not a nice topic, but been annoying me all day

Well exactly Spoons. It's not a "who suffers the most" competition. Spoons. It's not a "who suffers the most" competition.

Phoebe, I wonder if you're going through a process, which most of us have at some point, of investigating whether you've been unconsciously prejudiced by some of the popular rape myths. A man who rapes a stranger, perhaps inflicting multiple injuries as he subdues his victim, commits the same crime for the same reasons as one who rapes a colleague or his neighbour, or his partner or a family member, or drugs his victim first.

The tendency to think of "different kinds" of rape plays into the victim-blaming hypothesis that relationship and prior consent mitigate the crime. They don't. Each rape victim has been penetrated, by a penis, with hatred. It's a crime of power - not passion. Each victim's body has been attacked with hatred.

Because the act of penetration can also be done lovingly, the difference is in the manner of its doing. Hence the consent test: you know if somebody's ab/using, rather than sharing, your body, so you withdraw whatever consent may have been given or implied and try to stop the act. I realise you know all this intellectually, but perhaps you still have a visceral feeling that the clichéd stranger rape is worse ... Just a thought?

no victim is entitled to any more sympathy than any other victim.

Seriously?! You are arguing against this?

Genuine question - what is the purpose of ranking degrees of rape / degree to which a victim is deserving of sympathy?

For those of you arguing that you can - why? What difference does it make?

Just to stick my two penn'orth in.

HumanCatapult that's terrible for your friend. What a horrific experience for him. Speaking as a victim myself, just being listened to and acknowledged/believed can make a huge difference to how you deal with it and how awful he didn't get that :(

It's a real shame the way this thread has gone.

To go back to what HerBex and Blackcurrants said, I think it's true that rape is regarded as worse for men because it's recognised as what it is; a violation of someone's body whereas for women they should be used it because that's 'just what happens'. And, well, women are a bit less important than men so their siffering doesn't matter so much.

I don't agree with some arbitrary notion of some rapes being worse than others because 'x' person says they are.

And fwiw the betrayal of trust and cruelty involved in an acquaintance/date rape adds an extra level of cruelty. At least (ha) if its a stranger you don't have to deal with them being in your social circle.

Yeah, I'm struggling to give a shiny shit about how anybody else might feel 'reading' about me being raped. Meh.

I am finding EP's posts arrogant and entitled that she feels that she can be an arbiter of other people's experiences. As Lenin says why do your feelings matter?

"I've arbitrated that each of them will suffer the effects of their specific crime uniquely" - you certainly didn't start off in that tone. And who are you to be arbiter anyway?

HumanCatapult, that's sort of the point I was trying to get across. I think a man might struggle just as much with his failure to fight off his attacker and how this makes him look to the wider populace to the actual act of rape itself. Of course women also beat themselves up with feelings of guilt and if they did anything to encourage the rape.

I am sickened, speechless by your friend's attitude!

That is very very sad, Catapult. In my home city there is an organisation which runs groups for male survivors of abuse and rape, which is clearly needed.

As a possibly irrelevant aside, ironically the charity was set up by a man (not a self-identified abuse/rape survivor) who is now in prison indefinitely for raping and attempting to murder female sex workers

But rape is hard to over come be it male of female or a stranger or family or a so called friend .

And lot of the outcome can depend on the support that available at the time and in the long term

I know a young man who was gang raped age 15 and he has never got over it .But he was telling me that he found that for him was less understanding as people expect for young men to try and fight back .age 18 he went to a centre to talk about it and get some help but was told he could not attend group therapy as the women felt vunerable with a man there

Not helped as his parents refused to talk. About it as seems to be more Blame is attached to it for not fighting back

Sadly my friend has dabbled in drugs for years to forget which ended up with needing sectioning on and of for paranoid and severe depression , and when does not take meds he ends up back in .One day I expect to hear from his sister that he has either. OD though he is clean at yhe moment or more likely committed suicide

the 77% is for adult male victims - it's lower when they are teenagers - 52% for 13-16 year olds IIRC.

Following this thread this morning has made for some extraordinary reading. I am not sure how anyone reading it can come to the conclusion or remain convinced that rape comes in varying degrees, or that it is a minority, extreme or radical view to shun such value-judgements of one rape being 'worse' than another. After reading garlic's contribution I felt that must be the end of the discussion so was shocked that her experience has been used to back up the opposing argument.

Details can be different, the people it happens to can be different but there is no value in rating these differences. OP, your friend was wrong.

Regarding the OP's question, Maybe your friend meant more from the mental aspect of a man being physically dominated and weaker than the attacker. As women we know that generally men are stronger than women so there is no shame or expectation in us not being able to match or beat a man physically. A woman being anally raped is no less horrific than a man being raped but I wonder if what bothers the man more is that he wasn't strong enough to defend himself but was in fact the weaker of the 2, I think men might inflict the shame upon themselves of being too weak to defend themselves. Not really getting the point across I'm trying to make.

I would guess that the reporting rates are lower (and the conviction rates) for cases of gay men who knew or were involved with the attacker. That's the way the stats go with the rape of women.

And there are no radfems telling you or rape victims to shut up.

How dare you.