Sexual Assaults Between Males
The forcible rape of a male by a female is presumed to be rare (as distinct from cases of seduction and statutory rape of boys by mature women), and the imagery usually arouses smirks rather than alarm.
When women are arrested in sexual assault cases, they usually were acting as the accomplices of dom- ineering men. But the molestation of little boys by men (see Chapter 8) has been of great concern for a long time (see Maghan and Sagarin, 1983; and Porter, 1986).
More recently, the rape of a teenage boy or a young man by another male or by a gang of males was recognized as more than just a theoretical pos- sibility. Yet this had been such a taboo subject that many state laws had ignored this possible victim– offender relationship and had defined rape strictly as a crime perpetrated by males against females. In 1986, however, Congress passed a bill revising fed- eral rape statutes (governing the handling of sexual assaults committed on federal property). Among other changes, the law redefined rape as a gender-neutral offense, so both victims and perpe- trators could be of either sex (“Federal Rape Laws,” 1986). This official recognition that males also could be rape victims paved the way for their rediscovery, including efforts to estimate the scope of the problem and to devise effective ways of easing their suffering.
The first rough estimates about sexual assaults attempted or completed against males (teenagers and adults) were derived from the findings of annual NCVS surveys. Between 1973 and 1982, the number of male rape victims was projected to be almost 125,000, corresponding to about one- twelfth of the problem females faced (Klaus et al., 1985). The 2010 NCVS estimated that about 15,000 males over the age of 11 were victims of sexual assaults, but only about 1,200 of these attacks were carried out by complete strangers (Truman, 2011). As for rapes reported to the police, only 9 percent in three states during 1991 were male- on-male (0.8 percent were female-on-female and 0.2 percent were female-on-male), according to an analysis of more detailed data in the FBI’s NIBRS (Reaves, 1993). As for lifetime prevalence rates, about 3 percent of all males probably have suffered a sexual assault, most occurring before age 18 (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2006).
Males who are raped are highly unlikely to report the offense and seek medical attention or
V I C T IMS OF R AP E S AN D OT H E R S E XUAL AS S AULT S 369
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counseling unless they are severely injured. When they do identify themselves as having been sexually assaulted, it is usually years later. They have fewer places to go to seek solace and treatment for acts that undermine their sense of personhood, mascu- linity, and sexual identity (Tewksbury, 2009).
Records kept by rape crisis centers indicated that about 1 of every 10 callers was a male. Male rape victims are subjected to the same disbelief, scorn, and insensitive treatment today that females routinely endured in the not-so-distant past. They are often blamed for their misfortunes, stereotyped as homosexual (the majority are exclusively hetero- sexual), disparaged as not being “real men” for not resisting to the utmost and for not thwarting their attackers, and accused of secretly enjoying the experience. Although males and females suffer in similar ways, experiencing bouts of depression, flashbacks, recriminations, nightmares, and an over- whelming sense of vulnerability, males are more visibly angry and more preoccupied with fantasies of revenge. A few large cities have set up support groups for these men. The available evidence indi- cates that male rape victims experience more force and brutality, are held captive longer, and are sub- jected to more acts of sexual humiliation. Evi- dently, sexual assaults against both males and females are expressions of culturally induced drives toward domination and subjugation within a soci- ety that prizes exercising power over other people (Krueger, 1985; and White and Wesley, 1987).
Any NCVS projections about the incidence of male-on-male rapes are probably gross underesti- mates because they exclude the sexual assaults com- mitted in dangerous institutional settings such as jails, prisons, and reform schools.