Men don’t have it easy when it comes to sexual assault and rape – especially by women. Society would rather forget us. It likes to think that if men don’t enjoy being raped or assaulted by women they must be gay. Of course, by this ‘logic’, women who don’t enjoy being raped or assaulted by men are lesbians. But we can all see that as the BS it is. We don’t accuse people who hate being robbed of not being generous. We don’t make apologies for the robber and say we should be glad to help them out. And sexual assault is a lot like being robbed. It’s invasive. Often cruel. And it is very much unwanted.
Being touched that way is a deep violation. You don’t get to pick your rapist, or your sexual assaulter. Not only is the assault unwanted, it may be from a gender you do not want to be intimate with. Many men have stories like this. And you don’t have to be gay to be touched by a woman you don’t want to touch you. Or a man. Even if the person is attractive to you, that doesn’t give them rights over your body. Being gay or unattracted to the person simply makes the whole thing way worse. Of course, when the victim is a woman we all magically understand this. However, since he is often not a woman we need to talk about it. Here is the story of one such man, taken directly from the r/MensRights Reddit sub. However, there are many more just like it….
(Edited for publication by Men Are Human Staff, and posted with the writer’s permission.)
Becoming Her ‘Gay Boyfriend’
“I felt it finally time to share what brought me here (to r/MensRights) in the first place. I am a 30 year old gay male who’s professional background is in a female dominated performing art form. Due to being gay, and surrounded constantly by mostly heterosexual women, I have a very unique set of experiences that I feel many straight or even bi men may not have had.
The fetishization of gay men by straight women takes so many forms, but can be easily exemplified by the common micro aggression we all know – “The good ones are always gay.” This comment alone implies that your sexuality is an inconvenience to them and their objectification of you and it drives me crazy. I have heard this countless times along with having had every part of my anatomy grabbed, groped or talked about in front of my face or behind my back, in a perfect display of double standards.
In my experience, the most dangerous and underhanded form this fetishization takes is the construct of the, “gay boyfriend.” Essentially turning you into a surrogate partner and depending on the woman, it can quickly turn toxic.
Sexual Assault While Drunk
In my case I had a “best friend,” I met on my competition team in college. I was team captain and I felt she was drawn to the influence I had and that I was well liked. She quickly love bombed me and turned me into her “gay bf.” She was extremely overly clingy to the point it worried my family. Always hugging me and trying to constantly hold my hand in public. I had a boyfriend at the time and they hated each other. She always tried to one up him on everything and was super possessive of my free time. She introduced me to drinking and drugs because I had been a pretty straight laced guy before. Over time her flirty behavior escalated and I told her it made me uncomfortable. Nothing changed and she just got more aggressive.
One night we were drinking over at a friends house and she was pushing me to get really messed up. That was the first time I ever blacked out. I woke up the next day shirtless with most of my clothes off with her arms wrapped around me. She told me I got sick and blacked out and she took care of me. I didn’t really question it and thanked her for taking care of me (Stick a pin in this it comes back later).
Cornered In The Pool
Fast forward a little bit and I invited her to my families home to spend some time together over the summer. One night we smoked some weed (note that we did not drink and both have high weed tolerance so we were just giggly but practically sober) and decided to go swimming. We are swimming in the pool and splashing and being silly when all of a sudden the mood shifted and she started acting weird.
She got extra handsy and it got to the point I physically swam away from her because I didn’t like how she was grabbing at my trunks. She cornered me against the pool stairs and had me trapped between the pool wall and the railing to get out. Now is a good time to note that she is a big strong girl around 250 lbs and I’m tall and thin around 160 lbs so in terms of size she has me blocked and I can’t get away.
This Is Attempted Rape
At this point she comes in really close and gets “that look,” on her face. That look someone gets before they lean in to kiss you but in a dominate and controlling way. I pulled away and dodged her kiss. I tried to play it off as a joke and said I was done swimming.
She then wrapped her legs around my waist, grabbed both my wrists pinning me against the pool wall. She then tries to kiss me again as she squeezes my waist with her thighs and tries to rub herself on my crotch. At this point I’m horrified at the turn of events and the last thing I want is to continue being anywhere close to her. With as much strength as I could muster I shoved her off of me and got out of the pool and we didn’t talk much until she went home the next day.
