From a pretty young age, I've always been skeptical of the notion that female victims of sexual assault are taken more seriously and have any sort of privilege over male victims of sexual assault, because I noticed most people, especially adults, genuinely seemed more upset and horrified when they heard of a man getting sexually assaulted.
For example, my mom's brother had a (male) roommate in uni who got up every morning at 5am to go for a run. Except one morning my uncle's roommate was violently sexually assaulted and later found unconscious by the side of the road.
I noticed as early as when I was 13/14 years old that if I told this story to adults, and left out the sex of the roommate (just saying "my uncle's roommate" without any gender markers) they would always assume the roommate was female, and their reaction to the story (as long as they were the assuming the roommate/sexual assault victim was female) was always a sort of boredom, they'd always say something along the lines of "hmm yeah, that's unfortunate and everything but she should have been more careful, it was probably a bad idea to be out running by herself so early in the morning" of course always with a bored "whatever" tone. Often if they were an adult they'd throw in a patronizing "well you're still young but as you get older you'll come to realize things like this are just a fact of life you know"
But AS SOON as I'd correct them and tell them actually, the roommate was a man, their reaction would INSTANTLY change from boredom to shock and horror. I'd get gasps, I'd get "WHAT?! A MAN?! HOW AWFUL!! Why would someone do that???" When just 10 seconds earlier when they believed that the roommate was female their reaction was a bored "well whatever these things happen and honestly it's kind of the roommate's fault you know" and suddenly it's shocking and horrible and WHY WOULD SOMEONE DO THAT when they knew the roommate was a man.
After a while it became, I don't want to say a game, maybe more of an experiment to tell that story, especially to adults, and leave out the gender of the roommate/victim, just to watch them every time a) assume the roommate/victim was female b) give some sort of bored and victim blaming response so long as they assumed the victim was female and then finally c) watch their reaction change to shock and horror and most importantly, sympathy, as soon as I corrected them to let them know the roommate was actually male. Every single time, without fail, it followed this formula.
So, when people claim male victims have a harder time than female victims when it comes to being taken seriously, I always gotta side eye them a little bit, because that sure hasn't been my experience.
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