Why we don’t talk about sexual violence against boys — and why we should

shit-zen-giggles · 2022-08-24T03:37:36+00:00

If you had asked me, before I started this research, whether I believed that boys and men could be victims of sexual assault, I would have said of course. If you had asked me whether I bought into the notion that boys and men always want sex, I might have rolled my eyes: Um, no. But listening to the stories of male victims taught me that I didn’t completely believe what I thought I believed. I noticed my own knee-jerk resistance to the reality that unwanted sexual contact can traumatize boys just as it does girls — and to the reality that it can matter just as much to them. Deep down, somewhere under my skin, I was holding on to some seriously wrongheaded assumptions — ideas so ingrained I did not even notice them, ideas that rendered boys as something less than human.

ShelSilverstain · 2022-08-24T04:03:05+00:00

Everybody forgets about how 5th-6th grade girls treat boys, even the girls are often physically stronger than the boys. I was so sick of hearing "oh, that's just because she likes you" as if that were some kind of consolation prize

oncothrow · 2022-08-24T07:56:26+00:00

A thought provoking article. Thank you.

I do worry that social media culture and one-upmanship may start to make things like hazing even worse. It already seems to be enabling and encouraging the worst behaviours.

I'll confess, I don't fully understand hazing. I've never been one for casual cruelty and picking on the little guy, and neither are the people I generally kept company with.

I feel like it's a split where a culture can be established in some groups but not others depending on who's leading and what's enabled / allowed. I've been in plenty of sporting groups that have been nothing but supportive. At the same time I'm seeing more stories of it happening (of course, this could just be more media focus on an existing phenomenon).

She and other experts said they have seen noticeably more media reports and court filings alleging ritualized sexual violence among high school boys, leading them to believe that it is becoming more common and more severe. Boys tell each other and themselves that they are taking part in a tradition: This is what it takes to be part of the team, this is what it takes to belong. First you are assaulted; then you become a bystander, watching as others are brutalized; finally, you get your turn at the top, your turn to attack.

Sounds like the kind of indoctrination you'd see in a cult or criminal gang. Make the person a bystander and then a participant so that they're just as guilty as the rest of you.

The language we use to describe what happens to boys helps feed the problem, argues Adele Kimmel, who has become one of the leading lawyers for male and female victims of sexual assault. “Terminology matters,” Kimmel, a wiry woman with jet-black hair, told me on a rainy day in downtown Washington at the sleek offices of the nonprofit firm Public Justice, where she is a senior attorney. “Some of these boys don’t even recognize that they’ve been sexually assaulted because it’s been normalized by the adults. They call it these euphemistic terms — they call it horseplay, roughhousing, poking, hazing. They don’t call it sexual assault. They don’t call it rape.”

This is definitely an issue where a culture has developed as viewing abuse of boys as being a natural part of their growing up. There is often a fear of making boys "soft" (whatever that means in context), and a very misguided idea that bullying them therefore is the antidote to that softness.

The boy was branded as a tattletale for reporting what had happened to him and became the target of fierce bullying at school. His father asked for help. “What do you want me to do, hold his hand?” the principal said, according to the lawsuit the family later filed.

The indifference of school admin and staff towards bullying never ceases to amaze me.

When we convey to boys that unwanted touch is a serious issue of sexual assault only when it affects girls and not when it affects boys, we are sending a message that only girls’ bodies are worthy of protection. That message leaves our sons vulnerable to abuse, and it presents them with a knotty question: Why should boys treat other people’s bodies with dignity and respect if their own bodies are not also treated with dignity and respect?

...

But many people do not define a man pushed into nonconsensual sex as a person who has been sexually assaulted. A 2018 survey of 1,200 adults found that 1 in 3 would not quite believe a man who said he was raped by a woman, and 1 in 4 believed men enjoy being raped by a woman. There’s a belief that men cannot be raped because women aren’t strong enough to physically force them, and a conviction that straight men want sex so much and so consistently that they just aren’t that bothered by a woman who refuses to listen when he says no. These ideas are embedded in our institutions, from media to medicine to law to scholarship.

These ideas aren't just embedded institutionally. They're embedded in the very culture. That's a common theme in general: The culture allows and accepts this kind of abuse towards boys as

a) No big deal, and
b) Potentially beneficial

These views are horrendously toxic, and it's not just about changing laws, there needs to be a general culture shift in how these things are viewed.

Scholars studying sexual violence have often asked men only about their own sexual aggression and women only about being violated, an approach that fails to acknowledge — much less measure — the existence of male victims, female perpetrators or same-sex assault. When researchers have asked about sexual violence in gender-neutral terms, they have made startling discoveries. One survey of 300 college men found that half had experienced some type of sexual victimization, and an astonishing 17 percent — nearly 1 in 5 — had been raped, meaning they had unwanted sex because they were threatened, physically forced or taken advantage of while too intoxicated to consent.

