IT’S TIME TO PROVIDE HELP TO MALE VICTIMS OF RAPE

Posted back on Tue, Dec. 26, 2006

ERASING THE STIGMA IT’S TIME TO PROVIDE HELP TO MALE VICTIMS OF RAPE By SUSAN ESTRICH Creators Syndicate

“None,” the police officer in charge reported to my student.

That was the answer to how many instances of rape of males and boys had been reported in the city (it happened to be Boston, where I was teaching at the time) in the previous year.

My student was incredulous. He knew of more than one. None was simply not a plausible answer.

What was going on?

I have worked in the rape crisis field for more than 20 years. I was one of the first clients of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, more than 30 years ago.

And yet, in all these years spent traveling across the country speaking to groups about rape, writing books and law review articles aimed at legal reform and, most recently, training lawyers and other professionals to work with rape victims, I have spent my time almost exclusively in the company of women, helping women.

Once, in San Diego, I met a man who worked for the treatment center focusing on male victims, most of whom were afraid to report, afraid they’d be treated like “fags” by the police, and were too humiliated even to tell him what had happened.

We need more men on our team. We need to bring the issue of male rape into the 21st century. “None” was never the true answer. It certainly isn’t today. What none means is that serious criminals are getting away with rape, and boys and men are suffering the stigma of shame along with the pain and anguish of brutalization.

In Houston, police announced last week that they are working to find the man who is responsible for the rapes of at least five teenagers since mid-September. I say at least, as did the police, because they believe there may well be more victims who are simply too ashamed to come forward.

Male rape in the 21st century resembles nothing so much as female rape in the 19th and early- to mid-20th centuries. Men are afraid to come forward for many of the same reasons women were (and some still are) — fear they would be blamed for their victimization; that their sexuality would be the issue, not the defendant’s wrongdoing; that they would never escape the stigma, no matter how blameless they were.

The supposed offense to the male ego — the gay-bashing, the guffaws — has no place in dealing with a serious violent crime. And yet, to deny its prevalence is to ignore how serious and difficult this problem will be to address.

Boys need to be taught that it isn’t their fault if a man with a gun (or even without one) rapes you. They need to be taught that it doesn’t matter whether you’re gay or straight: No one has the right to force sex. This is a crime of violence, not sex. They need men — in police departments, hospitals and district attorney’s offices — with the training and expertise to deal sensitively with the physical and emotional issues involved, to win the victim’s cooperation, to catch and successfully prosecute the perpetrator.

They need all the support structures we have built for women victims, and then some. It is time to take male rape out of the closet and deal with it in the courts.

The man who attacked me used an ice pick instead of a gun. He followed me into my parking lot, stole my wallet and car.

In so many respects, other than my gender, it was just the same as what is happening to boys in Houston. It is time we treated it the same.

2006 Creators Syndicate Inc.

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