Can a man be raped?
Asked by
Mtl_zack (
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October 3rd, 2008
how can one prove this? would it ever hold up in court?
subquestion: why dont we hear about sexism against men. it does exist. why do we hear about when women kill their husbands it’s just a regular murder, but when its a man killing his wife, its on every tv in north america?
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Yes, a man can be raped. Arousal does not imply consent.
And the reason you hear more about sexism and sexual abuse and assault against women is because it is much MUCH more rampant than abuse against men. 99% of rapes are perpetrated by men (against both men and women as victims, but mostly women). Men generally don’t have the same fears as women because of their gender; have you ever been scared walking through a parking lot at night? Have you ever wondered when you’ve been alone with a member of the opposite sex that they were going to hurt you? Have you ever been at a bar and had to watch your drink every single second? It’s just the nature of how things are that women have to be more conscientious of these things because the majority of violence committed against women is from men.
Wouldn’t a man getting raped be a good thing for him?
according to that site, under definition:
“Forcible rape, as defined in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, is the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will”
why is this?
Because that’s generally the definition of rape in the law in a lot of places where they are getting their crime statistics for; they’re just aren’t good reporting methods in place for keeping track of sexual assaults against men. Also women generally make up the overwhelming majority of sexual assault victims. Also, if you had a read a little further down, you would have seen this: “Sexual attacks on males are counted as aggravated assaults or sex offenses, depending on the circumstances and the extent of any injuries.”
“Also women generally make up the overwhelming majority of sexual assault victims.”
that only applies to reported sexual assault incidents. it has happened to me where a girl would put her hand on my penis without asking me, and i just wasnt interested. (in a bad mood, i didnt like her, i was mad at her, etc…). this has happened a few times with me.
An unwanted sexual advance is not akin to rape. If a girl touches you and you don’t want it, say stop. That’s what women do. It’s when the no isn’t heeded that the problems begin.
Couldn’t have said it better tinyfaery.
@tinyfaery: so why is it that if i touched a girls breast for 2 seconds, she can sue me for sexual assault, even though i retract my hand before she says “no”? the action was done, without consent. plain and simple. and who said that this girl who did this to me didnt stop?
@kay: “depending on the circumstances and the extent of any injuries.”—exactly. when women are raped, the deed is done, there are no “special circumstances”, but why are there circumstances with a man?
It doesn’t read “special circumstances” it reads “circumstances.” By the nature of sexual intercourse, it is easy to classify rape as penetrative, which obviously goes one way in the traditional sense. A man would be classified as being sexually assaulted if he was penetrated anally for example, or if he was forced to participate in another type of sexual act. A women can also be raped if a man forces her to perform oral sex on him. There are different classifications for different types of assaults, especially depending on the jurisdiction in which you are prosecuting in (this is from a legal standpoint; obviously being forced into anything sexually is horrible and wrong).
what if a woman holds a gun or knife to a man’s head and demanded that he penetrate her? that is a forced way of getting sex. also, what if a man marries a woman because he has to (arranged marriages, debt to families, etc…), and he must have sex to consummate the marriage? that is forced sex as well.
Where does it say “if i touched a girls breast for 2 seconds, she can sue me for sexual assault”? You are getting into all kind of shit here. Are you arguing semantics? Arranged marriages do not constitute rape. It’s still a choice. And by the way, most cultures that still believe in arranged marriages have laws that say if a man is denied sex by his wife he can rape/kill/divorce her.
Really. What’s your point?
i know someone that brushed his hand on a girl’s breast by accident and she immediately called the authorities. the act was done, so he got in trouble with the police. she didn’t say no, she just walked away and told someone that he touched her breast, and the cops got involved. apparently, “no” wasn’t even necessary.
arranged marriages are rarely by choice. it is often an economic deal, as many anthropologists can tell you. also, can i have a source for “most cultures that still believe in arranged marriages have laws that say if a man is denied sex by his wife he can rape/kill/divorce her.”?
this is an issue of justice. it is a perfectly valid question. it pertains to modern times and is questioning the laws set forth in most of the world. the American constitution states that it is ones DUTY to fight an unjust law.
by the way: “In the early 1980s, when I first began this work, female offenders only accounted for approximately one and a half to three percent of my total case load. During the past three years that percentage has risen to a level of about 35%.”—Linda Halliday-Sumner (http://www.vaonline.org/vls6.html)
Halliday-Sumner has been working in the field of sexual abuse for the past 24 years (http://www.nisac2008.com/LHSBio.htm)
A woman or a man can sexually assault another man, and be prosecuted. Do you just want the term rape to be applied to a man as well?
