I read a shocking article, headlined ââGrave Sexual Abuseâ: When the Word Rape Doesnât Apply To Boysâ [by Zahara Dawoodbhoy, 21 Sep 2020], about a South Asian nation/culture in which men have been raping boys with impunity. The boys dare not resist or complain.
There, girlsâ vaginal virginity is traditionally/normally verified before an arranged marriage takes place. The âvirginityâ of boys, however, seems to not be an issue, and therefore they cannot be sexually âspoiledâ or considered raped.
The following relevant segment is taken from the extensive article:
⌠âI think there is a myth that it only happens to female children, and that has to do with the cultural aspect of people feeling that rape is a female-related issue,â Sonali Gunasekera, Senior Director of Advocacy at the Family Planning Association (FPA) told Roar Media. âThat is probably why this archaic law is still in place â because thatâs how it was seen from afar.â
Despite this myth, the fact remains that instances where young boys are raped in Sri Lanka are surprisingly frequent. Director of the Child Protection Force, Milani Salpitikorala, says that 90% of her current cases involve young boys, and the idea that the boy child is somehow less susceptible to sexual abuse and rape in this country is completely false.
âOur mindsets are set in a culture of âDonât worry about your child if he is a boy,â but the boy child is as unsafe in the hands of perpetrators as much as the girl child is, if not more,â she said. âŚ
Source website: Roar Media Archive - 'Grave Sexual Abuse': When the Word Rape Doesnât Apply To Boys
Even here in the West, male victims of sexual assault or rape are still more hesitant or unlikely than female victims to report their offenders. They refuse to open up and/or ask for help for fear of being perceived by peers and others as weak or non-masculine.
Men can take care of themselves, and boys are basically little men. One might see some of that mentality reflected in, for example, a New York Times feature story (âShe Was a Big Hit on TikTok. Then a Fan Showed Up With a Gunâ, February 19, 2022).
Written by Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson, the piece at one point states that âInstagram ⌠[has] been accused of causing mental and emotional health problems among teenage female users.â A couple paragraphs down, it is also stated that, âTeen girls have been repeatedly targeted by child predators.â
Why write this when she must have known that teen boys are also targeted by such predators? And if mainstream news-media fail to fully realize this fact in their journalism, why would or should the rest of society?
It could also be the same mindset that may explain why the author of Childhood Disrupted included only one male among her six interviewed subjects, there likely having been such a small pool of ACE-traumatized males willing to formally tell his own story of traumatic childhood adversity, especially that of a sexual nature.
To get anywhere, males need to have the same strong mainstream-media (news, social and entertainment) support that females have had for decades, and still do. Males have instead observed thus known that for the most part they havenât been taken seriously.
It might be yet more evidence of a continuing yet subtle societal take-it-like-a-man attitude, one in which so many men will choose to abstain from âcomplainingâ about their torturous youth, as that is what âreal menâ do.
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