your body can be aroused even though your rational mind is trying to find a way out of the situation.

They didn’t even investigate. They said since it was a girl doing it to a guy, it was just “experimentation.” Said it was okay.

I was crying and begging her to stop which in hindsight probably made it worse

I was so broken emotionally and in pain physically. She then got very mad that I couldn’t get it up which was never a problem. I was beaten for a while

police do a presentation on rape the year before in my health class. They had divided up the boys from the girls and had given a pretty in-depth presentation on it—they even touched on boys being raped—but only by men. They never even suggested that it was possible for women to take advantage of men. …

I felt powerless and ashamed. I told some people but they kind of laughed it off. I think if gender roles were reversed it would’ve been taken more seriously.

I don’t relax around women in my bed anymore. Don’t trust them

She started trying to suffocate me during, kept going. Had me in a situation where I couldn’t just overpower. Stated she was going to kill me

One of the worst things, that I don’t see mentioned much, is how you can feel betrayed by your own body.

In addition to this, because many men have never even considered the serious possibility of being raped or sexually assaulted by a women, there is a high likelihood that you may just freeze in the situation.

In the aftermath of sexual assault, as groups, male and female survivors share dealing with many of the same issues i.e. anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, guilt, shame

in some states, rape victims can be forced to pay child support, to say nothing of the trauma of having to raise a child with your rapist.

The recently revised DOJ definition of rape reads: The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. But, like, whose vagina or anus? Is it a requirement that the victim be penetrated, or just that penetration occurs?

My relationship with my girlfriend fell apart pretty soon afterward, partially because, for a long time, she didn't really believe I'd been raped either, treating it as if I'd cheated on her.

she took advantage of me while I was barely conscious and could no longer say no, which is more or less the exact definition of rape. If the genders were reversed.

n fact, research on sexual violence indicates that, overall, male victims of rape elicit comparable or even more blame for their attacks than female victims.

The victim and his family were arguably punished more severely. After months of harassment, they were ultimately driven out of Norwood altogether and relocated to another community.

While Steubenville has been in the media spotlight since last December, the Norwood assault only recently received minimal national coverage, despite striking parallels between the two cases.

seventh-grade victim was blamed and bullied by his peers at school and on social media. Rather than cracking down on this harassment, some parents encouraged it, including the mother of an accused boy who made and distributed t-shirts that proclaimed alliance with the teenaged attackers.

ambushed a 13-year-old boy on a school bus, restrained him with duct tape, and anally raped him with a pencil. The victim's father, who was also the high school principal, notified the superintendent and school board immediately, but aside from a one-day suspension, there were no repercussions for the perpetrators (two of whom were sons of the head wrestling coach, who also happened to be president of the school board)

Physically – by becoming bigger, stronger and meaner, by engaging in dangerous or violent behaviour. Sexually – by having multiple female sexual partners, by always appearing ‘up for it’ and sexually in control.

If you were sexually abused when you were a child or a teenager, you may have different feelings and reactions at different times in your life.

Like all perpetrators, they might use physical force or psychological and emotional coercion tactics.

Withdrawal from relationships or friendships and an increased sense of isolation

Avoiding people or places that are related to the assault or abuse

Feeling on-edge, being unable to relax, and having difficulty sleeping

Concerns or questions about sexual orientation

persistent attitudes about male rape are found in large segments of the general population and can have devastating consequences for men who have been victimized

Since most media coverage on rape focuses on female victims with any reporting of male rape tending to be lurid (and often sarcastic)

Dissociation usually refers to feeling like one has “checked out” or is not present. In some instances of dissociation, people may find themselves daydreaming.

The support services for the male survivors of rape are very limited and have received little attention.

Richard had compulsive rituals of bathing, scrubbing his anal region and hand washing up to 20 times a day. He avoided eating full meals to avoid defecating and would induce vomit after eating.

Richard suffered from flashbacks lasting up to one hour seven times a day where it felt as if he was being raped again. He avoided visiting public houses and lavatories, groups of men, and would not read newspapers in case there were any sexual crimes reported.

Associated with fantasies about revenge against the assailant were feelings of anger and difficulty on controlling emotions. The loss of self respect made several victims feel uneasy in the company of males and in some cases lead to self-destructive behaviour including self-harm, alcohol and drug abuse and suicidal ideation or attempts

men are victimised at multiple levels: first they are victimised by their attackers, they are then subjected to rejection and stigmatisation from friends and family and potentially humiliated at the hands of the law.

Many male victims experience sexual arousal, erection or even ejaculation during the assault. Getting the victim to ejaculate is a major strategy for some perpetrators, symbolising the extent of the offenders control over his victim. These physical responses may be confused by the victim as indications of pleasure or unrecognised consent

‘Because most men have internalised the social belief that the sexual assault of men is beyond the realm of possibility…men have trouble accepting their rape experience as real, not only because it happened to them, but that it happened at all’

Only a man can carry out rape but both men and women can be victims

Rape victims were 4.1 times more likely than non-crime victims to have contemplated suicide. Rape victims were 13 times more likely than non-crime victims to have attempted suicide (13% Vs 1%).

Almost one-third (31%) of all rape victims developed PTSD sometime during their lifetime; and more than one in ten rape victims (11%) still has PTSD today.

men are the least likely to report an assault.

As a result, most men are unaware that they could one day be the target of sexual assault

Only 1 in 16 rapists will ever go to jail, and even the ones who serve time often get lenient sentences. The majority of rapists rarely serve time, and often commit several rapes before being reported or caught.

These statistics do not make men immune from rape, in fact,  1 in every 33 men are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. In the US a sexual assault occurs every 2 minutes.