As far as your quote is concerned, definitions have changed, and certain acts that were never considered sexual assault, now are.
that is not at all what im trying to do. im trying to question the laws and social assumptions that are put in place by most of the world. most people assume that women are more defensive, and therefore have something to defend i.e. their sexual actions. what im trying to say is why are women treated better in the judicial systems and in social interactions than men. this is sexism, whether you believe it or not. people choose to take the woman’s side because of many social interactions. this is sexist towards men. and yes, sexism goes both ways.
can you please provide me with definitions from each stage of its evolution? that would be swell. i ask this because many definitions of controversial issues are changed for political use. also, sometimes words are replaced with synonyms or phrases that mean the same thing, but in a different way.
You made my point for me: “sometimes words are replaced with synonyms or phrases that mean the same thing, but in a different way.”
I don’t get what you mean by “more defensive”? And what does “what im trying to say is why are women treated better in the judicial systems and in social interactions than men. this is sexism, whether you believe it or not. people choose to take the woman’s side because of many social interactions. this is sexist towards men” mean?
If this is going to turn into a “poor men” rant than I am out. There is no way you will ever be correct about men and women being on equal footing when it comes to being sexually assaulted.
I think about 300 million Americans were anally raped by Wall Street and Congress this afternoon, and I’m pretty sure half of them were men.
Rape is forced entry or forced use of another person’s body for sexual satisfaction (or for a feeling of power over another).
It’s difficult for a woman to force herself into a man’s body, though it can be done, with the
use of weapons and restraints – essentially with the use of superior intelligence, since it’s unusual for a woman to be able to physically overpower a man.
I don’t think a woman who held a gun to a man’s head and demanded that he penetrate her would have very good luck. His terror would be counterproductive, I’m guessing. You tell me.
Our laws are designed to protect the weak. This has generally meant women and children. Maybe this isn’t always fair: since it’s so deeply shaming to men to be raped, they aren’t easily able to report it. It happens, of course.
If a man is raped, he has the same recourse women have had for a very long time:
try to prosecute. At the moment, he’ll then get laughed at and shamed and disbelieved, just like women were for decades and decades. You guys have work to do, to get the courts to see things your way. I’m with you all the way.
Yes they can be raped. Why aren’t child molesters considered rapists as well as the things that others have done to male children? I know that they sometimes are, but what about the folks that do stuff to you (ie they perform oral sex)? Also, I do think it’s a double standard for men and women for child molestation when it comes to a certain age group, namely high schoolers. There seems to be more acceptance of the male screwing his teacher than a female screwing her teacher. Just my opinion and I’m sure I could find facts backing it, but it just seems that the public outcry is different for the two. Now here’s a funny story that doesn’t help this cause:
I have a friend who’s a firefighter. He had to respond to a call about a guy getting raped behind a 7/11. The guy was talking to some guy in the store and the guy asked him to come around back of the store (I guess words are heard better out back.) so they could talk and he did. And the story goes, ”...and all of a sudden I had my pants at my ankles and his thumb in my ass…”. Wait what? How do you not know how you got to that point? The cops made him turn out his pockets and he had pills galore, but during the whole thing the guy is screaming about how he’s the victim here. The guy got robbed and was trying to make a case without saying he was there scoring drugs and got robbed. While the story cracks me up (because c’mon… a thumb in your ass. seriously.) it shows that people are apt to abuse the system. Not that women haven’t cried wolf, but I don’t think things like that help the situation.
Hey, with the help of some Rohypnol and Viagra it certainly isn’t out of the question for a woman to rape a man.
@tinyfaery and everyone in the world, if you’re listening:
im not trying to say that women dont get mistreated. im trying to say that men arent taken as seriously as women when it comes to this situation of rape. men do get raped, and a lot of the time its ignored completely because people cant accept that a woman can rape a man. this is brought on by social rules that exist in many cultures, including the one we live in.
sexism exists in different forms. society is sexist against women in the form of salary, strength, and other aspects of life that are deemed as “manly”. society is also sexist against men by saying that men shouldn’t get the same treatment in court when he was raped as opposed to when a woman was raped. why wont i ever be right about men and women being on equal footing when it comes to sexual assault? is it because men are drunk, smelly, perverts who only want sex? there are many women who fit that category too.
