Sensitive - Do people believe that male rape is worse than if a woman is raped?

[Spookyseason13]

There was a soap on last night and it featured a man being raped. It was quite graphic and obviously a horrific thing to happen to anyone in real life.

It’s being discussed a lot by the shows fans online. From the comments I’ve read, a lot have either said that they couldn’t watch it as it was too upsetting, or saying how the storyline was too much, or just generally saying how awful it was.

I’m interested to know if people feel that somehow a man being raped is worse than a woman being raped.

The reason I ask is because sure I feel that sexual violence against women is fairly normalised and commonplace entertainment on TV and doesn’t seem to attract the same level of shock and horror. Often the woman is even blamed for putting herself into a dangerous situation.

The rape scene in Scum 45 year's ago was graphic,id never saw anything like it before mind I doubt anyone had.
Regardless of sex rape is a despicable crime.

Lots of women are raped anally too. Lots of women don't feel able to talk to anyone about it too. I think trying to create a hierarchy of victims like that is awful. It reminds me of when people say 'date rape' is less bad than stranger rape.

‘In the case of a man raping a man they may have some degree of empathy as to what it would be like to be the victim and so it seems worse because they know that it could also be done to them.‘

You’re talking bullshit and have no evidence for this. .

The implication of this is that the rape of a young, fertile woman is worse than the rape of a woman who is infertile or post menopausal. Is that really what you believe?

I do think boys aren't warned about it happening to them by their dads, whereas I suspect most mums have spoken about it to their daughters.
Maybe that is what needs to change.
A friend's teen son let himself out in the middle of the night a month ago and was wandering around town oblivious to the dangers. She told him he might have been mugged, whereas I said to her separately that he was lucky he wasn't raped - it hadn't even crossed her mind!

Not sure why my post made you so angry, or why I would need evidence for something so obvious as a man being able to empathise better with another man.

Might be time to take a wee step back from the Internet for the evening.

I'm so sorry that's awful 💐 x

i think all rape is abhorrent and perpetrators found guilty should face face harsher penalties.

do I think wider society sees one worse than the other, yes it's likely. As op has said violence against women is very normalised on tv/films etc.

that said, I was on a jury , albeit a number of years back, for the rape of a male and the judgments my fellow jurors had were the same as if if was a woman, asking for it, why did they go back to the guys house etc

Yes that seems to minimise the rape of anyone who can't conceive, does it include prepubescent little girls?

Yes you’re right.

I imagine we probably don’t know the true numbers due to victims not coming forward also.

Yep. An ex once took offence at how many men id slept with because, quote, "its different for a woman as youre the one getting done"

I find a large amount of men have this view.

Getting done 🤮🤮

Both awful but I think the fact that a woman could be made pregnant by her rapist is an added potential horror for women.

I can’t imagine anyone thinking it’s worse.

This.

Do people perceive rape differently if it's oral v vaginal v anal? Or indeed digital penetration.
I wonder if this is at the crux of what some perceive as 'worst'.

I believe that sexual violence against women is normalised through it's repeated portrayal in books and in TV / Film. I hate it... I see the portrayal of sexual violence against women being used as a form of entertainment whereas sexual violence against men is often designed to shock.

Your poor son.

Anal rape would be horrific no matter if you were a woman or a man.

What, and I cannot stress this enough...the actual fuck?

Are you for real?

Just jiggle that round a bit - being raped is less nasty if you're raped by someone of the sex you are attracted to.

Really?

Rape is rape. It is traumatic, it is horrific, it is devastating.

Frankly it doesn't matter who rapes who (with the exception being that legally a woman cannot rape another woman as she doesn't have a penis, but I'll ignore that as in terms of trauma, its irrelevant), rape is horrific.

I remember watching the episode where Luke got raped in Hollyoaks - in the late 90s perhaps? I'd seen women raped on TV before, The Accused as one example. Countless times really. The Luke rape scenes shocked me far, far more but I couldn't work out why. I was much younger then so obviously my views have changed and evolved and my experiences since have changed me but I remember analysing my thoughts at the time and wondering why I found it so much more shocking, and I think it was more that it shouldn't happen to a man at all. I hadn't yet grasped that rape wasn't about sex. It seemed that man raping man (outside of homosexuality) was wrong because it wasn't sex, it was about power and brute force. It was targeted to cause the maximum horror and humiliation. It was MEANT to be more shocking. I know now of course that men raping women isn't about sex but I didn't then so it felt worse. I think a lot of people still believe rape (the man/woman kind) is purely about sex.

