Men under Rape Culture

Online discussions of men as victims of typically gendered types of violence (sexual, domestic) tend to take three forms, the first of which I won't cover in this essay¹: Dismissive jokes, genuine attempts to grapple with the subject (these typically belong to established, women feminists), and a great deal of bluster from so-called MRAs (men's rights activists). I want to be clear, MRAs are motivated not by a concern for male survivors of violence, but by a desire to roll back and minimise the gains made by women in these areas, and to derail useful feminist discussion of rape and other violence.

I do want to make the case, however, that our understanding of how men fit in to conceptions of gendered violence is open to improvement. We need to accept that our understanding of the scale of the problem, and our conceptualisation of it, may be in a very poor state; that properly conceptualising male victims in our narratives may allow for greater clarity in our understanding of sexual and domestic violence in general; and that improving the state of our knowledge may result in subtle changes in our discussions of the subject in general.

A quick perusal of the internet will show how feminists, confronted by the disingenuous arguments of MRAs, are forced to argue in favour of basic and reasonable positions: the right of women to exclude men in certain arenas such as refuges, the right to discuss their own experiences. In doing so, they are forced to follow a tight line between ceding those basic, reasonable positions or dismissing the possibility that the male experience in general may be of relevance.

The simplest position is to regard male victims as anomalous and rare. Just as straight white men occasionally murder one another in freak, random occurrences, as a result of fits of anger, passion or insanity, so do they sometimes rape one another, outside of any oppressive structures of power and dominance. Perhaps in a future, oppression-free utopia, we will regard all rapes as vanishingly rare, unpredictable aberrations.

I should note that I am sympathetic to that position, though not because I agree with it. I think it is partly a result of the natural desire to dismiss MRAs as the misogynists they are, especially when women are attempting reasonable discussion of difficult subjects to be confronted with cries of “what about the men”.

Most responses are in fact more sophisticated than that, hinting at some subtle interplays, potential contrasts between the male and female experience, and ways in which the male experience can be tied into a structural analysis. I think, though, that the development of these ideas is held back by an insufficiently rigorous evaluation of our established position. It is customary to preface these discussions with a disclaimer along the lines of “rape/DV is overwhelmingly a gendered phenomenon, but...”, which implies an acceptance of the 'anomalous and rare' view, even when followed by a more complex argument.

But what does it mean for an issue to be 'gendered'? Is a simple majority of victims on one side enough? It is hard to think of a phenomenon that doesn't tend to affect men and women in different ways or at different rates, or at least for which a case for different experiences could be made. It can't be so simple. What about a larger, more significant majority? If a sufficiently large majority is the criterion we apply, we face two new problems when evaluating that majority.

Just how is it that we are defining rape (etc., but I will concentrate on rape from here on. Similar issues present themselves in respect of DV)? Historically, rape tended to be considered a property crime, committed against the male 'owners' of women, an act of vandalism. The slightly more enlightened view was of a specific act of violence, with consideration of the mechanics of the act, committed against an invariably weaker victim. Modern discourse has shifted this definition in part to one centred around consent. This process of change is incomplete, however. The notion that rape can occur inside of an established relationship is now commonly accepted (even if some on the nominal left refuse to accept this position), as is the position that consent can be instantly revoked, that consent depends on informed knowledge. And we have seen a partial rejection of prescriptive, mechanical definitions.

Our empirical knowledge then, might be poor. The law retains obsolete definitions, and there is the potential for any number of other factors to skew our perceptions. The US Center for Disease Control 2010 National Domestic Violence Survey uses the formal, legalistic definition of rape to report that:

Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives

By a consent-based definition, both of these statistics are inevitably underestimated – They exclude scenarios without the threat of use of physical force. The CDC additionally reports that:

An estimated 13% of women and 6% of men have experienced sexual coercion in their lifetime (i.e., unwanted sexual penetration after being pressured in a nonphysical way)

Approximately 1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else during their lifetime;

The italicised phrase in the final quote is a troubling one. Everything above quite clearly belongs inside of a consent-based definition of rape, but I will admit to a feeling of reticence when placing the final one there.

We should keep in mind the limitations of these figures – We well know the factors that influence the propensity of women to report rape, and it is not inconceivable that these operate on men in unpredictable ways. I don't therefore wish to manipulate these figures to arrive at any conclusions regarding relative rates of victimhood. I do intend to show that the majority that doubtless exists is perhaps not as overwhelming as we might first think, and that our conception of what constitutes rape should continue to evolve.

I contend that the gendering of sexual violence lies not solely in who constitutes the bulk of victims or perpetrators, but in a set of unspoken assumptions about men and masculinity, women and femininity, and consent. Penetration, victimhood and consent are tied to femininity, penetrating and dominance to masculinity. The various possible permutations of aggressor and victim either operate within this paradigm, or transgress it, with consequences for how the act, and the victim, is perceived (There is a great deal to be said about the trans, and non-binary experience that I haven't covered here, for lack of sufficient knowledge).

There remains an unwillingness to characterise certain rapes as rape. Many of the typical victim blaming rape myths have subtly altered corollaries. Convenient euphemisms are employed: hazing, Because you know what he needs. Victim blaming operates in distinct ways, with victims' sex, sexuality and the sex of their attacker affecting precisely how they are to be blamed. Men refusing consent to women are figures of fun, because it is inconceivable that they could refuse sex, or because they are unable to overpower their attacker. Gay men raped by men have their sexuality to blame. Both are likely to experience physiological arousal against their wishes, as women are, and this complicates matters for survivors, who may be confused by their own physical reactions. Erectile function and orgasm operates independently of desire in men as it does in women, but this is not fully accepted. Straight men might not actually be straight. Prison rape of course remains one of the few sub-genres of rape joke acceptable in polite company.

Understanding the way victim's sex/gender affects the influence of rape culture (being a culture in which the value of consent is disregarded, devalued, assumed, or explained away, in subtly different ways depending on the permutation of both aggressors' and victims' sex/gender) on their experience can only help us to deepen our understanding of rape culture in general.

But what practical implications does this have? Very little, except an openness to the heterogeneity of experiences. Framing our discussions in terms of 'violence against women', except where a particular discussion warrants an exclusive focus, fails to reflect the complexity of that violence (and I want to repeat, as bad as this is for men, for trans and non-binary persons, it is worse). Worse, it can have the effect of isolating particular types of victim or denying the validity of their experience, in the same way that rape culture does. Rape culture does not oppress directly, patriarchy does not oppress directly. Oppression is mediated through individuals and social structures. 

The second requirement is of course more obvious. We must persist in challenging rape culture at every turn. Far from being the cause of male victimhood (or at least a passive, malevolent observer) as the MRAs would have it, feminism provides the conceptual tools for understanding it.

The third, and most important, is that men, especially but not exclusively, and especially those with experience of sexual violence, must work better to articulate and theorise their experiences within a feminist, theoretical framework.

1Although perhaps it should be covered at some point – the left is clearly far from immune from this.