you have to realize that women arent the only victims in the world. men are victims to women as well. men arent the only people who are offenders. it may seem ubsurd, that a man can be raped. this is probably because of the ways society portrays men and women. i took a feminism class, and the entire semester, the teacher was complaining about all of the mistakes that men have made throughout history. she never mentioned any good things about men. she only whined about all of the bad things that men have done to women. NOT ONCE did she mention gandhi’s support of women or how mohammad yunus is giving loans to women without collateral so that they can start their own businesses, nor anything similar. im sick and tired of all these feminists who blame men for all life’s problems and dont pin any blame on women. in fact, i think that people like this teacher are sexist and should not be teaching courses about how to stop sexism. she is extremely sexist against men, and im sure that there are many other people like her.
whether we’re male or female, we’re all in the same boat.
No we are not, and that is obviously something you will never understand. If your thesis is correct than whites and all minorities are in the same boat, and gays are in the same boat as the heteros. Until you have experienced life as a woman/gay/minority you can just never know.
This might be TMI.. But why not?
I am a sound sleeper. I had a girlfriend that was curious if she could get me to ejaculate without waking me up. Short answer, I was able to ejaculate while being totally unconscious while asleep during penetration. Long and sad answer. After we broke up she said it was the best sex we ever had.
I am hoping that response was due to the excitement or her desire to say something to me that would hurt.
edit :: I should add that this was discussed in advance. I knew she was going to go after the morning wood. I just didn’t know when.
ok so you’re saying a girl got through your pants and touched your penis, and you didn’t let her? This is while you were just standing there, not lying in bed together with clothes possibly already coming off? Did they KNOW you didn’t want to before you told them? Judging by your examples of why you didn’t want her to grab you, it sounds like you were probably in a relationship of some sort with her… Maybe? I’ve had boyfriends in the past do the same, and I might not have wanted to for the same reasons as you, but I didn’t get mad because I know they weren’t trying to sexually assault me. They were just trying to make me laugh or have some hot,angry make-up sex. If I didn’t want to be touched then I’d let them know and just get myself out of that situation. I’m sure it’s possible for a guy to be raped, but not likely. Yeah the whole gun to the head thing is possible, but like someone said earlier I don’t see him being able to perform. If he was forced to perform other sexual acts I’m sure just like with any other case, with the right lawyer “justice would be served”. I think everyone is perfectly aware that sexism works both ways, but most people are honest with themselves and accept the fact that there are more women as rape/sexual assault victims. I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make here. As far as your past professor goes, get over it. “Opinions are like ass holes, we all have one.” You’re going to come across plenty of people you disagree with in many different areas. That was one teacher and one person’s opinion. You can’t assume all feminists think that way. That would be like me saying all Flutherians whine too much.
“Can a man be raped”.
…you must not have seen “American Me” or “Rounders”.
some of my fellow flutherittes are helping me prove my point. many people in this thread are saying that it must be absurd for a man to get raped, and are often joking when they see this situation. that is sexism towards men, in this situation. let’s say that these flutherites are the judges, and they just laugh it off. thats sexism.
i disagreee with “Until you have experienced life as a woman/gay/minority you can just never know.”. i am a minority (im jewish) and i am white, which is a majority. i have felt both sides, and honestly, i feel no difference in regard to the way people treat me.
“Until you have experienced life as a woman/gay/minority you can just never know.”. what can i never know? that i can be raped? that i can be abused? every human can be raped or abused, no matter your gender, nationality or sexual preference.
To answer the original question: Yes, a man can be raped. Yes, there is sexism against men. Yes, wives do murder their husbands.
That being said…My wife was a probation officer for 10 years. She specialized in domestic violence, sexual assault, and pedophiles. In 10 years she handled almost 6000 cases. I asked her about this question today.
She could only remember one case of abuse against a man by a woman. And it was physical abuse, not sexual.
So, do these things happen to men: Yes, just very rarely.
Now, the real question (as I see it) is: Why are you trying to force the opinion that these horrible things happen equally as much to men?
Sounds to me like you have an axe to grind.
@cprevite: there are many other cases of sexual assaults against men, but most of them arent reported, because the man will feal “weak”.
im trying to show people (feminists in particular) that sexism goes both ways and that while they’re always complaining about all of the horrible things men do, there are orrible things that women do to, and that they should be trying to fix those problems first otherwise, they’re hypocrites.
So you’re saying you know ever feminist personally and they all believe that a man can’t be raped? Just because you had one or two bad experiences with these horrible feminists does not mean they all think the same. I don’t think feminists are the ones complaining here.
