Crosspost from r/MaleRapeVictims (updated with a few extra sources)
A growing body of research indicates that women rape men at similar rates as the reverse. While this might be surprising, the evidence for this comes from several different sources. There are even surveys that ask people, "have you ever forced someone to have sex with you against their will", and 43.6% to 48% of people who say yes, are women.
According to CDC and BJS numbers, the percentage of females rapists is at least 41.6% (39.6% being female-on-male rape and 2% being female-on-female rape). And some years actually put this number over 50%. It is true that there are more men who rape men than there are women who rape women (10.4% vs 2% of cases), so overall there are slightly more male rapists than there are female rapists. But the percentage of men who are raped, both by other men, and by women, is surprisingly high. In particular, the most recent CDC data indicates that an equal number of men are raped every year compared to women, and that 79.2% of men who are raped, are raped by women.
The harm that men experience is also comparable to what women experience. While few people deny the harm associated with male-on-female rape and male-on-male rape, there are prominent detractors who deny the harm associated with female-on-male rape. Female-on-male rape looks very similar to male-on-female rape by most key metrics. Men are harmed at similar rates, both emotionally, and physically (8% of men and 12% of women experience injuries). Women are equally likely to use a weapon to force their victim to have sex with them. And most other "tactics" that rapists use, from date rape, to coercion, occur at roughly the same frequency.
One particular form of coercion is unique to female-on-male sexual assault though. Which is the threat that if their victims don't comply, they will turn around and acuse them of rape or domestic abuse. There is an obvious bias where people believe women more than they do men, and in at least one small study, several victims reported this behavior form their rapists.
‘She said “what are you gonna do? I’ll start screaming rape and you’re up in court tomorrow, do you think they’ll believe anything you’ve got to say?’’'
Men who are raped can also be forced to pay child support, which is pretty crazy if you think about it. I have a lot of sympathy for women who become pregnant after being raped, but there are several options available to them when they are put into that situation (abortion, adoption, safe haven laws, etc). Men really have no options though. And worse still is the fact that in many jurisdictions, men can't even legally prosecute their rapists, due to how rape laws are commonly defined.
Anyway, here are a few sources on the topic. There are more out there, and more studies are being published every year. But hopefully this can provide a good starting point for anyone doing research on this topic. While my interest is mainly academic, I hope that this information can also provide some kind of solace for male rape victims. Their experiences are not rare, and they do matter.
Note: There are least two organizations run by men's activists that specialize in supporting male sexual abuse victims:
https://malesurvivor.org
https://1in6.org
They specialize in both male-on-male sexual assault and female-on-male sexual assault.
Other resources that are commonly used by women have been reported to be less than friendly towards men (especially when their rapist is female). RAINN in particular runs a popular sexual assault helpline, and while they seems to mean well, many of their volunteers are inexperienced and men have received less than positive reactions from them in the past.
Men are raped by women at similar rates as the reverse
A good meta-study
Some pop science articles
Young, Cathy. (2014, September 17). The CDC's Rape Numbers Are Misleading. Time. Available online at: https://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/
43.6% to 48% of self-reported perpetrators are women
Ybarra, M. L., & Mitchell, K. J. (2013). Prevalence rates of male and female sexual violence perpetrators in a national sample of adolescents. JAMA Pediatrics, 167(12), 1125–1134.
