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thucythucy

(8,039 posts)
4. To say "there's no one out there advocating" for male rape survivors is not true.
Sun Dec 21, 2014, 11:52 AM
Dec 2014

The rape crisis center at which I volunteered for a decade absolutely worked with male survivors, and advocated for them when requested. Other rape crisis centers with which I'm familiar have been doing so as well. In fact, feminists have been at the fore-front of advocating for men who are raped, have been for decades now.

What recognition there is of the issue is largely because of the pioneering work of feminists. Susan Brownmiller, in "Against Our Will" spent a significant number of pages talking about prison rape, and how it's used by the authorities to control prisoners and torture those they see as a threat--for instance, antiwar activists in the '60s. This was a groundbreaking work published back in the 1970s, one of the first times, if not THE first time, the issue of male rape was discussed in anything like a political/social justice context.

All the materials I was trained with to work with male survivors were written or at least co-written by women--mainly because most men back then saw rape as "a woman's issue." It isn't feminists who have been holding male survivors back--it's the patriarchy, specifically, most often, other men. And it should be noted here that when men are raped, it's most often by other men.

The whole stop rape movement was started by women volunteers who got tired of waiting for society to change of itself. The first rape crisis centers were founded by women volunteers, using their own resources, to set up hotlines and safe house/counseling centers. This was because the courts, the police, the medical professions--all of which were dominated by men--refused to take rape seriously. To a great extent, they still don't--witness the tens of thousands of rape kits rotting in police warehouses.

Feminists get it. They've known how the patriarchy, and specifically sexual violence, impacts men as well as women, boys as well as girls, for decades now. They absolutely take male rape seriously. In fact, generally speaking, when someone makes a prison rape "joke" on this discussion board, it's often the feminists here who protest. So in that sense, addressing your complaints about male rape not being taken seriously to feminists is preaching to the choir.

It's your fellow men who need to be educated. That's where your efforts might be better spent.

Good luck and best wishes.

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