Nobody likes being physically abused or sexual assaulted – regardless of gender. My own experiences of this, as a gay male, are mainly groping. A disgusting man in a bar once grabbed my backside and got in my face, giggling at me and muttering incoherently. I’ve also had guys try to ‘neg’ me into sex by mocking me, then daring me to ‘prove them wrong’. I have also been stalked by a fantasist who became angry when he realised I was dating somebody else – and started gaslighting me even more than he had been.
I’m not even counting things that many women would – like the touch on my knee of an older man asking me out (I declined), or people using more unwanted touching to bully me in secondary school. (That’s middle school and high school to the Americans reading)
All of these things made me realise a few things most don’t – and one of those is how much of a bubble you can end up living in. I don’t believe that all sexual assault is gay men going after other men – but it’s the only kind I’ve really been exposed to. Like many others, I could assume that my experience is absolute and omnipresent – but it isn’t. Women abuse men. Men abuse men. Men abuse women. Women abuse women. And so on.
Unfortunately, our society and media ignores about half to three quarters of that – focusing almost entirely on the women’s perspective, and occasionally that of young boys. Even then, they are prone to saying the boy children are ‘seduced’ instead of raped – even when they were sedated with date-rape drugs.
The Problem Is Staring Us Right In The Face – And We Can’t Even See It
Abuse is something that men and boys have just been trained to put up with – from both men and women. Not only that, but we have been fooled into thinking that what we receive is not abuse because of our gender. It was monumentally difficult for me to write and come to terms with the things that have happened to me – even my brain wants me to discount each and every example. We also have very little recourse – not even the police want to believe us, most of the time. We have almost no representation in #MeToo, and female abusers have every excuse made for them. Males feel alone in what they have experienced. But Men Are Human intends to change that. It Is Time For Men To say #MeToo One of this site’s key duties is to unite all male victims of abuse – regardless of who they are. The louder we shout, the more they will hear us. So let me be clear: these are our stories. They are stories that, in some cases, are utterly dehumanising. As always, I have corrected minor spelling errors but I have not otherwise altered them in any way. In all of these examples, I want you to try something new: imagine how you would react if this was happening to a girl.These are their stories:
It’s Not Just Women Who Are Sexually Assaulted
“I have 2 previous experiences of sexual assault. One was a man on man and the other was a woman on man. My first experience, I was 10. My mom was working fulltime and it was summer off of school. She had hired a mid 20 year old, obese woman to watch over us. She was very sketchy, had tattoos, an old, janky car, and would smoke in front of me. One day, I was playing outside and I began getting bit by several ants after falling into an ant mound. She told me to take a cold shower to help get the ants off which I did so I stripped and got in the shower. After, she offered to towel me off so I got out and she dried me off with the towel when she dropped it on the floor. She then ran her hands all over me and then grabbed my penis shaft and cupped my scrotum. Before I could say anything, she ran out of the bathroom. I feared telling my mom because times were stressful and my dad lived over an hour away and I rarely ever saw him thanks to joint custody. My mom fired her a year later and got another babysitter. For a long time, I blamed it on me because I accepted letting her dry me off with the towel. Thankfully, I came out of that phase and learned to hate her instead. The 2nd time was last year when I was 17. I was an intern in a company to learn about my dream job. One of the older guys was a volunteer, I would guess he was 65. One day, I was going about my usual tasks when he grabbed my crotch and quickly ran off, laughing. I excused myself and went outside, crying. My boss took me home but he refused to do anything legally about it. At the end of the day, it’s not the boss’ fault and I’d rather have his reputation ruined instead of him in jail. I realized from both of these situations, while justice is a must, we will all face our true judgement day when we leave this life and I know I am happier seeing the both of them burn and suffer in hell for eternity than behind bars with free meals, free room and board, and free air conditioning that comes out of my own tax dollars.” – Anonymous RedditorI Am A Man And Got Sexually Harassed
“Yesterday I was at a amusement park. When i was standing in the line with my girlfriend and my friend and waiting to for the ride, two girls (stood) infront of me. After we had been standing in the line for like 2 minutes one of the girls started starring at me for like a minute and turn around. She did that over and over again for over 20 minutes.
After the 20 minutes her friend started taking pictures of me and my girlfriend, then we jumped on the ride and after it was finished, we was going to another ride and the girls went behind us. After like 2 minutes the girl that was starring grab my ass, I am not even joking. Like who does she think she is.
Girls always talks about sexual harassment and they say it only happens too them like are you joking with me. I got so fucking frustrating after the incident so I went home. What do you think about it?” – Anonymous Redditor
Sexual Harassment From A Female Boss
“We recently got on a new manager at my company. She is a very nice person but whenever she comes over to talk to my coworker (female) and myself (male) she somehow always steers the conversation into the topic of rape and sexual harassment and quite often goes on tirades about the #metoo movement and all the times she been sexually harassed.
However, today she had me in her office twice to talk about some paperwork. During our conversation she was watching a movie on her phone and specifically called me in while a sex scene was showing. On more than one occasion she has commented on my body (she’s married and pregnant) and never says anything when the other women in the office (I work with all women over the age of 30) comment about my body and even talk about my crotch (one was talking about giving me an erection the other day). I find it funny the hypocrisy of the whole thing.” – Anonymous Redditor
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