How Men Respond to Sexual Victimisation…
Weiss, K. (2008). Male Sexual Victimization: Examining Men’s Experiences of Rape and Sexual Assault Men and Masculinities, 12 (3), 275-298 DOI: 10.1177/1097184X08322632
Aside from the atypical male prison situation, the sexual victimisation of men is only now becoming a topic of growing research interest. Weiss (2008, p.294) would see this interest as overdue, arguing that we still have much to learn, for example, about the subjective experiences of men who have been so abused. The double trauma is that hegemonic masculinity constructs male victims as ‘sissies’, ‘pansies’, or ‘pussies’ (2008, p.277), because they have failed to defend themselves against the violence of others. Hence, it makes perfect sense that men are so reluctant to report having been sexually victimised to the police (2008, pp.284-285), since they carry that mark of shame that they have ‘failed’ to be a ‘real’ man (2008, pp.277, 291).
One key finding of Weiss’s (2008, p.291) research is that men often respond to sexual victimisation by other men with violence. I would add here, with extreme violence. She puts forward two possible explanations for this gendered split:
1. That men are taught that they ‘are not supposed to hit women’, and that would include female perpetrators (2008, p.291); and
2. That homosexual advances represent an assault upon the inviolability of heterosexuality that must be responded to with force (2008, p.291).
The author qualifies the first point by stating that excludes ‘intimate partners’ (2008, p.291). And, I would question the rationale behind the second point, in that sexual victimisation is not related to sexuality per se but to violence. It is a sickening point to acknowledge that here in Australia, the highest court in the land has held it to be reasonable for a man to respond with brutal intensity to any sexual advance made upon him by another man (see link, below). There is no corresponding legal principle for women who are sexually victimised.
Weiss (2008, p.294) calls for better community education about the plight of men who have been sexually victimised. I would agree with that, so long as it does not end up an awful binary of male victims ‘competing’ with female victims for media and resources, policy and legislative reform. However, until we get a handle on what it is about hegemonic masculinity that so enmeshes it with male violence, then we are unlikely to see any discernible shift away from what is a culture of rampant sexual victimisation.
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