TW: Sexual Assault
Today I think I want to talk about male survivors of sexual violence. There are likely a lot more than statistics report, and men do always seem to be left out of this conversation. Men are just as sensitive and vulnerable as anyone, and just as capable of being hurt.
Dominant culture shames men for expressing pain, for expressing hurt, for expressing weakness. At the same time dominant culture expects men to be constantly hypersexual, and endows many men with a particular set of false beliefs about their sexuality. These factors combine in a way that can make it incredibly difficult for men to recognize when they have been sexually assaulted. Some people don’t even believe that men CAN be sexually assaulted, but that is simply not true and an incredibly harmful misconception to carry.
I think being a survivor of sexual violence, not realizing that what happened to you was wrong, carrying that shame within you, thinking that what happened to you was normal— when you combine that with the undue power that men have in this society it can be really dangerous. When you think like a rapist… you don’t have to acknowledge that what happened to you was rape. Not every survivor of sexual violence goes on to perpetrate sexual violence. Not by any means. But, in my lived experience, it happens all too often.
We really have to kill the ideological dichotomy of rapist/victim because the reality is a lot of people are both. Perpetrators are not wholly evil, and survivors should not need to be perceived as innocent for their trauma to be validated. How do we heal that cycle of trauma without addressing the reality of the situation?
We have to be proactive in teaching our children— all our children, that sex ought to be a pleasurable and enjoyable experience. We need to teach them how to listen to their bodies, to their emotions. How to communicate their needs and boundaries and how to respect other people’s boundaries. How to process their feelings when they have been hurt, instead of repressing them. And we have to work towards healing our own inner children as a community, and reparenting ourselves with the new knowledge we gain about our bodies, consent, and sexuality.
We will never solve the crisis of sexual violence by inflicting more violence. By “killing all rapists” or by “killing all men”, or by incarcerating people. The only way to address this crisis is through healing, education, and by creating a culture in which we are all safe to have our feelings and to be honest about our desires.