I was indoctrinated to the idea that it was pretty normal or even expected for women - let's not forget it was only as late as the 90s that rape within marriage became illegal. I believe in some countries it is still legal to rape and beat your wife. So in my teens it was already set up in my mind that it was normal, expected and for many people even acceptable that it happened to a woman. I remember being told not to wear such short skirts or look too grown up because it could 'get me into trouble'. My brother was most certainly not told any such thing. I always had this sense that it could be 'my turn' at any point if I weren't careful. My husband or brother have never had a moment's fear that they'll be raped. Beaten up maybe but not raped. Logically they know it's not impossible but girls are brought up knowing it's something they have to guard against, it's their normal. Men generally aren't.

In a conversation with my husband once (years ago) he was shocked when I said in a very matter of fact way that 90% of the women he knows will at some point have been forced/coerced/nagged into doing something sexually against their will. He was horrified but I was so used to the idea that I was very relaxed about it and I stand by it. Not every woman is raped by a stranger but I think most women know what I'm talking about. Have had to push someone away when they're drunkenly trying to shove their tongue down your throat, looking around to see if there's anyone near/trustworthy enough to intervene and help you. Or women who finally give in to their husband nagging them for anal/a threesome/bondage or whatever even though it's not what they want. I look at some of my older male relatives and their fucking sickening misogynistic attitudes, I look at the way they treat their wives in general and can see quite clearly that they would not give a shit about their wives saying no if it was something they decided they wanted. They wouldn't even think it's wrong.

So yes, I do believe society still finds it more shocking when a man is raped. I'm not saying they should but I think it's part of our societal conditioning that women getting raped is just a fairly normal part of life, just as women are the default child carers, usually take on more of the housework etc. In many ways we accept it as our lot. We do all we can to avoid it but for certain women in certain lifestyles it's almost inevitable that it'll happen. I'm not saying it's right or that in reality any kind of rape is more acceptable than another but I think society is rarely surprised when hearing about a man raping a woman. It's still rarer and more surprising to hear about male on male rape. I remember the Hollyoaks storyline a lot more clearly than other TV rapes over the years that were more 'traditional' male raping female. I shouldn't but I do. It had quite a big impact at the time, when men raping women on TV barely raised an eyebrow.

To be clear, I am NOT saying any kind of rape is better or worse than any other. I'm responding to the OP's suggestion that people see it differently or feel differently about it. I believe they do.

The title is "do people believe that male rape is worse than if a woman is raped?"

Not "is", but "do people believe".

That is not in the least setting up a competition: that's a question about what people believe, which I'd suggest is asking "do people react differently about males and females being raped", especially given what is written in the opening post about observed reactions to the graphic depiction on television of a male being raped.

I don't mean to speak for another poster, but my reading of that post isn't so much that the author actually believes any kind of rape is worse, more that she was trying to put forward a different point of view to her son, show him things that he may not have appreciated because his view of male rape would quite naturally have been egocentric. In a way I agree with her - one kind of rape is no better or worse than another but the aftermaths and consequences can be very different.

Of course they do, because sexist, misogynist patriarchy. Heaven forbid bad things should happen to the menz.

I would assert that male rape is a different beast altogether.

With women it's an abhorrent act - i hope we can all agree on that - but it is a facsimile of an act that many have familiarity with.

Male rape has all the same issues of loss of power, physical violence, fear, etc but for most I imagine it's also the first time they've encountered such an act. As many of us know anal is stupid painful and I imagine first time with brute force is horrendous. I also understand that men can get an erection from the stimulation and suffer mentally about their sexuality thereafter and feel intense shame. Added to that must be another shock to their masculinity that they couldn't physically stop it happening whereas we generally dont have such expectations of ourselves.

I suppose i would liken the disparity to the different shock we feel about a women being punched and a man being punched.