Forcible Rape Masculinity

When spoken of the words Sexual Assault, the immediate image created in one’s mind is of a bruised and battered young woman being tortured in a sexual manner. What if instead of that young woman was a helpless young man going through the same trauma? We’ve heard so many cases of women going through this that we usually tend to associate sexual assault with women. However we forget the fact that men too are increasingly vulnerable to this. Moreover, society has framed a mindset among people that men should conform to certain masculinity standards; physically strong, tough-skinned, authoritative, impassive, sexually aggressive and rebellious and hence we find it difficult to accept male sexual assault as a predicament. In order to meet the masculinity

After 80 years the FBI decided to change this definition as it lacked scope and volume of the crime and offences which were considered punishable. Over a long period of time, this feminization of victimization by the legal system has created limited awareness of male victimization by society as well as police authorities. The revised broad definition includes victims of both genders as well as different forms of sexual penetration. The FBI decided to finally expand this definition to include men based on shocking reports during investigation which revealed a large number of men being sexually assaulted most of which occur in prisons and military camps but go unreported. Due to the lack of attention given to male sexual assault cases police authorities lack the basic knowledge and training to deal with such cases. While some of them react with disbelief, mockery and insensitivity others assume the victims voluntarily engaged in the act and are concealing their homosexuality. Such interactions with the police seldom cause more emotional damage to the victims. Along with the police even support centers do not have adequate experience to deal with male sexual assault victims which leaves the victims feeling lonely, depressed and

As stated by Scarce, even when a man has had sexual contact with another man against his will his manhood and heterosexuality are debated upon as these two traits are considered one and the same which leaves the victims wondering whether it was a homosexual experience or not. Men who conform to the societal notions of masculinity are considered heterosexual and the ones who don’t, like victims of sexual assault are categorized as homosexual. Apart from this many victims have an erection and ejaculate during the assault. When most police officers find out about this during investigation they instantly assume “he must have wanted it”, insulting and ridiculing the victim and claiming him to be homosexual as men ejaculating is a sign of pleasure. This further confuses the victims and keeps him wondering about his sexuality; whether he’s heterosexual, bisexual or actually homosexual. But in reality ejaculation of the victim during assault is not because he enjoyed it but is out of fear, panic and intense pain. These false assumptions and misinterpretations related to bodily responses of the sexual assault among men are mainly due to lack of knowledge and awareness about this issue in the society. The ignorance of this problem mentally and emotionally traumatizes the victim leaving him in doubt about his sexual identity. The