Aftermath Of The Assault
The next day I confide in a mutual female friend, and she immediately doesn’t believe me. She tells me I must have misinterpreted signals or was paranoid. I felt really disgusted by what happened. I felt like I had been lied to and groomed for 2+ years in hopes for her to one day shoot her shot. I felt so stupid to entertain all of her ‘fake boyfriend’ nonsense, so I felt I brought it all on myself. After the pool incident she quickly jumped into her first relationship since we had become friends and we grew apart.
A few months ago I attended a wedding with the same friend I confided in the day after the assault. I went back to an Airbnb with her and another friend and we got on the topic of my crazy ex best friend. I ended up getting emotional and retold my story. This time that same friend who ignored me before was staring with her mouth open and my other friend was at a loss for words. They then tell me that the same awful ex friend had drunkenly bragged about molesting me and playing with my genitals once after I had blacked out. They had forgotten about it until I retold my story and suddenly that black out incident made much more sense and I got sick to my stomach.
Depression, Isolation, and Alcohol
I began to spiral knowing I let myself be in a situation that led to me being taken advantage of like that. I started drinking to try to forget about not only the sexual assaults but all the other abuse she put me through including verbal put downs, emotional manipulation and social isolation.
Eventually I drunkenly posted on r/alcoholism about my experience. What followed when I woke up nearly broke me. I received tons of messages and upvoted comments telling me to get over it. That nothing happened and I was blowing it out of proportion. I deleted my original post but one comment saw all the BS I was getting and pointed me this direction. I have been lurking ever since.
We Need r/MensRights
This forum is important because men deserve to be believed too. We need a space to share experiences like mine with other men and be heard not belittled or made to feel like less of a man because of it, or told women have it worse so suck it up. I have since worked on my drinking and gotten a hold of it. I cut that ex friend out of my life, and I am an outspoken advocate that men do in fact have needs, especially emotional ones, that are not being helped by society. The existence of Men’s rights doesn’t negate women’s rights. It simply asserts that both face gender issues that need resolution. Men need spaces to share about these inequities and painful circumstances.
Lastly, it needs to be accepted by society that neither gender that is good or bad. There are good and bad people of all shapes and forms. I don’t blame all women for what happened to me, but I blame the state of feminism now for further dividing men and women by targeting any space men have for emotional or painful discourse surrounding issues they face. No one deserves to be assaulted and there is no perfect victim or perpetrator.”
Thank You For Reading
If we treated sexual assault against men the way we treat assault of women, she would be in prison. And that’s regardless of the sexuality of the victim. If he had been female, he would have been listened to and believed by everyone. He may still have sank into depression, but he would have at least had a support network to help him. But, because he is male, he was far more isolated. And that left him vulnerable to her, and her multiple attacks.
We hope you will help share this story, and the many others on this site, to raise awareness.
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This kind of behavior highlights the mentality a lot of women (and people in general) have, that a man doesn’t need to consent. Everyone knows that a woman needs to consent to sexual activity, and a man who forces himself onto a woman without consent is seen as a creepy rapist. But people tend to take for granted that men any kind of sexual contact from women
Even when it comes to gay guys. People say that women like having gay male friends because women feel more safe/comfortable around men who aren’t trying to get in their pants. But no one considers the other way around: gay men aren’t always safe around straight women. People act like women never sexually abuse gay men; or that even if they do, gay guys–while they may not like it–won’t be bothered by it either
Usually the excuse I hear is “men don’t feel threatened by women,” so it’s seen as okay if she sexually harasses him because she’s supposedly “not a serious threat”. The problem with this is that:
women certainly can be a threat to men. She can be bigger than him (like in this case). He can be unconscious, in which case any strength advantage is moot (also like in this case). She can threaten with weapons, blackmail with false accusations, manipulate emotionally if they’re “friends” or dating
even if there is no threat, it is still a violating and disgusting thing to experience. Something doesn’t have to be physically violent or dangerous to be abusive
Very well said.