Fred, your comments are great:
Men do not have a monopoly on sociopathy and narcissism – the lack of empathy for victims.
This crime is probably under reported because it is extremely humiliating for a man to come forward about a crime like this committed against him. The idea is that women, being physically weaker, who rape a man not only violate his personhood, but destroy his sense of being a man. Other men are likely to laugh at him, or mock him for complaining about the free goodies. It’s just sick and sordid.
Exactly. On one hand, we have feminists who want to keep rape marked off as their own special preserve and on the other, men who are incredulous that a 19 year old male wouldn’t jump on any skirt that came his way.
Like “Mike,” I did a very foolish thing when I was 19. I went to a frat party, drank too much and woke up from a stupor to find some strange guy on top of me. He was blind drunk too, but not so drunk he couldn’t keep his erection. I’m thankful that his frat buddies didn’t get ideas. I’m also thankful I didn’t get pregnant or catch any diseases.
I didn’t report it. (This occurred back in the mid ’70′s.) I was raised on a farm. The family style was stoicism; you took your lumps and moved on. Not only boys are raised to be tough. Also, I mainly blamed myself for being so stupid as to get drunk at a frat house among people I didn’t know well.
About 6 months after the rape, I overheard my attacker regaling his friends with tales of last weekend’s conquest at a table near mine in the Student Union. I don’t think he saw me, but if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. I doubt he remembered me. Well, Frat Boy was telling his buddies that he had been so smashed the previous Friday night he hadn’t realized the “chick” he had picked up was “coyote-ugly.” Man, was she hot stuff in the sack, though! I had to restrain myself from turning and hurling my can of Tab straight at his face. I’m really sorry now, that I didn’t do something. You have no idea how the thought of that jerk getting off scot free (and going on to do the same to other women) bothers me when I think about it.
Some of these comments sound exactly like something Frat Boy would say. Stick it in, anyplace, anytime – when opportunity knocks, “a real man” doesn’t back down.
I’d like to think that the good and decent men in my life might have some qualms about having sex with a drunken 19 year old who is 6 months pregnant. But then the good and decent men in my life don’t see women as notches in the bedpost.