In India, rape on males is rarely, if ever, addressed. Sadly, there is no strong legal framework to help male rape survivors.

We tried to get some legal help but we realised that there’s no law against child sexual abuse for boys in the country. By the time I was 18, no laws applied to my case

boys and men are the forgotten gender. We get abused, but we have no right to voice it

Until 2006, sexual assault was classified as a women's health issue, and even today, Pentagon awareness campaigns target women almost exclusively.

"Many men and women will experience symptoms like PTSD or depression after experiencing sexual assault. But the experience seems even more detrimental for men's mental health," says Amy Street, a psychologist with the Boston VA hospital who has worked with both male and female survivors. "The way I make sense of that is that women, for better or worse, live their lives with this idea that they might experience sexual assault at some point. There are public models of how to recover from rape. Men don't have any expectation that this might happen to them. It's very difficult to figure out how those experiences fit into your sense of self as a man."

Belkin notes that it's not just the military that avoids the issue: even gay-rights organizations are wary of it. "We don't like to talk about it because it makes rape look like a gay issue," Belkin says. "The military doesn't want to talk about it because, as embarrassing as male-female rape is, this is even worse. The very fact that there's male-on-male rape in the military means that there are warriors who aren't strong enough to fight back."

For most of military history, there was neither a system nor language in place to deal with incidents of soldier-on-soldier sexual assault. It wasn't until 1992 that the Defense Department even acknowledged such incidents as an offense, and initially only female victims were recognized.

Less than two weeks after arriving on base, he was gang-raped in the barracks by men who said they were showing him who was in charge of the United States. When he reported the attack to unit commanders, he says they told him, "It must have been your fault. You must have provoked them."

A study of 100 men by Survivors, a support group for male victims of sexual attacks, found that 72 knew their assailants. Among the symptoms experienced were sexual dysfunction and damaged sexual identity.

Shock, disbelief and embarrassment deter many heterosexual men from reporting rape, particularly as the act challenges basic attitudes about masculinity and, until recently, has been perceived as a homosexual problem.

Under British law, rape refers only to forcible penetration of the vagina by the penis. The term used for male rape is non-consensual buggery, which carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison

Scottish Office yesterday launched a television advert designed to highlight the psychological damage domestic violence has on children

"There are perceptions that this is a gay issue, but straight men of any age can be victims. One man and a knife is all it takes on even the toughest males.

In England and Wales, male rape was finally recognised by the law in 1994, but here it is still referred to as sexual assault, sodomy or aggravated assault.

The figures in Scotland are only estimates, because men are unwilling to report being raped. Research in 1998 revealed that at least one in seven rape victims in Scotland is male.

MALE rape victims are being turned away from crisis centres throughout Scotland because counsellors regard the service as being for women only.

Rape is not limited to traditional notions, it is not limited to gender . . . we must recognize rape as torture, rape as rape

Dugatkin charts evolutionary psychology along a political axis, arguing that liberals believe in the fundamental goodness of humans, and conservatives believe that humans are only good if taught to be so

there is no such thing as altruism: The thing is genetically impossible. If you donate a kidney to a relative, you’re only doing it because you share genes with them; if you give money to charity, you’re only doing it to show off, so people will admire you and further your genes; and, worst of all, if you give money anonymously, you’re only doing it to feel good about yourself

Face facts: Men are nothing but horn-dogs, and women only want men for their money. Equations prove: No one ever does anyone a favor unless there’s something in it for them. Accept the data: People are just bloodthirsty apes with a flair for spin.

Their acts came from the darkest part of the soul. In this instance, there was a soldier with a knife who cut the clothes off a pregnant woman. A deep incision was made in the flesh of the belly, there were screams and whispers and, finally, the stillness of death. That is, what came next, what was taken and hung by the neck, was as innocent as the act was unspeakable. They hung it with the others, in rows along the rafters, to ward off evil spirits. These were the Smoke Children.

death became a pestilence: arbitrary, ravaging, and contagious. And it became a strange performance, too, the killers trying to outdo each other: At S-21, living prisoners were cut open with knives and scorpions were let loose inside their bodies.

death became a pestilence: arbitrary, ravaging, and contagious. And it became a strange performance, too, the killers trying to outdo each other: At S-21, living prisoners were cut open with knives and scorpions were let loose inside their bodies.

At the Killing Fields, babies were held by their feet and smashed against a designated tree, the Baby-Smashing Tree.

torture to obtain confessions (including near drownings, the removal of toe- and fingernails followed by a dousing of alcohol, electric shocks applied to genitals, suffocation with plastic bags, and forcing prisoners to eat human excrement); that he ordered the murder of at least 15,000 people

In that first spasm of violence, everyone wearing glasses was killed. Everyone who spoke a foreign language was killed. Everyone with a university education was killed. Word was sent to expats living abroad to come home and join the new Cambodia; when a thousand or so arrived on special flights from Beijing, they were killed. Monks, so revered in Cambodian society and long the voice of conscience there, were killed. Lawyers, doctors, and diplomats were killed. Bureaucrats, soldiers, and policemen, even factory workers (who in the minds of the Khmer Rouge were equivalent to industrialization itself), were killed.

15,000 others were sentenced and exterminated in nearby pastureland famously known as the Killing Fields. But then, as fate would have it, he would emerge as one of only seven survivors from the prison camp

While the odds were roughly one in four of dying—and worse depending on your demographic

We shudder deliciously in the face of incomprehensible forces, in the wake of events that insurance companies call "acts of God." But this was an act of Man, which made it a palpable evil: madness made visible in flame.

Kuwait, on this day in July, would lose about $100 million worth of oil.

It was close to the road, and the western plume was directed at passing vehicles like a pyromaniac's wet dream.