Men — Silent victims of rape

But there are women, though it is rare and seldom in the news, who sexually abuse or forcibly indulge in sexual intercourse with men.
Such incidents are on the rise in our society but most of them almost go unnoticed and unreported, mainly because the traditional-patriarchal society that we live in still has difficulties in admitting that men can also be victims of rape.

The mere discussion of the thorny issue is seen as absurd if not taboo but that does not make the fact that men can also be victims of sexual abuse go away. On the contrary failure to acknowledge it entrenches the problem and makes the perpetrators of sexual violence against men bolder and more daring.

It is this phenomenon that saw the courageous decision a month ago by a 26-year-old man, believed to be a policeman, to file a report that he was raped by three women, being greeted with amusement instead of grave concerns and hysteria because he belongs to the so-called stronger sex.
This incident is not the first to be taken lightly and frowned upon as some time ago two women forced a 44-year-old man to be intimate with them while another man stood guard at Bhachi Farm along the Harare-Chirundu Road.

The two women and their male accomplice had offered the man a lift to Karoi from Westgate in Harare in their silver Toyota Ipsum. They ordered him to wear a condom and forced him to be intimate with both of them.

In another incident, a 30-year-old Mwenezi man was drugged by three unknown women and forced to be intimate with two of them at gunpoint along the Masvingo-Ngundu Road. In February, a 25-year-old Masvingo man was, at gunpoint, forced to be intimate with four women who had offered him a lift along the Harare-Masvingo Road.
The four women had offered the man a lift to Gweru from Masvingo when the incident occurred. Way back in November last year, three women kidnapped an 18-year-old Chitungwiza man and forced him to be intimate with one of them in Harare.

Experts on African tradition and culture have been quick to say that the prowling women commit these sexual acts for ritual purposes, but the rationale for the novel crime is a discussion which we will have another day. The question that begs an answer is whether it’s possible and practical that a man can be raped.

The argument pursued when these rare and somewhat bizarre rape incidents came to the fore was and still is that if a man does not want to have sex it is impossible to force him. They said that it is impossible for a man to be raped because his anatomy gives him special protection as he would not get an erection necessary for penetration.
Many say that the attainment of an erection is a sign that the man wanted to have sex, but some experts on sex discard this standpoint and argue that panic, along with the fear of being harmed, does not necessarily rule out sexual arousal but may even increase it in some cases.

It is such arguments which saw the current constitution referring to the raping of men as indecent assault, which carries a lesser sentence than rape. But the dictionary definition of rape is the commission of unlawful sexual intercourse or unlawful sexual intrusion.

Mr Thomas Sibanda, a lawyer in the city of Bulawayo said the constitution of Zimbabwe was retrogressive on rape as it still defined rape as the unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman against her will. In a nutshell, a woman cannot be convicted of rape but only of indecent assault.

“The current constitution is backward in many ways and it is this backwardness that has seen the nation deciding to have a new constitution. The new constitution makers must make sure that the legal definition of rape is changed because men can be raped too. Sexual offences by women against men should be addressed as a matter of urgency.
“Any vagueness in the law should be deleted and corrected. Rape is about power and self-importance, not sex. It is not a reserve of a certain gender. If an adult female forces a man to have sex with her or uses physical, emotional or any other sort of force to make a man have sex with her, it is rape. Let’s not sugar coat it or call it by any other name,” said Mr Sibanda.
Bulawayo Metropolitan Province Police spokesperson, Inspector Mandlenkosi Moyo, said that there is a thin line between indecent assault and rape and as such, they do not differentiate between the two during investigations.

“Our duty as police is to investigate and arrest perpetrators of crimes. To us rape and indecent assault are the same they only differ in terminology. We leave the determination of such cases to the courts, which have the sole privilege to decide the appropriate sentencing,” Inspector Moyo said.

Mr Sibanda also shredded the assumption by many that most men spend their time thinking about women, desire and enjoy being raped by the so called weaker sex.
“This unfounded argument has been used by women with ill-intentions to rationalise sexual violence against men but it has no basis in fact. It only makes them free and uninhibited to unleash themselves on helpless men who do not receive full protection from the law, police and courts. Women who rape men know that the law is limited when it comes to the raping of men. They take comfort in the fact that if caught they can get away with a light sentence. At the end of the day it’s the victim that loses and we must ask ourselves in all seriousness who really is on trial here?”
Even society itself applies the law selectively. It is widely viewed as a transition to adulthood, an initiation per se when an underage boy sleeps with an older woman but it is seen as rape when an older man sleeps with an underage girl.

A survey revealed that the majority believe that it is impossible for a man to be raped if he is unwilling. To them it is not feasible for a woman to pressure a man to have unwanted sex.
“If you don’t want to sleep with a woman you don’t get an erection, an erection is a sign that you want to. Anyway how does a woman rape a man? It is not possible. No one will convince me otherwise,” said Mr Pardon Dube who resides in the Bulawayo city centre.

Mr Thabani Ndlovu of Tshabalala high density suburb was in step with Mr Dube’s perspective as he argued that rape only befalls a woman.
“The only people who get raped are women. If a man tells you that he was raped, he needs to have his head examined. How can you get raped by a woman, it’s not practically possible. Maybe underage children can get raped, not adults. It’s unheard of and even if it was possible, reporting the crime is embarrassing.”

Such sentiments, though men may deny it, are an effort to save face and to maintain the domineering reputation that men have and desire to continuously assert over women. They claim that women do not have the strength to restrain a man long enough to rape him, and they argue that if a man experiences an erotic response to sexual assault it is a sign that he consented.
Miss Abigail Phiri believes that the debate whether man can be rape has failed to be successfully concluded because another debate of whether rape is a sexual crime or a violent crime is still raging.
“The terminology that is making rounds is that rape by a woman is an assault. If a woman forces a man to have sex with her it’s sexual assault even if she uses other means outside the use of violence. She will get away with a light punishment because the crime will not be seen as rape.

“But personally I believe that a man can be raped. It’s an interesting situation because if you take it seriously for a moment, you will learn something important. Saying that you can’t rape a man is an outdated, cowardly and obvious response.

“It’s like saying that a woman is asking for it when she gets raped, as far as I’m concerned,” said Miss Phiri who revealed that she is an accountant.
The debate of whether man can be raped or not has been argued in and outside court since the days of yore and no debater no matter how persuasive has ever emerged victorious.
What is clear is that even if efforts to amend the law are made to protect men from predatory women, it will remain difficult for anyone including a prosecutor to convince a judge that a woman is capable of rape.

Society’s pre-conceived notions about gender roles camouflage the factual truth that a man can just be as much a victim of rape as a woman. Men are seen as untouchable and invincible while women as the weaker gender. But the facts on the ground have proved that that pre-conceived concept has no basis as some men have been and are being sexually violated by some marauding members of the female folk.

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