In 2000 a high school football team in Yucca Valley, California was found guilty of participating in a bizarre “hazing” incident. New team players were treated aggressively, shoved, abused, and even anally penetrated with a large stick. Many of the athletes claimed that this hazing was a tradition that helps increase team bonding. Do you think that forcing the new players to submit to anal penetration with a wooden object constitutes rape? Many people did.
Research estimates that 1 out of 6 men have experienced unwanted sexual contact with an older person by the age of 16, and 1 in 4 report sexual victimization in childhood (Finkelhor et al., 1990; Lisak et al., 1996). However, once again, this is probably an underrepresentation of the true incidence, because the rape of men by men is infrequently reported to the police (Hodge & Canter, 1998). The sexual assault of boys is
most commonly performed by older men who are outside of the family structure (e. g., a babysitter, teacher, or mother’s boyfriend; Finkelhor & Browne, 1985; Finkelhor et al.,
1990) . Later in this chapter we will discuss the sexual abuse of male children.
It has been said that the incidence of male rape in the gay community is low because of the greater access to consensual sex in gay bars, bookstores, and the like, and that it is more difficult to overpower another male than a female (Russell, 1984). Some feminists would argue that rape is a misogynist’s (muh-SAH-juh-nist) act of hatred toward women, and that this is why the incidence in the gay community is lower.
Hickson and colleagues (1994) found that in a sample of 930 gay men, close to 30% claimed they had been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. Close to one-third of the victims had been sexual with the perpetrator prior to the sexual assault. The victims reported forced anal and oral sex and masturbation to ejaculation. The most common type of activity in the sexual assault of men by men is anal penetration followed by oral penetration (N. Groth & Burgess, 1980). Getting the victim to ejaculate is important in male rape by men. Many male assailants either masturbate or perform fellatio on the victim to the point of orgasm. The assailant may believe that if the victim has an orgasm, he will be less likely to report the attack or that it proves that the victim really “wanted it.”
As in the case of female rape, male rape is an expression of power, a show of strength and masculinity that uses sex as a weapon. Many victims of male rape question their sexual orientation and feel that the rape makes them less of a “real man.” The risk of suicide in men who have been raped has been found to be higher than in women (Holmes & Slap, 1998). Also, unlike women, some male rape victims may increase their subsequent sexual activity to reaffirm their manhood.