge Old Assumptions” by Stemple & Meyer published in 2014 details this further2:
When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began tracking violent crime in 1930, the rape of men was excluded. Until 2012, the UCR, through which the FBI collects annual crime data, defined “forcible rape” as “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” (emphasis added). Approximately 17 000 local law enforcement agencies used this female-only definition for the better part of a century when submitting standardized data to the FBI. Meanwhile, the reform of state criminal law on rape, which began in the 1970s and eventually spread to every jurisdiction in the country, revised definitions in numerous ways, including the increased recognition of male victimization. Reforms also broadened definitions to address nonrape sexual assault.
Some localities even protested against this and refused to report numbers in accordance with UCR’s definition.
Some localities eventually refused to parse their data according to the biased federal categories. For example, in 2010 Chicago, Illinois, recorded 84 767 reports of forcible rape under UCR, but because they refused to comply with the UCR’s outdated categorization, the FBI did not include Chicago rape data in its national count.
The FBI finally revised the 80-year-old definition in 2012 to be more gender inclusive. Here is the updated one:
The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.
This definition fares a little better but still does an abominable job because it conveniently ignores the cases where men are “made to penetrate”. Here is Stemple and Meyer again:
Although the new definition reflects a more inclusive understanding of sexual victimization, it appears to still focus on the penetration of the victim, which excludes victims who were made to penetrate. This likely undercounts male victimization…Similarly, the FBI’s revised UCR definition, although a distinct improvement over the 1929 female-only definition, still seems to maintain an exclusive focus on the victim’s penetration. Therefore, to the extent that males experience nonconsensual sex differently (i.e., being made to penetrate), male victimization will remain vastly undercounted in federal data collection on violent crime.
Remember our boyfriend from the Reddit thread? Cases like his don’t count as rape3.
How many such cases can there be, though?
In 2011, The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey - 2010 Summary Report (NISVS) was published by the CDC. The NISVS is, apparently, one of the most comprehensive surveys of sexual victimization conducted in the United States. Here is the report on the prevalence of sexual violence amongst women:
Here is the report on the prevalence of sexual violence amongst men:
If you update the definition of rape to include “made to penetrate”, the numbers are almost equal - 1.27 million cases of rape of females and 1.267 million cases of rape of males.
2010 was not just an aberration. In 2017, CDC published the NISVS state report summarizing 3 years of data from 2010 to 2012, and the results run contrary to the narrative. The 12-month average of the number of rape cases is 1.47 million females vs 1.93 million males.
The number of male rape victims was higher than that of female rape victims.
I want to recognize that making someone penetrate is not the same as forcibly being penetrated by someone. The personal experiences of a female who got raped and a male who was made to penetrate are also different. But, I believe both fall under rape. The basis for my belief? The consequences that men face after being made to penetrate are similar to that of what female victims face:
“Many men experienced detrimental impacts on their mental health, including anxiety and depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, flashbacks and nightmares. Several men indicated that they had considered suicide or attempted to take their own lives and many expressed feelings of shame, guilt, self-blame, poor self-worth, and anger. Their experiences of sexual violence also impacted their relationships, with difficulty in forming new romantic relationships, an inability to trust others and varying types of sexual dysfunction.”
Source: Men’s experiences of sexual violence perpetrated by women by Dr Siobhan Weare
This is just the beginning. Brace yourself.
III.
So far we only looked at the first part of the Stanford statistic which claimed that 91% of victims are female. Let us now turn our attention to the second part which claims that 99% of perpetrators are males.
Once again, this is what the Stanford article says:
And this is what the source material (Greenfield) says:
Notice any difference?
Greenfield said nearly 99% of the offenders were male. Stanford article said 99% of the perpetrators were male.
“Offender” unquestionably means you have violated the law. “Perpetrator” does not always mean that the person is in violation of the law. It is used more broadly. Googling the definition tells you that a perpetrator is a person who carries out a harmful, illegal, or immoral act. Here is further proof that Greenfield was talking only about offenders:
The 99% is amongst the arrestees.
Why am I rambling on about such a small distinction? Because what counts as rape in the court of law matters.
The Greenfield study was done between 1995-1997 when the definition of rape excluded male victims. Police and law enforcement acted on the basis of that definition. This means that if you were a guy that got raped in 1995, good luck seeking justice. There was no legal provision for you to file a case and fight the rapist in court.
