Kaili Boyd

The following story, which I submitted to my craft class for my cops and crime story is tragic to say the least. Having myself been a survivor I also thought of rape as something that couldn’t happen to men outside of a prison setting. It was also surprising to me to talk to an advocate who spoke of adult males being raped by women, because as he put it – and I quoted him in the story “our physiology betrays us”. Wow…I mean women feel guilty enough because wheather you are responsive to it or not, you are almost powerless to stop it.

But now I truly understand how if a young boy, or even a grown man could be forced to have sex with a woman, against their own will, and how easy it is to think that a man could think that he wasn’t rape because it might seem like he wanted it. But I won’t ruin the story any further.

Myths of Male Rape
While counseling HIV positive males several years ago on the Lower East Side, Rommell Washington began to witness a strange phenomenon. Within the safe haven of group therapy sessions at the Bowery Residency Corporation, many of his patients confessed to being sexually abused. Some group members revealed that they had been raped or sodomized by family members or someone they knew. Others had been slipped a date rape drug during a night out on the town. Until that moment, Washington had never connected rape as something that could happen to men. “I understand the idea of a woman getting raped, but I didn’t really wrap it around men…I thought of [male] rape as something that happens in prison.”
Washington is not alone. Most men are socialized to think that outside of a prison setting, rape can’t happen to them. But the all too obvious reactions of self-medication and sexual promiscuity often seen in female victims were staring back at him through the eyes of grown men; many of whom will now die of AIDS as a result of their inability to cope. “So many people who are sexually abused just spiral out of control” said Washington. “Sexual abuse becomes a gateway to other negative behavior”. Some victims manage to get help and move past it. But so many others cannot. This is what prompted Washington to apply for a grant to treat male victims of rape and sexual abuse at the Crime Victims Treatment Center in Harlem.
“There is no cultural accommodation for male victims of rape,” said Louise Kindley, Senior Clinical Social Worker at the CVTC. “The lack of accommodation reinforces the unique sense of isolation and humiliation that men suffer through.” Kindley, one of the pioneers of the male survivors group says that female victims of rape and sexual abuse often suffer many of the same symptoms as men with one exception: their sexuality is not called into question. “When a woman is raped she doesn’t wonder if she’s gay. If a man is raped he wonders if he might be gay. If he is gay the abuse reinforces the cultural convention that being gay is a bad thing. “
According to Drs. William C. Holmes and Gail B. Slap, male rape is a crime that is “common, under-reported, under-recognized and under-treated.” One in six men will be sexually abused during the course of their lifetime. Approximately 16 percent of these abuses will happen before the age of 18.
Recent intake statistics from the Emergency Room at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital on 114th Street, where the CVTC is located, report that 11 to 13 percent of their sexual assault cases are men. Those numbers are likely to be far less than the reality because men are not socialized to get help in sexual assault cases.
Because male victims don’t think rape and sexual abuse is something that should happen to them, they don’t talk about it. They are also less likely to report rape or sexual abuse unless there is a physical injury, which is rare. “It takes 16 years on average for a man to talk about being sexually abused,” said Washington, who is the first person to be funded by the state of New York to treat male victims of rape. “It’s either when they finally feel comfortable enough to talk about it, or when they’re about to explode”.
A small blue pamphlet authored by the CVTC lists several common misconceptions about male sexual assault. The pamphlet, emblazoned with the image of a male survivor and the question “You think it doesn’t happen to men?” debunks myths such as real men can’t get raped, if the perpetrator is another man, the victim must be gay; and arousal during the act equates consent.
“Men can be raped by women too because our physiology betrays us”, say Ken Followell, President of MaleSurvivors.org, an organization formed in 1989 which is dedicated to outreach and advocacy for survivors of male sexual victimization. Followell, who was sexually abused as a child, got involved when he was unable to find the resources for his own healing at the age of 39.
Though there are more resources available than when malesurvivors.org was founded almost 20 years ago, those that exist are still extremely limited. According to Followell, there are only two such programs in the state of Florida where he resides, which is indicative of his findings for the rest of the country. “Many of the resources male survivors need are housed in women’s centers where men are not interested in participating and also not welcomed.” Men are often not welcomed for the obvious reason – most female survivors were assaulted my men, and would prefer not to see them in the healing environment. That being the case, men need their own separate programs as well. Followell said that if outreach and healing is to continue more male-friendly peer groups, support groups, and programs need to be funded. For now, programs like the one at the CVTC and organizations like malesurvivors.org stand as a beacon of hope for those looking the quell the tide of silence, humiliation and isolation associated with male sexual abuse.