Reports of rape against men double in Manchester

Originally posted on May 8, 2015

According to the Greater Manchester Police, the rate of reports of male rape doubled in the last year:

Since April 2014, men have been victims of 84 incidents of rape or attempted rape, compared to 35 in the previous 12 months.

Sexual assaults on men have also risen, from 69 to 93 in the same periods.

GMP and Survivors Manchester, a group that helps men who have been raped or sexually abused, have launched a poster campaign aimed at men who have been the victims of rape, urging them to come forward and break the silence.

While the overall reported numbers are low and likely unrepresentative of the actual rate of sexual violence against men and boys, the increase in reporting shows that the problem is greater than people assume.

Few male military sexual assault victims come forward

Posted on December 10, 2014

Male victims of sexual violence remain a largely hidden in society. While the media gives more attention to the issue of male victimization than before, many men and boys continue to remain silent. This is particularly true of men in the military.

Despite representing the majority of rape victims, assaulted men are significantly less likely to seek help or report their assaults:

According to an anonymous survey released last week by the Pentagon, nearly 1 percent of males in the U.S. military said they had experienced unwanted sexual contact, compared to 4.3 percent of women. That equates to about 10,500 men and 8,500 women. Yet only 14 percent of assaults reported last year involved male victims.

Afraid to be seen as victims or as weak or gay, men in the hyper-masculine military culture often don’t feel comfortable reaching out for help or reporting sexual assaults. Over the past year, though, the services have increased efforts to reach out to male victims, urging them to come forward so they can receive treatment and so officials can go after perpetrators.

Bulletin Board v222

Athens event aims to raise awareness of male childhood sexual abuse — To help spread awareness about childhood sexual abuse suffered by men, The Cottage Sexual Assault and Children’s Advocacy Center will host its inaugural 1BlueString event Friday at Nuci’s Space. During the awareness event, guests will here acoustic sets from local musicians and guitarists who have switched out the low E string on their guitars with a blue string as a show of solidarity with the victims.

Barbara Kay: ‘Rape culture’ fanatics don’t know what a culture is — In today’s edition of the Post, there is a very thoughtful and serious discussion of whether the phenomena of “rape culture” even exists. It will no doubt receive the usual stream of invective — accusations of trivializing rape, denying that sexual assaults occur, implying that women who drank too much deserved to be raped. Hardly real criticisms in any intellectual sense, but they will come.

College Men Aren’t Closet Rapists — I don’t know which talking point from this administration is more insulting: the myth that discrimination keeps women from achieving parity with men, or the claim that male rapists lurk on every campus corner waiting to pounce on innocent, unsuspecting young women. The latter assertion is particularly dangerous. Not only does it lack substance, it serves to broaden the chasm that already exists between women and men.