Our collective difficulty in understanding and addressing this taboo is tied up in our archaic conceptions of sexuality
‘How does it happen? Alcohol is implicated in a very large proportion of accounts.’ Photograph: joefoxphoto/Alamy
"You don't feel like a person any more. You feel like a thing. Like you're subhuman. It gets to you, and you stop thinking of yourself as human. You stop thinking you deserve to be happy, or that you deserve to have friends or to be loved.
"Eventually, you stop thinking you deserve to live. Maybe you act on those feelings, maybe you don't. I did. I was hospitalised four times before I finally got help and found a therapist who took me seriously and told me it wasn't my fault."
The first-person accounts posted on Reddit last week by survivors of sexual abuse have many familiar elements. They recount post-traumatic stress and emotional damage, the sexual dysfunction and difficulties forming relationships, and – most commonly – the disbelief and victim-blaming that greet attempts to report or share the details, even with trusted friends. The only difference with the hundreds of stories shared on one remarkable, often heartbreaking thread is that all were from men, recounting their abuse by women. Many told of childhood sexual abuse, others described sexual assaults, all the way up to forced penetrative sex, committed by women on teenage or adult males.
Of course Reddit is not a verified source. Anyone can register under any name, and many of the accounts were posted under so-called throwaway monikers. But before anyone dismisses the anecdotes out of hand, consider that whenever academic researchers have asked the question, they have found astonishingly high incidence of this crime.
In 2010, the largest survey of its type in the world – the US Centre for Disease Control'sNational Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey – found that the rates of men being forced to penetrate women over the previous year were identical to the rates of women reporting being raped: 1.1%. Lifetime prevalence of the crimes were 4.8% for men and 17.8% for women. Meanwhile, men reporting sex through coercion was 1.5% over the past year (6% lifetime) compared with 2% (13% lifetime) for women.
These findings were not wildly out of step with precedent. I collated much of the previous research in a blogpost. A consensus emerged that not only do a significant minority of men report having been forced or coerced into a sexual act in their lifetime, even higher numbers of women admit to having forced or coerced a man to do so. Our collective ignorance of these issues does not arise from lack of data, but from a wilfully constructed wall of secrecy.
How does it happen? Alcohol is implicated in a very large proportion of accounts, men passing out at parties and coming around to find themselves being molested, or being assaulted by a woman. Other accounts include threats, blackmail or even brute force and violence. Not all men are bigger, stronger or more assertive than all women. There is very little understanding that not only is sexual abuse of men by women potentially damaging to the victim, it is also a criminal offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Whenever I have written on this topic, I receive a new batch of comments, emails and messages from men saying, yes, this happened to me too. Inevitably, I have received many more offering ridicule, mockery and outright denial. The most powerful response to such attitudes came in a stunning, stomach-twisting monologue by the actor and writer Andrew Bailey, which went viral a couple of months ago. Anyone who has ever reacted to this issue with words such as "lucky bastard, wish that had happened to me" should perhaps get their pocket money stopped until they have sat down and watched this brilliant little film to the end.
Just raising this issue is difficult. By talking about it, I will be accused of undermining attempts to address the rape and sexual assault of women which is, by any measure, the more extensive and harmful social phenomenon and public health crisis. There are indeed poisonous souls who use "yeah, well women are just as bad" as a vapid and vacuous response to complaints about male violence against women, and that is shameful. Such fears, however, cannot justify leaving any victims ignored, maligned and misunderstood. The only correct response to learning about the prevalence of male victims is not to treat female victims as a lower priority, but all victims as a higher priority.
Our collective difficulty in understanding and addressing the sexual abuse of men by women is tied up in our archaic and damaging conceptions of both male and female sexuality. No, boys and men are not always gagging for sex with anyone, under any circumstances. No, women are not invariably coy, chaste flowers awaiting a Romeo to sweep them off their feet. I thoroughly agree with the campaigners who call for better education of our young people on what true sexual consent really looks like. We also need to take on board that such lessons are not only needed by young men.
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