"2012 study using data from the U. S. Census Bureau’s nationally representative National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions". Quoted in "The Understudied Female Sexual Predator". Available here: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-female-sexual-predator/503492/
In 2012, one out of three years recently analyzed by the CDC, more men were raped by women than the reverse
Men are less likely to view things like bad / unenjoyable sex, drunk sex, and capitulating to sex with a persistent person, as rape (which likely effects reporting and statistics on the topic)
Weiss, K. G. (2010). Male sexual victimization: Examining men’s experiences of rape and sexual assault. Men and Masculinities, 12(3), 275-298. [Abstract]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1097184x08322632
Reed, R. A., Pamlanye, J. T., Truex, H. R., Murphy-Neilson, M. C., Kunaniec, K. P., Newins, A. R., & Wilson, L. C. (2019). Higher rates of unacknowledged rape among men: The role of rape myth acceptance. Psychology of Men & Masculinities. [Abstract]: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-39470-001
Men are 9 times less likely to report their assault compared to women (which also distorts reporting and statistics on the topic)
Women receive a broad pass when it comes to sexual assault, especially sexual assault against young children, which distorts federal reporting and statistics on the topic
Denov, M. S. (2003). The myth of innocence: Sexual scripts and the recognition of child sexual abuse by female perpetrators. Journal of Sex Research, 40(3), 303-314. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14533025
"Forced-to-Penetrate" treated different from rape
Weare, S. F. (2019). Experiences of men forced-to-penetrate women in the UK: Context, consequences, and engagement with the criminal justice system. The Law School, Lancaster University. Available from: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/forced-to-penetrate-cases/
Weare, S. (2018). ‘Oh you're a guy, how could you be raped by a woman, that makes no sense’: towards a case for legally recognising and labelling ‘forced-to-penetrate’cases as rape. International Journal of Law in Context, 14(1), 110-131. [PDF]: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c40f/3f3dfeeaa75fed2c4ee01673f2fdfb06948f.pdf
Rumney, P. N. (2007). In defence of gender neutrality within rape. Seattle J. Soc. Just., 6, 481. Available from: http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/14750/1/RumneySJSJ.pdf
Criticism of definitions given by the CDC
Stemple, L., & Meyer, I. H. (2014). The sexual victimization of men in America: New data challenge old assumptions. American Journal of Public Health, 104(6), e19-e26. Available from: [HTML] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4062022/#!po=0.877193
Rape laws defined in such a way that women tend to get off the hook, and not counted in government statistics
Many US states and many countries around the world have gendered sexual assault laws, usually defined in terms of penetration.
Not all is great in the world of men: a reference book of men's issues. Section 3.4, "Rape laws excluding male victims". https://www.reddit.com/r/rbomi/wiki/main
Male rape victims forced to pay child support
Role of feminism
Stemple, L., & Meyer, I. H. (2014). The sexual victimization of men in America: New data challenge old assumptions. American Journal of Public Health, 104(6), e19-e26. Available from: [HTML] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4062022/#!po=0.877193
Berger, R. J., Searles, P., & Neuman, W. L. (1988). The dimensions of rape reform legislation. Law & Soc'y Rev., 22, 329.
Prominent feminist Mary Koss admits to purposeful redefinition of rape to emphasize female victimization and exclude male victims
[–]Egalitarianwhistle 7 points8 points9 points (16 children) | Copy Link
[+]cromulent_weasel1 points [recovered] (15 children) | Copy Link
I think that there's a lot of righteous anger that people feel when they are considering injustice. And that's right. You should feel anger. Your anger is telling you that something's wrong and gives you a push to try and change things. It's when that anger gets pushed at other people rather than the systemic causes of those injustices that it's misguided.
You are right that there's a huge 'fuck men' subtext in a lot of feminist spaces as they are wrestling with various injustices. But I absolutely see the mirror image of that in this sub. I feel a strong 'fuck women' vibe going on here in this sub. And I don't think it's helpful or correct.
[–]Egalitarianwhistle 8 points9 points10 points (12 children) | Copy Link
[–]ExcellentTraffic123 4 points5 points6 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]Egalitarianwhistle 5 points6 points7 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[+]cromulent_weasel1 points [recovered] (9 children) | Copy Link
Yeah and I just read 'Fight like a girl" by Clementine Ford and her rage against the patriarchy definitely seems to bleed into a 'fuck men' subtext in large swathes of the book.
