Being a Man in a Woman’s World
Men getting raped by women? Does it sound too bizarre?
Not really if you consider the plight of the men who underwent the trauma in two recent incidents that bring to light the existence of sexual violence against men. An issue, we as people, our laws and our society has conveniently chosen to ignore.
Recently, a 41 year old autorickshaw driver Umesh Prasad, in Delhi was invited by a woman and her friend to their flat on the pretext of paying him the auto fare. One of the women then offered him water to drink and suddenly locked the door from inside. She tried eliciting sexual favours from him, offering him wine too. According to news reports, when he rejected both and refused to comply with her demands, she forced herself on him, tore his clothes and started kissing him, while her roommate, a Tanzanian national, filmed the episode. Umesh who later escaped by jumping out of the first floor balcony, fractured his leg in the process.
In another incident in Mumbai, a 16-year-old boy claimed that his best friend’s mother had been sexually assaulting him for the past three months. The teenager had gone to meet his best friend in Chembur, where his friend’s mother spiked his soft drink which made him lose consciousness, stripped him, forced herself upon him and recorded the act. She later went on to blackmail the kid for the next three months, calling him to her house regularly. The boy’s father is quoted as saying in a news report: ‘My child is in Standard 10 and has been a good student, but of late I saw a lot of changes in him. He looked scared and his health was deteriorating. Initially, he did not respond to my enquiries, but later he told us the whole thing. He said that the woman would also take him on outings. Moreover, she claimed that she was pregnant and that she would accuse him of rape if he ever told anybody what had happened.’
Shocked?
Wonder why we have not seen these incidents being debated on prime time news? Why there are no dharnas and social media campaigns demanding justice for these men? Because to begin with our legal system does not recognise a male, as a potential victim of sexual assault.
The Indian Penal Code 354 and its various sections which define and deal with acts of sexual harassment like stalking, voyeurism and disrobing, by default assume men to be the perpetrators of these crimes and women the victims.
Similarly, section 375 and 376 of the IPC, which defines what amounts to rape and the legal provisions against it, has no mention of acts of rape against men, it starts with “A man is said to commit “rape”..” and goes on to define what rape would constitute in such a case, rape of a woman; and the punishment under law for such men, committing an act of rape. It fails to even consider a scenario where a man can or maybe raped by a woman, thereby refusing any protection to men against such sexual assaults.
The only place the Indian legal system, acknowledges, sexual crimes against men is possible is in an unnatural scenario. IPC section 377 states “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished.”
As we all know by now, 377 was originally written to punish homosexuality. The law is based on the premise that the victim is a willing participant and it is the act (considered unnatural) itself that is punishable. Here the victim’s consent is assumed to be voluntary, unless proven otherwise. So in case one can prove sodomy or act of sexual violence inflicted by a man on another man, then the accused will be punished. Once again, a woman raping a man is not even given a passing thought, not even under unnatural circumstances.
Considering, penetration is sufficient to constitute the sexual intercourse and adjudged as rape if it is without the consent of the person, it clearly puts the onus on the man to prove he is innocent, in both scenarios, whether he is the perpetrator or the victim.
However, what is often overlooked in such instance is the word, “consent”. The absence of which can turn any sexual act, between two individuals, into a sexual crime.
That brings us back to the important question, can a man be raped without his consent, by a woman?
Busting the Myth
We live with the belief, that a man is always ready to indulge in a sexual act, given a choice. Men themselves in many an occasion have endorsed this view, stating how lucky a man would be, in a situation like this.
But think about it, unless you are having sex with someone you desire, it is repulsive. If the desire is not mutual, it is violating a person and their personal space, a sexual crime, irrespective of the gender
The general assumption that works against men is that if a man has an erection he must want sex, especially because we believe men are sexually insatiable. A bit of digging into medical journals or a chat with a medical practitioner will unearth the truth for you, that sexual response in men in the form of erection or ejaculation which often occurs during male rape is a mechanical one and the only thing it proves is that their body is reacting in the way it is supposed to react to sexual stimulation. It is a given that pressure on the prostate will result in physical sexual response, whether you want it to or not. What is often forgotten in the argument is that the mere presence of physiological symptoms associated with arousal do not indicate actual arousal, much less willing participation.
Need for India specific data
In 2013, National Crime Victimization Survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, USA, turned up some worrying stats. In a survey interviewing 40,000 households about rape and sexual violence, it was found that 38 percent of incidents were against men.
In a more recent analysis of BJS data, it was found that 46 percent of male victims reported a female perpetrator.
A survey conducted by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Atlanta, Georgia, found that just as in the case of female rape victims, 45 percent of the 5,451,000 men who reported, having ‘made to penetrate’, were victimised by a current or former girlfriend, 45 percent by an acquaintance and just 5 percent by a stranger.
It was also found that while male abusers use physical means to empower their victims, women employed more psychological methods, mostly threats of playing the victim card themselves, “I will tell them, you raped me,” I will tell the police you hit me,” “I will kill myself”, “I will kill you”’ and the likes. Women abusers were also found to pursue their victims in situations when they are more vulnerable, either when drunk, drugged, sick, sleeping or psyched out by their threat tactics.
The CDC’s survey also found that men who have been victimised by an intimate partner experience poorer physical and mental health than those who haven’t. And recent studies of sexually victimised college males in the US showed increased instances of hostility, depression, substance abuse, sexual risk-taking behaviour and its opposite, sexual dysfunction.
While India does not have any such data available on the subject, going by the notion that sexual crimes are universal in nature, it is not too hard to believe a similar scenario back home.
Need for Gender Neutral Law
In 2011, there was an attempt by the government to create a gender neutral law to cover acts of sexual violence. But the effort was squashed by women groups who lobbied basis the argument that rape was an expression of patriarchal power, thereby impossible for a woman to rape a man. The second argument was more an emotional appeal that if given the space, the men accused for rape will blame the women for rape. The latter scenario, also scraping the case for women victims of marital rape.
The current proposal,the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 2013 retains the change of “rape” to “sexual assault” element in IPC section 375, but maintains the notion that sexual violence is a “gendered” crime. Leaving potential women rapists out of the ambit of the law.
Similarly, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, by its very name excludes men from the ambit of sexual harassment.
Where does one even start to demand equality in the eye of the law when the lawmakers have decided to turn a blind eye to the very existence of a problem. The sheer ignorance towards this issue has more repercussions than one can expect it to have.
What is worrisome is that this ignorance is not because there is lack of evidence but it is born out of our socio-cultural reasoning which conveniently assumes a ‘man’ cannot be weak enough to be raped by a woman
The fear or being labelled as “not man enough” the lack of political and social will to accept male rape and sexual harassment as a serious issue, no real law to safeguard the interests of the male rape victims are some of the factors that force them into silence.
There have been enough and more instances of women misusing the laws that exist to protect them. Be it the dowry law, sexual harassment at workplace law or the rape law. Maybe the numbers might seem insignificant in view of the crimes against women, but still, can we just let it be?
Being a man in present times, especially in a country like ours which is still struggling to figure out the journey from being extremely regressive to being obscurely progressive can be quite challenging.
Imagine growing up believing that manhood is a privilege, that you are the all powerful, the all mighty procreator of human race and then waking up to the fact, that it is by far your biggest disadvantage.
There are men and then there are men and yet under the eyes of law when it comes to sexual crimes men are the assumed criminals, unless proven otherwise, which under the existing law is nothing short of a miracle.
An ideal and safe, society cannot be built on a skewed justice system. Can we envision raising a generation, which mistrusts the opposite sex, where does that leave us as a society, as parents, as a man, a woman?