That’s like telling gay men that because at times they treat each other and the Hereros badly, they shouldnt focus on hate crimes being commiitted against them. That’s hipocrisy!?!!?
Oh and most Jews are white. Just like the test of those who’s ancestors were European. Please don’t equate your experience with a black man or a sexually assaulted woman.
@mtl_zack. Aha. You’re saying women do bad things to men. I so agree!!! And they
should be held accountable for those things.
But you began this discussion by insisting that men can be raped. That’s true – they
can be raped by other men very easily. They can (see my comment above) also
be raped by women, if the women can overpower them; but your definition of “rape” is so
faulty that you can’t see this. Your definition of “rape” is “having sex because someone else wants you to”. You describe “rape” of a man as a man being forced to enter a woman and ejaculate. I must again insist that this is something most men really can’t do even when threatened. Threat limits performance. It really does, guy.
Again, “forced entry” is the key to the definition of “rape”. A man’s body can be forcibly entered by various orifices. And they often are. Not generally by women.
And if a man’s body is forcibly entered by a woman, she should be tried and convicted, just like a pederastic priest, a prison rapist, whatever.
But tell me how often a man presses charges in such a case
Not at all.
Because it’s too humiliating.
And that is the same tragedy that kept women from reporting and bringing criminals to justice for many many years. What changed this? Feminism. Maybe men need to group together to find the strength to do this incredibly hard work.
I’m repeating myself, but I have to because you aren’t learning anything yet.
…don’t get all butthurt over it. If you don’t like the replies, don’t ask the question. The fact is, yes, everything is possible sometimes.
@tinyfaery: i am a minority, black people are a minority, homosexuals are a minority, so i think i can equate myself to those groups of people because i am a minority. jews have suffered for 5000 years.
@susanc: “Aha. You’re saying women do bad things to men. I so agree!!! And they
should be held accountable for those things. ”—but they arent. in court cases, when men are raped, they are ignored by the judicial system and it is shrugged off. the media also takes so much interest with cases where a woman was raped, and they ridicule cases where a man was raped. the definition of rape is forcing someone to have sex. forced entry should not be the key definition of rape. it should be the act of forcing someone to have sex.
many men dont report rape because they think that they wont have a case, when in fact they do. humiliation also plays a part, but that’s the problem. men feel humiliated by being raped, men should feel the same way as women when they are raped, but because of social interactions, men feel superior and arent willing to give up their superiority by proclaiming that they were raped.
If you think your experience is equivalent to a black mans then you have more problems than I thought.
Who says that men’s rape cases are ignored by the judicial system and shrugged off? Is this your own opinion or do you have a source to site?
what the hell is that supposed to mean. most days, i get ridiculed for being jewish. if i happen to have money in my wallet, im a cheap jew. if i go to a restaurant with friends that eat pork, im ridiculed for keeping kosher. if i have more days off work/school because of the holidays, people whisper behind my back “fucking jew”. i have many anti-semitic experiences everyday. people burn jewish libraries in my city, people paint swastikas on the walls of synagogues, people beat up jewish men coming to and from synagogue. now, can you tell me that im not treated as bad as a black man?
@syz: i recalled the anecdote of my friend who brushed his hand against a woman’s breast. he got into a lot of trouble with the police and with the dean. if that girl had brushed her hand against my friends penis, nothing would have happened.
You don’t know that nothing would have happened, you’re supposing that. If he had attempted to press charges and then was ignored, then you would have a possible case for argument.
If you’re response is that he feared ridicule and so would not attempt to press charges, then I will go in search of actual studies to cite that will list the number of women who are still too afraid of the stigma associated with rape to report the crime. There are plenty of places where you will still hear crap like “She asked for it, dressed like that” or “she’s a slut, anyway”. I would wager a large amount of money that there are more of those women than there are men who are afraid to press charges.
And, of course, there is the point that we are talking about two different things here. What you’re talking about is sexual assault, not rape.
well, the dean is a good friend of that teacher who i mentioned and people are often influenced by their friends. this assumption would have been right at my school.
Ok, well I was mormon and mormons have been through a lot of crap too, but that doesn’t give me a right to tell blacks,jews,gays WHATEVER not to “complain”. You have no idea what you are talking about. Give me ONE source that backs you up. educate yourself because there are plenty of sources that talk about female sex offenders. !
