Can’t we be Victims Just because we are Men?
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
photo credit: zzellers
It is very common to find interviews being aired on TV showing victims of domestic and sexual violence. However, there is one pattern among all these shows — most of the shows seldom have any male participants being shown as the victims. Somehow, domestic sexual crimes are supposed to have been committed against women only. Men have always been depicted in the media as being over-sexualized creatures and so any of their personal experiences that border on un-consented sex just don’t make sense to people. In majority of the sexual assaults, men are the perpetrators but is it wise to assume that sexual violence against men or young boys just doesn’t exist?
Even when cases of boys being victims of a woman’s sexual rage do come to the fore, not much is made out of them. In fact, the general perception is that since the guy got to do ‘it’, no crime as such was committed in the first place. So, it isn’t surprising to find that the very definition of sexual violence means ‘men’ committing crimes of forced sexual nature on women only. To me this seems like a one-sided, feminist theory that has gained acceptance in the perception of crimes even as heinous as incestuous rape around the world. The common belief here is that ‘female-against-male’ sort of domestic crimes just can’t happen.
Well people who abide by such thinking should try counseling at few of the volunteer groups that are trying to help out children (particularly young men) who have turned to a life of crime or pettiness regarding their own self-worth simply because everything they endured was quickly hushed away. Male victimization is a universal truth and it happens everywhere. It happens to school-going kids, married men and those harassed at their workplaces. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough folks who are ready to acknowledge that the more victimized gender is capable of inflicting pain.
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Tags: abuse, domestic violence, sexual violence
