In a world where men are required to be masculine, strong, leaders and providers of their families, there are certain taboos that do not conform to that chauvinistic self-image. And as such, there are secrets so well kept that most would brush it off as yet another conspiracy theory. Yet men do get raped. Across the world, women continue to be the predominant victims of sexual crimes, but in the recent past, revelations have come to light that point to a tremendous underestimation of the magnitude of male rape.
There are some long-standing myths regarding the phenomenon of male rape, carefully kept away from general awareness by both perpetrator and victim, in a mutual bond of fear and shame. To cite a few, it is a myth that men can’t be sexually assaulted, a position taken by the Supreme Court of India in its 2009 order in the State of Rajasthan vs Hemraj case. As a result, in India, a woman can’t be charged under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which pertains to rape. In fact, men can, and are assaulted. Like with women, it happens in locations where the perpetrator thinks he can get away with it. One important reason why such cases do not get reported and the aggressor gets away with his crime is because most men do not think that they can be victims of sexual assault, unlike women. As such, the initial reaction from men facing an assault can be more of shock than of self-defense.
Moreover, it is also a myth that only gay men rape, or that only gay men get raped. Although no statistics for the phenomenon exist in India, in the United States it is estimated that nearly 40% of male rapists are heterosexuals, as are majority of the victims. The fact reveals the underlying motive for rape, both male and female, to be more one of domination, violence and anger rather than sexual attraction or lust. It is no surprise as such that the incidence of child molestation is on the rise.
As an article in The Guardian last year revealed, a large number of men are victims of sexual assaults during wars, thereby showing that this instrument of terror used against women also extends to men. In her study Male Rape and Human Rights, Lara Stemple, of the University of California’s Health and Human Rights Law Project chronicles incidents of male sexual violence as a weapon of wartime or political aggression in Chile, Greece, Croatia, Iran, Kuwait, the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia. The report states that twenty-one per cent of Sri Lankan males who were seen at a London torture treatment centre reported sexual abuse while in detention. In El Salvador, 76% of male political prisoners surveyed in the 1980s described at least one incidence of sexual torture. A study of 6,000 concentration-camp inmates in Sarajevo found that 80% of men reported having been raped. Continue reading
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