Only males were arrested for raping a woman and no one was arrested for raping a man. Consequently, the “offenders” in jail were only men. No fucking wonder 99% of offenders were male.
While the situation in the US has improved a bit thanks to the change in definition, rape of males is still not recognized by the law in many countries including my own. As per section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, rape is a gendered crime; it is, by definition, an act that only a man can do to a woman4.
IV.
The mainstream media and government agencies conveniently hide all these nuances about scientific studies from you. They like sensationalism and want to paint themselves as flag bearers of feminism. Why? Because it sells.
To quote from Stemple & Meyer:
This striking finding—that men and women reported similar rates of nonconsensual sex in a 12-month period—might have made for a newsworthy finding. Instead, the CDC’s public presentation of these data emphasized female sexual victimization, thereby (perhaps inadvertently) confirming gender stereotypes about victimization. For example, in the first headline of the fact sheet aiming to summarize the NISVS findings the CDC asserted, “Women are disproportionally affected by sexual violence.” Similarly, the fact sheet’s first bullet point stated, “1.3 million women were raped during the year preceding the survey.” Because of the prioritization of rape, the fact sheet failed to note that a similar number of men reported nonconsensual sex (they were “made to penetrate”).
The fact sheet paints a picture of highly divergent prevalence of female and male abuse, when, in fact, the data concerning all nonconsensual sex are much more nuanced. Unsurprisingly, media outlets then emphasized the material the CDC highlighted in its summary material. The New York Times headline read, “Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey Say They Have Been Sexually Assaulted.”
The problem is also the audience. If any media outlet reported that men also underwent an equal amount of rape, they would draw heavy flak from feminist mobs (read feminazis) accusing the media of stealing the spotlight from female rape cases and patriarchy. On the other hand, if the media played into the feminist narrative, they would be lauded for doing the right thing and thus would garner more support5.
It is also shockingly disappointing that the top search results of “rape data” have no mention of rape of males. It is all about female victimization. Just google it for yourself.
Now, please don’t be a dick and use this article to:
claim that every feminist is a feminazi
argue that gender inequality is a myth
say that “men get raped too” in a conversation about female rape victims
You are doing more harm than good. The rape of males requires its own discourse separate from that of the rape of females.
It most certainly requires more attention than what it is getting at the moment in government agencies, scientific research, social media, and news media.
“Rape is gendered violence” is indeed old-fashioned. Rape is gender neutral.
Further Reading
The paper that opened my eyes to this hidden crime - The Sexual Victimization of Men in America: New Data Challenge Old Assumptions
Forced to Penetrate Cases: Lived Experiences of Men - a great study that dives deeper into the nuances of rape of males.
This heartbreaking story of a guy who was raped when he was a child but could not fight for justice once he grew up because the Indian law does not recognize the rape of men
Where does this leave us on the topic of casual use of “rape”?
I was wrong about rape being a gendered crime
In the light of growing evidence of rape against men, I think it is inconclusive whether rape is a patriarchal crime or not.
Nevertheless, my other arguments on why rape and murder aren’t the same still apply.
Classic overconfidence bias.
The data might be different for other countries. But rape is well studied in the west compared to India and this is what most media publications quote when writing headlines about rape. If you used those numbers when fighting against rape of females, please do that for rape of males too.
We don’t know what exactly happened that night but I am making an assumption that he was raped that night to illustrate the point that men get forced to penetrate too.
Source: Centre for Civil Society
I consider myself to be a feminist in the sense that I am pro-gender equality (equality of opportunities, not equality of outcomes). But different groups have different definitions. I see feminism as a spectrum ranging from fighting for gender equality to feminazi-ism. I think the social fabric of today is leaning more towards the right end of the spectrum where it is considered politically incorrect to talk about the rape of males.
The consequences for male and female victims is wholly different. Women can have been on birth control, they can take the morning after pill; they can abort, they can put up for adoption, they can abandon under the Safe Harbor laws, and they can pursue justice in the legal system.
Men can hope they are allowed to rubber up, try to pursue some misdemeanor charge like assault, and then be told get a job because child support is expensive.
Even when the victimized man is 14 at time of conception and the child support receiving violator is 36. Nathanial J case of 1996.