You’re going in circles. All you can do is repeat yourself,and everyone on here has something different to say to you that makes perfect sense. If you’re really that concerned go start an organization that helps sexually abused men stand up for themselves. It’s what we femininsts have had to do, so it can be done. Women have had to fight hard for everything we have today. Don’t even try to take that away from us because you feel sorry for yourself or your sex. No one has said NO IT’S NOT POSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO BE RAPED! We’ve all said yes, it is possible. That was after all your question wasn’t it?
whenever a man talks about his grievances, it is ignored. many people in this thread who i have argued against have just walked away and ignored this conversation. i have made this argument before in “real life” and all that ever happened was someone said “you dont know what youre talking about” and walked away, mad. organizations for men that were rape victims or victims of sexual assault have been created, but were torn down by feminists who say that men are the only bad gender in the world and that men dont have the right to complain about such things.
men arent always the dominant gender. women rape and assault too. people wont accept this (feminists in particular) because of the way society portrays men and women. im trying to make sure people know this and that people dont assume that all men are evil
No one ever said all men are evil. Ever
Men aren’t always the dominant gender, bullshit. Are you scared to walk on your campus alone at night for fear of being raped? Do you have to do everything twice as good, and in pumps with a smile, to make approximately 1/3 less than a man? Go ahead and think of yourself and other men as victims is you wish. Women have been trying to get away from that for centuries. I’m done.
Zach; You have changed topics; if there is truly open anti-semitism in (Quebec?) be part of the solution. There is also a large Jewish community for support.
Mtl_zack: You are so far afield from your original question at this point it’s laughable.
I just reread the entire thread, and aside from being unable to stay on topic you’re just looking for a fight.
Your original question has been answered more than once. Simply thank your fellow Flutherites for their time and slowly back away from the keyboard before someone gets hurt.
Me too, Zack. You have passion but you refuse to discipline it. You’re not replying to what people are saying to you, e.g. definitions that are correct, e.g. rape involves forced entry. Your arguments are enfeebled. It’s too bad, because what you say
has made people think. But you undermine yourself.
I gotta go.
How about a 17 year old very small white kid from a small town in Montana. Say he joins the navy and looks like he’s thirteen or so. Say he goes to San Diego for boot camp and school. Then one day he goes bowling and meets the guy that runs the shoe booth. After several weeks the shoe guy invites him to go off base and see the city. As a very shy and VERY nieve person he agrees. He goes for a ride around the city and sees good sites. The guy says ” How about you spend the night and I’ll take you back in the morning?”. The young kid says ok. At the guys apartment they eat dinner and have a glass of wine. The kid feels a little tired but the guy gets him to sit in the buildings hottub for a bit with his neighbors. He feels a bit woosy and light headed and wants to go to sleep. The guy makes a couple of odd comments, but the kids is loopy for some reason ann thinks nothing of it. When he is awakenned in the middle of the night he is scared and unsure of what is happenning and is still light headed. He realizes someone is sucking on him. He doesn’t know what to do so he stays quiet and pretends to be asleep. The guy is bigger than him and who knows what could happen if he acts. Fear makes him paralized. When the guy finished he pulls the kids clothes back up and goes to his bed. I think that is rape plain and simple. What do you guys think. There were other things like that that happenned to him in San Diego but he was able to avoid being trapped andused again. A bit of profiling by sick people who knew who to prey on.
WOW, so many things to say.
I may regret even pulling on this little loose thread for fear of unraveling the whole sweater….But I will respond that I do not agree with the notion that feminists would shut up a man when he attempts to share his grievances. Or at least, they shouldn’t. Sure, far, far more women experience sexual assault and rape than men. But if any male in my life came to me and told me that he had been forced to do anything sexual against his will (by a male or female), or even if he were robbed at gunpoint or physically hurt by someone, I would never, EVER think to say, “Your grievances are worthless because you are a man and you have all the privilege in this world and all men are evil.” I think if you think that feminism is about demonizing males you are wrong. Women have gotten the short end of the stick for a long time, but that doesn’t mean that any self-respecting woman would want to discount a painful, unfortunate experience like rape if a man is forced to deal with it. I would be interested to read your source on the fact that feminists would discount a male rape because they don’t have a right to complain about being forced to have sex against their will. Anyone has the right to complain (and do much more) about that, regardless of their gender.
Yes, men can be raped. I was raped when I was younger. The woman in question overdosed me on a medication I was taking that I trusted her to get for me. She then took advantage of me while I was almost comatose.
I’d call that rape.
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