I’m a male victim. My perpetrator was an ex girlfriend. It happened a long time ago and the assault itself didn’t give me much or any trauma. I’m lucky in that way. It wasn’t painful, just left me feeling confused, gross, embarrassed, and helpless. I’ve worked through that stuff. Which made me more comfortable to speak up about my experience.
But in the rare event I’ve brought it up it has always been painful due to how it’s reacted to. I sympathize with every woman who has been assaulted and understand more than you can know about not being believed or having your assault minimized… all that stuff. But let me tell you, try being a male victim. Literally nobody gives a shit.
I’ve been told to “sit down”. Pointing out something like “just because she was blackout drunk doesn’t mean she was the victim” woah boy. That one is a doozy because it was my fuckingremoved. Telling someone a SA victim has the right to defend themselves in whatever means they deem necessary? Not if you’re a man. Nope. Which is why I didn’t defend myself.
I’ve told exactly two women in my life about it. A good friend and my wife, whom I love dearly. That stupid bear or man nonsense that went around last year? Each told me, “you wouldn’t understand because you’ve never had to deal withremoved.” Independently they said this and it wasnt even necessary because i was on their side. Instantly felt like I wasn’t seen. Like I told them about one of the most serious things that ever happened to me and it wasn’t worth making a mental note of? Male victims just do not matter.
It sucks. Worse than the damned act itself.
I feel like this is the only place I can be heard.
I’m sorry. Outside of this space the only time I see this stuff being brought up is by MRAs (really hate that term) who don’t actually care about other men.
meditations on the subject
Reading this thread is interesting and sad because in my experience it’s actually really hard to downright impossible, if you’re perceived as masculine, to be honest about a more feminine person abusing or assaulting you. It’s like the nuanced message of “believe women, making allegations is so difficult and costly that nobody would make it up” got warped into or shortened into “amabs can never be the victims of afabs” and then that shorthand short-circuits people’s brains so they don’t fucking think or care. I don’t want to go into the details but I’ve had things done to me especially in the before times when I thought of myself as just a man, by femme partners, that it took a long time to even identify as consent violations. And even then I downplayed those, felt bad but didn’t think anything of it, and tbh I still downplay those actions, and I don’t know why. But there were clearly non-negligible and deleterious impacts on me which would come out later. Although I’d say the impacts and suffering from the emotional abuses have been millions of times worse than the impacts from the actual acts of sexual consent violations, for me.
You have no idea how much this resonates. I still find it hard to describe what happened to me as Rp because of how hard it is defined in society that I’ve internalized this and instead refer to it as sexual assault. I whitewash my own Rp. If it happened similarly to a woman and her story was the same as mine “it wasn’t painful, I just felt confused, powerless, embarrassed, blah blah and gave up fighting it” I’d absolutely say it wasremoved no question. I just find it hard to jump that hurdle. The fucked up thing is I don’t even see my perpetrator as a bad person even to this day. She did a bad thing and we never talked about it and I never told anyone who it was that did it to me except my wife.
I’m sorry. That thing about not seeing her as a bad person… yeah, that feels familiar. People are complicated and I don’t know what to say. Whether someone is good or bad doesn’t change whether their actions are harmful. Harm is harm.
I fear to say too much because I don’t want to say the wrong thing.
If it is possible and you can find and afford therapist, you may benefit from talking with one about that assault, and how it impacted you and continues to impact you. I’ve gotten a lot of benefits and healing from seeing a skilled therapist.
It’s okay. It is up to the harmed to forgive those that harm them and for those that do harm to change who they are. Harm is harm but I don’t think this one event defined her. As her victim, I think I have the right to say that and I think you have the right to say and feel what you want about the person that harmed you. It’s valid as long as we aren’t forgiving assailants on behalf of other victims.
As far as therapy, I have gotten much of it at points in my life, mostly for other things. Like I said, the assault itself I have moved past. It’s the reaction I get to speaking up for victims and about my experience that is the trauma. I also have CSA that is of a different nature. I’ve spoken a lot to a therapist about this and understand it causes my hypersexuality but after much treatment I’ve resigned that it’s just something my wife and I have to live with. She’s understanding and we’ve found a balance. There are many common trauma responses to CSA that nobody talks about and I don’t dare talk about them here, either. It’s such a hairy topic that it’s best left to specialty spaces for it. There actually was a decent subreddit for it but because it dealt with people discussing their abuse it was eventually banned.
Very well put.
I’m glad you’ve been able to get therapy. Wishing you the best!