Monday, April 8, 2013

When Men are Raped

A man was sexually assaulted by four women in Toronto, and the story is make the facebook rounds.  I hate to say "of course," but of course people think it's hilarious.  Here are some choice comments directly copied and pasted without names - but these were all written by men (or, I suppose, people posing as men):

"Lucky basturd!"
"Get any phone numbers?"
"Dayum...And I try to look suspicious to female security at an Airport just so I can get frisked."
"where is this club ? whats the cover charge ? will the women hurt you if you cant get it up?"
"lets give him a luckiest boy in the world medal"
"wierd stuff because most men would not complain unless they tried to cut it off or something"
"Jesus they were about 14 stone each .. fuck me poor guy like getting attacked by hippos , sure he would not of complained if they were of the smaller sized females either way hope they could of raped em I don't know what did they do put there finger up his ass so his cock went hard? Haaa"
"Is he bragging or Complaining?"
"Why do things like this never happen to me???????" 
My comment, in the middle of the fray and largely ignored:  "Wow. Rape is rape no matter the gender. If a guy isn't into it, then it's rape, and it's not fun or cool, and he's not lucky. It's an assault that can cause lasting emotional trauma - even for men."

What gets me about the line of reasoning that leads to these types of comments is the perpetuation of the myth that men want sex with anyone all the time.  It suggests that any man who says "no" is either kidding or defective.  And it's curious to me that some men buy into this so much even though, by doing so, it decreases their own freedoms.  They're willingly but unwittingly involved in furthering the barriers to their own right to choose when to have sex - and with whom.

It's not that different from asking what a woman was wearing after she's assaulted.  Both are tactics to distance ourselves from any real danger.  I can't possibly be raped since I'm always willing, or I won't be raped because I dress conservatively.  These lines give us an illusion of safety is a scary world.  But they do nothing to prevent this crime or help the many, many victims, male and female, who are assaulted every day.

Anther concern with the commentary on this criminal act, is the way the women, all in their 30s, are already being portrayed as victims because of some derogatory comments made against them.  While it's not okay to slam people because of their weight, these women are not the victims in this scenario.  Not at all.

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