The thing Survivors UK helped me do again and again for my partner was not to try to make him talk about it. Not to look for a solution or a quick fix.
They said it was absolutely paramount to respect what he wanted. Even if want he wanted seemed like the worst thing in the world for the situation.
Looking back, I understand this in a new way. Someone who is raped has therir wishes totally disregarded. Their bodily autonomy is over ridden. Their personhood is disrespected. They are told that their right to bodily integrity and decision making is less important than want another person or person wants. Rape is about power, not sex.
So trying to force it blacjmail or even cajole a rape victim into doing something they don’t want to do, even if it’s “for their own good” is one of the worst things you can do in terms of their recovery. It just perpetuates feelings of powerlessness and disrespect.
They were very clear with me not to broach it with him. Not to try even to drop hints. I once asked if I should do something like leave a magazine lying around with the page open at heir details (I originally found out about them from an article in a magazine). They were absolutely clear that that would be a really bad idea.
It’s a painful thing to grasp, but there is no way to go through this situation without it being awful. It is painful. It is lengthy. It changes soneone’s outlook on life permanently. As soon as you stop struggling with that though it gets easier.
If you don’t mind my saying, going through to hug him with the situation on your mind might have come across as pity to him. Men are socialised differently. What was meant as sympathy or empathy, might have reminded him how powerless he was at the time of the attack. How people who know view him as less of a man. How they don’t believe in him any more. How his decisions aren’t his own. That’s obviously not how you meant it, but it is relatively easy to see how someone struggling with the aftermath of being raped could see it as a slight on his ability or on his manhood.
I wish society didn’t socialise men into that. But it does. Some of the replies on this thread show that men who are raped are often correct in thinking they shouldn’t disclose what has happened to them. That they wouldn’t be believed or that their manhood/personhood will be questioned. Those replies are frankly sickening.
There is a huge amount of stigma around male rape. There is also a huge amount of stigma around female rape. As I get older I truly think that male rape is much more widespread than we think. And I also believe that the people who commit sexual offences bank on both male and female shame and silence. To get away with the hideous acts they commit. Believing and supporting men who are sexually violated is one of the things we can do which will make it more difficult to sexually abuse anyone, man, woman or child. It’s not man vs woman. It’s everyone vs the rapists.
But that doesn't mean forcing people to talk about being raped. It does mean changing the culture round male rape so the survivors don’t feel they will be judged or demeaned.