Yes Men Can Be Victims of Sexual Assault
Men can be raped, and they can be raped by women, we should talk about why that seems so taboo.
Warning: This post discusses sexual assault and rape in detail.
A few years ago while aimlessly scrolling through Twitter, I ran into a tweet that literally stopped me in my tracks. Twitter user, @TrePicasso, opened up as a victim of sexual assault. In an effort to not put words in his mouth, I’ll share a screenshot of the original tweet.
My initial reaction was to roll my eyes. I mean seriously, a grown man was on social media telling the world that he felt wrongfully coerced into sex by another woman. What man is turning down sex?! I went through the comments and as I expected, most of the initial replies were from people who agreed with me. And just as I was about to move on with my life, I saw a response from a sister that got me all the way together. She thanked Picasso for sharing his story and then admonished the people who were making fun of him.
I pride myself on being someone who wants to use his writing to talk to other men about our humanity while highlighting the ways that patriarchy hurts us. But In a moment when another man was stepping out of the unfair and narrow construct of masculinity to share his story, the first thing I did was invalidate him.
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Sexual assault is never ok, and men have a right to say no to advances. But the reason I dismissed him is the same reason his mentions were full of people laughing at and joking about him. It’s because society, myself included, likes to believe that having sex is what makes you a man. So if sex is how you establish your manhood, and it’s the only way society believes men can truly feel, there must be something wrong with you if you ever reject it.
There’s a deep shame in going against how society tells you you’re supposed to be. Patriarchy and sexism impacts all of us, but in different ways. So while it has come up with strict, and unfair rules/ideas for how women should exist, it has also done the same thing for men.
Those ideas about masculinity live within the Man Box. The Manbox, as discussed in the Medium Article by Mark Green, refers to the “brutal enforcement of a narrowly defined set of traditional rules for being a man. These rules are enforced through shaming and bullying, as well as promises of rewards, the purpose of which is to force conformity to our dominant culture of masculinity.”
While most men and masculine identifying people have never heard of the term, they have or will be forced to engage with it at some point in their journey. It impacts our lives in more ways than we know. The truth is, I know what that feels like. As a child, I was sexually assaulted by my babysitter. I was 5 years old, and she made me do things that a child shouldn’t even know about. I kept that memory a secret for a long time because I was scared that if I told my dad what happened and admitted how it made me feel, he would think that something was wrong with me. The gag is, I didn’t consider or acknowledge that what happened to me as a child was assault until I was much older. I was too convinced that I was supposed to want sex no matter what because I was a man.
In high school, I lied about losing my virginity because I didn’t want to be made fun of. I lost my virginity with that lie. The girl I lost it to thought I was experienced. (I’m sure she figured out I wasn’t after we finished.) I still remember the way I felt after the act was complete: empty, unsatisfied, and a little remorseful. The only thing that made me smile was knowing that I was no longer living a lie.
That’s the kind of pressure a lot of men and boys feel around sex, and that is one of the reasons a lot of men who are victims of assault don’t say anything. Because if another man raped or assaulted you, you’re weak, and if a woman did it, you’re lying, confused or ungrateful. That truth hit me with a ton of bricks as I looked at TrePicasso’s tweets. I realized at that moment just how strong of a man he was — knowing how most of the public would react, he still told his truth. There is nothing manlier than that.
When I was in grad school for history, an assigned reading was Rethinking Rufus by Thomas Foster...it's a necessary reframing. Thank you.
Also, your newsletter title is genius. Happy to have found you.
Stanley, WOW. This is powerful work and such a path to liberation--for all of us. Because the belief that sexual control/ domination is what's expected cuts men off from their tenderness and vulnerability. And so the veneer of violence and control will persist. I have four sons. I need this work modeled to take heart that their experience of the world will be more expansive and compassionate than men have been previously allowed. My deepest thanks. (PS: loved meeting you!) - The Senator