Rape Apologia in BUST Magazine

February 1, 2016

Debbie,

I just read one of the worst articles I’ve ever seen on female-on-male rape. Oddly, it was tagged under “Feminism”:

http://bust.com/feminism/1810-man-claims-he-was-drugged-kidnapped-and-raped-by-three-womenhtml.html

I am a male rape survivor of a female rapist who used a drugged drink and then a threat to keep me compliant hours later so she could do it again. I kept it hidden for 18 years. I dealt with the PTSD and flashbacks alone. I let it tear me apart in silence. In many ways, the damage is done and I’ve adjusted my life around it.

I told no one.

No. One.

Why? Piece of shit articles like the one at the link above (and pasted below) are a good demonstration of the belief systems that keep survivors of female perpetrated violence in silence and shame. As long as a great number of people have similarly repugnant beliefs, it is not even safe, let alone healing to speak out.

The attitude and utter ignorance that allows people who know next to nothing about the struggles of male survivors to assert casually that stories about men raped by women are subject to scrutiny and community opinion, rather than support ‘cuz magical made up reasons are one part privilege, one part ignorance and one part arrogance. The idea that whether a man was raped or not is up for debate in a section of Feminist magazine is beyond repugnant. It is callous rape apologia and a mockery of every survivor who bravely speaks out. I know what that looks and feels like first hand after I told my own story publicly.

As a rape crisis worker, a survivor and a long time advocate, I cannot fucking believe what I just read.

Are you serious?????

Sincerely,

 

James Landrith

 


 

By Debbie in Feminism

A 23-year-old man claims he was kidnapped and raped by 3 women over a period of  four days in Karachi, Pakistan. According to local newspaper reports , the man says that he was delivering food outside a restaurant where he works to 3 women who were waiting in a car. The women asked him if he could deliver food to their house every day, the man said, and when he agreed to that, they asked him to go along with them in their car so they could show him where their house was. He claims they then gave him some milk with some sort of drug in it, after which he fell unconscious. When he awoke, he found the women had undressed him and ‘were forcing themselves’ onto him.


This image of a 50-year old woman sexually assaulting a 24-year-old man has nothing at all to do with the above story. It is, however, one of the few images that came up under a google image search for ‘women attack men.’

The women assaulted him for the next four days, the man claims, after which they drove him  to a nearby river and threw him out of the car.  His condition was reported to be quite bad, and ‘his genitals are bleeding and he cannot walk properly.’ The man reported that his attackers were wealthy women.

Now, I know that I should have as much compassion for a raped man as I would a raped woman, and indeed I do, but something sounds just a little Tawana Brawly-esque about this story. For one thing, how do you ‘force yourself’ on an unconcious man? For another, really, a man raped by women in Pakistan? And in Karachi, no less, where, although women have been becoming more and more independent, it was not that long ago that a woman was sliced across the arm with a razor for wearing a sleeveless dress or that acid was sprinkled on female students at the University who right-wing extremists claimed were ‘ultra modern’?

We’ll keep an eye on developments in this story, but in the meantime, I can’t help feeling a little like Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers in their “Really” sketches. What do you think? Does this story sound right to you?

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