This is a big problem. You can't assess the scale of the issue without research. And if all the research is based around the sole concept of men being perpetrators against women, that's how you end up with incredibly skewed ideas of not only what men and boys do, but what they're going through.

Lara Stemple, an assistant dean at UCLA School of Law, is a feminist who has focused some of her research on highlighting the large number of men who have experienced sexual violence and the institutional biases that have obscured their experiences. She told me that her efforts to bring attention to male victims — and to the surprisingly high rates of female perpetration of such violence — have at times triggered false accusations that she is aligned with men’s rights activists, who are known for anti-feminist and misogynistic language and ideology.

This is, unsurprising.

griii2 · 2022-08-24T09:06:03+00:00

1/ Clusterfuck of cognitive dissonance

First they parrot the myth that girls suffer more sexual abuse:

The global script clearly harms girls, who face disproportionate levels of sexual violence

Yet, two sentences later:

“Our data suggest that the myth that boys are advantaged and girls are disadvantaged simply isn’t true.”

And when they looked at the data:

Blum’s team found that boys suffered higher levels of physical violence, neglect and sexual abuse by adults than girls.

I suppose the editor-in-chief would stop the article if it outright said that it is boys, not girls, who face disproportionate levels of sexual violence?

2/ Not-so-subtle victim blaming

Boys are more likely than girls to die in their second decade of life, and they use more alcohol and tobacco, habits that erode their health as they age

While numbers show that catastrophically higher mortality of boys has nothing to do with tobacco and alcohol and everything to do with neglect and double-standards. The gap starts before the age of 10, well before tobacco and alcohol enter the picture.

Why boys die of illnesses much more than girls and what do we do about it?

3/ Helping boys is only important as a means to helping girls

Those findings should serve as a gut punch. We can’t solve the problem of violence against girls and women without also addressing violence against men and boys. And we won’t succeed in teaching our sons to care for other people’s bodies until we learn to care for theirs.

I don't have the power to continue reading this misandrist shit.

Party_Solid_2207 · 2022-08-24T09:55:27+00:00

The lack of care for male victims is so callous but even staunch man haters should realize it’s beneficial.

It’s always amazed me the “let’s fix things for women before we help men” attitude that pervades certain issues.

It’s so fucking obvious that a percentage of young boys who are abused will propagate that cycle and become abusers. So caring for boys is protecting women.

I really don’t get it but lots of politics is complete short term power grab nonsense so why gender politics be any different.

alterumnonlaedere · 2022-08-24T09:24:48+00:00

I'm reminded of this article by an Australian men's advocate I read recently - "Protecting boys from sexploitation - Why the eSafety regulator isn’t interested".

neighborhoodpainter · 2022-08-24T16:51:35+00:00

Because people think because of strength differences, it doesn't affect boys as much. Supposedly boys want it and should "be lucky" when a woman does it to them. People think abuse happens more to girls than boys, and they think most of the abuse done to boys is done by other men.

US3RN4M3T4K3NH0W · 2022-08-24T16:39:00+00:00

Can't read the article, says i have to subscribe :(

Professional_Mud_316 · 2022-11-07T20:48:58+00:00

Even in this day and age, male victims of sexual harassment, abuse and/or assault are still more hesitant or unlikely than girl victims to report their offenders. They refuse to open up and/or ask for help for fear of being perceived by peers and others as weak or non-masculine.

Maybe these boys believe they’re somehow externally perceived as basically being little men, and men of course can take care of themselves.

I recently read a New York Times feature story (“She Was a Big Hit on TikTok. Then a Fan Showed Up With a Gun”, February 19, 2022) written by reporter Elizabeth Williamson who at one point states: “Teen girls have been repeatedly targeted by child predators” on social media.

Why write this when the fact is teen boys are also targeted by such predators? Does a collective yet mostly subtle societal mindset still persist, that real men can take care of themselves and boys are basically little men? And if mainstream news-media fail to fully realize this in their journalism, why would the rest of society?

Meantime, an otherwise normal and happy 17-year-old took his own life this year after being ‘sextorted’. An apparently attractive young woman on Snapchat compelled him to send her a compromising image of himself then soon afterward threatened to post it if he didn’t pay up. This tragic story lasted one day in the general mainstream news-media.

Another relatively short-lived story this past summer was that a Canadian centre for child protection publicized their increased concern that “adolescent boys are being targeted primarily on social media giants Instagram and Snapchat as part of an ongoing sextortion crisis ... The offender will then threaten to report the victim to police, claiming they are in possession of child sexual abuse material.”

Title	Why we don’t talk about sexual violence against boys — and why we should
Author	shit-zen-giggles
Upvotes	95
Comments	15
Date	August 24, 2022 3:36 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/ww8tsz/why_we_dont_talk_about_sexual_violence_against/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/why-we-dont-talk-about-sexual-violence-against.1129589 https://theredarchive.com/post/1129589

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