I bet it’s almost half. I bet the rape statistics are wrong. RAINN reports that women are raped at a rate of 1 in 6 and and men at a rate of 1 in 33 in their lifetimes. I think the rape rate for both sexes is much higher. It may be more like 1 in 3 for women and maybe 1 in 8 for men. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if rape rates for both sexes is almost equal. Am I out of line? Maybe I am, but then again, maybe I’m not. You know how they are – I mean men, of course.

Take it to the grave. Never tell. Stand tall. Be tough.

 

Maybe that’s why they [men] get so angry with women when women tell on them. After all, they kept their own rapes a secret. Why can’t we women keep our rapes a secret?  That would make it all fair at least.

There’s something else. It’s that – well –  that rape isn’t about sex. People always get this wrong. Rape is about power. It’s about being stronger, richer, more popular, smarter, or more whatever-er. It’s not because the rapist is attracted to you. I mean what they are attracted to is your vulnerability not your beauty. It’s not Oh I think you’re so beautiful, I think I’ll rape you. And it’s not I think you’re so handsome, I think I’ll rape you. Some people think that. They’re wrong but they don’t know they’re wrong. They think they’ve got it goin’ on. They think they understand.

I think it might be those two things. Silence, Take it to the grave, and power. Those are the issues. Maybe anyway because there is no way of knowing for sure. It’s just a feeling in my gut. Unless everyone tells the absolute gods-given truth, unless everyone reports their rapes, how can we possibly know.

And girls and women get raped by men who want power over them, by men who want to prove to themselves that they are real men and some men rape because they were raped themselves. It’s a real mess!

Attitudes may be changing. I’m hopeful. I’ve noticed recent breaks in the wall of silence surrounding male rape. The biggest and latest is the Manchester Rapist sentencing. It’s difficult to find a word sufficiently

Reynhard Sinaga

over the top to describe this case. Reynhard Sinaga, a 36-year-old Indonesian student, described by a woman friend as someone who “thought of himself as ‘a bit of a Peter Pan’” seemed to be a gentle and kind man.  The woman said he looked younger than his age and acted it, that he was “narcissistic and somewhat naive to everything”. Sinaga played the part of a good Samaritan in order to gain the confidence of his preferred type – an athletic, heterosexual, and preferably young man. If a young man needed a place to sleep off a bender or charge his cell phone, Sinaga was there, ready to help. It was so easy for him. Once he had his victim in his lair, he would offer him a drink and lace it with GHB. He filmed most of the rapes on his cell phone. Sinaga is being called the most prolific rapist Great Britain has ever had.

“Reynhard Sinaga is thought by police to have abused at least 195 men over two and a half years.” 

That’s at least 195 men – some sources put the figure even higher. The most loathsome aspect of this case is that no one talked – no one reported it – for years – no one. For two years Sinaga raped a new victim almost nightly. Some of the boys, forgive me, I think of them as boys, didn’t know they were raped. They thought they had a bad night, a really bad hangover. Some of them were surprised when police came to notify them. Some of them knew it happened somewhere deep within themselves but had blocked it – had gone into denial. One boy was lucky. He came to – woke up in the middle of his rape and ran for help. When police checked Sinaga’s apartment, they found Sinaga’s cell phone and hundreds of rape videos. It’s lucky that the one boy got away. Many, hundreds that police know about, did not get away. If the police hadn’t investigated the one boy’s rape, if they hadn’t gone to Sinaga’s apartment, Sinaga would still be out there on the Manchester night scene, raping young men. This secret almost went to the grave.

Almost certainly some of the boys will have triggers in their future lives. How can they possibly deal with the triggers if they can’t remember the event causing it? All of these boys must now deal with the denial, anger, shame and trauma of having been raped. Worst of all he was a little guy – Sinaga is 5’ 7” with a soft voice. He was probably a good bit weaker and smaller than most of his victims. Men think they would fight in a rape situation but how can they fight if they are unconscious.

Following the media coverage of the Sinaga sentencing trial, a new voice has came forward. Sam Thompson from Nottinghamshire talked to media about his rape in Manchester in 2016. Sam identifies as a heterosexual but, get this, he felt the police didn’t believe him. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? They asked him non-essential questions. They asked him if had ever cheated on his girlfriend and if he had had homosexual sex in the past? I’ve got a question for the police. What does Sam’s faithfulness or sexual preference have to do with his choice not to have sex with two men that night? Sam agrees. Maybe the Sinaga case and Sam Thompson coming forward will be an impetus to more men to share their rapes. I keep saying this. Society can reform itself. I honestly think it wants to reform. Male on male rape has been an invisible crime up until now. Let’s bring it out of the shadows.

This is the last case in this post. “Callum Hancock was 10 years old when he was raped by a longstanding bully in a den in his back garden. ‘They made it sound like a game, they said it’s like smoking, something you do when you’re older, that if you tell your parents you’ll be in trouble.’” Hancock now works with male rape victims. He wants to end the silence, to get the problem out in the open where something can be done about it.

The same article talks about the silence that has alway existed surrounding male rape. On an average it takes three decades before men deal with their rapes. The CEO of a male survivor’s helpline in the UK, Safeline, said that after Sinaga’s trial, their calls increased by 5,000%. One survivor, “a 93-year-old phoned to talk for the first time about being abused as a six-year-old.” That’s a long time to wait to talk about a crime.

For the US, the national hotline for sexual assault is operated by RAINN and is 800.656.4673. There is also the 1in6 chatline for men but I found it a bit of a hassle. Try it for what it is worth.

Male rape is not an unusual occurrence. Lots of boys are raped and it doesn’t mean that they are homosexual, heterosexual, bi-sexual, or any other kind of sexual. Callum didn’t have a choice. In addition, he may have gone into tonic immobility. Sam Thompson and probably many of Sinaga’s victims also may have gone into tonic immobility. Tonic immobility is “a fear-based state of rigid paralysis, which can render one mute as well.”  It’s something that happens to us when we’re scared to death. It happens often to women when they are raped but it happens to men too. It’s a natural human response.

We shouldn’t wait until someone has suffered 30 years of trauma and PTSD. Don’t let men and boys take their secrets to the grave. We need to do something to help them a lot sooner.