“99% of r*pists are men!” You’ll hear again, and again, and again, as it is drummed into our brains repeatedly, and relentlessly; to be chewed upon, to be held accountable for, and accepted, without rebuke. I’m sure those who make this assertion would prefer we didn’t enquire further into such a claim; for to do so, is to reveal the erasure of many millions of men and boys, who buck this trend, and whose traumatic experiences of sexual violence, at the hands of women, have been quietly sidelined, and shamefully defined out of academia, for years. Yes, it is in many ways true that ’99% of r*pists are men’. But that is only because the gendered definition of ‘r*pist’, in many countries (be it by law, policy, or within academia) only includes those with a penis. Simply put – if you haven’t got a penis, you are not a r*pist. If a woman forces herself upon a man, who is drunk, asleep, or otherwise unable to consent, that is not ‘r*pe’. If a woman uses a weapon, or coerces, threatens, or blackmails a man into sex, that is not ‘r*pe’. If a woman uses physical force to sleep with a boy, that is not ‘r*pe’. Instead, it is clumsily categorised elsewhere, as ‘made to penetrate’, with the one in nine American men who will experience this in their lifetime, sidelined, overlooked, and indeed, forgotten about, through the claim of ’99% of r*pists are men’. So what would a complete picture look like, if we moved beyond these antiquated, gendered definitions of sexual violence? What if we changed the system, and said, any act of non-consenting sex, by either sex, should be considered ‘r*pe’? What would a complete picture, high in resolution, nuanced in its breakdown, free of political ideology, and inclusive in its aims, look like? Well, let me show you what they don’t want you to see… ~ CDC Images by Codioful, Magic Pattern, and Andrej Lisakov #mensmentalhealth #malesuicideawareness #malesuicide

2025-02-17