Sure. But online social media seems to be quite a deficient place for criticism, discussion and dialogue. It seems almost like design to build echo chambers, and along with that you have the anonymity of the internet, and all of the attendant anti-social behaviour, trolling and abuse. That inures people to the perspective of the other side and just leads to either blocking them or bringing the flamethrower in response as soon as you identify someone not from your tribe.
[–]Egalitarianwhistle 4 points5 points6 points (2 children) | Copy Link
[+]cromulent_weasel1 points [recovered] (1 child) | Copy Link
Yeah but you still have '4chan', by which I mean people who are just trolling for the sake of trolling. I guess the IRL equivalent would be arsonists or maybe the parallels break down.
[–]Egalitarianwhistle 2 points3 points4 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]Strikester101 4 points5 points6 points (4 children) | Copy Link
[+]cromulent_weasel1 points [recovered] (3 children) | Copy Link
It's basically her feminist manifesto.
It's right about a lot of things (basically where she points out inequality women suffer from or things that could empower women) but it is completely blind to men suffering from any sort of inequality at all and has a lOT of rage against men, no doubt fed from her womens studies degree. She basically comes accross as a feminist who formed her views in the 80s, not to 10s.
[–]Ciceros_Assassin 3 points4 points5 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]Strikester101 3 points4 points5 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]Strikester101 3 points4 points5 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]plitox_is_a_bitch 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]excess_inquisitivity 5 points6 points7 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]plitox_is_a_bitch 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]Strikester101 8 points9 points10 points (7 children) | Copy Link
[–]Oncefa2left-wing male advocate[S] 9 points10 points11 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]Strikester101 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[+][deleted] (4 children) | Copy Link
[permanently deleted]
[+][deleted] (3 children) | Copy Link
[permanently deleted]
[–]Oncefa2left-wing male advocate[S] 5 points6 points7 points (2 children) | Copy Link
[–]excess_inquisitivity -1 points0 points1 point (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]SchalaZeal01 2 points3 points4 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[+]cromulent_weasel1 points [recovered] (16 children) | Copy Link
While I don't disagree with the thesis of this post, this is not technically correct. With our modern understanding of consent I think most people would think of rape as being something like 'having sex with someone without their consent'.
But the legal definition of rape involves penetration. So when women 'rape' men mos of the time they are not penetrating their male victims and so legally what they are doing is not rape, it is sexual violation, a lesser crime.
[–]SamHanes10 16 points17 points18 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]ThreeHourNap 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[+]ilikepizza26264 points [recovered] (2 children) | Copy Link
Yes, and it is a sickening evil that contributes to the obscene double standard in the treatment/punishment of female predators.
[+]cromulent_weasel3 points [recovered] (1 child) | Copy Link
I would call it an outdated law that needs to be updated with the times, but sure, 'sickening evil' can work too.....
[–]ClementineCarson 5 points6 points7 points (0 children) | Copy Link
[–]5th_Law_of_Robotics 5 points6 points7 points (7 children) | Copy Link
[+]cromulent_weasel1 points [recovered] (6 children) | Copy Link
It's not an area that I have detailed knowledge of. You are talking specifically about men raping women right? I would say that that absolutely happens there, even more so than it happens in the west.
[–]5th_Law_of_Robotics 3 points4 points5 points (5 children) | Copy Link
[+]cromulent_weasel1 points [recovered] (4 children) | Copy Link
Right, so we would classify it as rape but they wouldn't? I think that absolutely happens, particularly in the gulf states where they import migrant workers from countries like indonesia. Those workers have a lot worse than rape happen to them, and you are right, the nationals of those countries as basically immune.
[–]5th_Law_of_Robotics 3 points4 points5 points (3 children) | Copy Link
[+]cromulent_weasel1 points [recovered] (2 children) | Copy Link
I'm sorry, is the point of your comment to unleash a 'gotcha' on me? Because I'm still not seeing it.
[–]5th_Law_of_Robotics 4 points5 points6 points (1 child) | Copy Link
[–]Lung_doc 5 points6 points7 points (1 child) | Copy Link