1. Dagolas

    Dagolas Banned

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    Male rape victim

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Dagolas, Oct 1, 2015.

    Hi everyone. I'm writing a noir story about a man and woman chasing down a criminal. This criminal raped the man and the woman's brother (who he also killed).

    I have no idea how to write in the fact he was raped or the trauma from it!
     
  2. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    *deep breaths*

    Oh boy...

    Er...well, research and caution is to be called for. I...how much of this have you done so far?
     
  3. Nicoel

    Nicoel Senior Member

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    Outlander has painfully descriptive scenes of man on man physical rape, with some psychological torture involved.

    However, since it's more in the last two chapters, you see more mental effects and recovery in the second book, Dragonfly in Amber.

    All written by the lovely Diana Gabaldon.
     
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  4. Australis

    Australis Active Member

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    Good luck. You'll have to overcome a major society taboo for you to succeed. Society celebrates a female victim who gains revenge. A male victim? Not so much.

    Simple exercise. Go through the top sellers of the last ten years. Name all of the female protags who were rape victims. Now try the same for male protags.
    It may or may not surprise you that around 40% of child victims are boys. But for a story, it'll be much easier to sell if the victim was the female.

    But I hope you can defy the taboo.
     
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  5. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Second'd.

    Keep in mind, Dagolas, that societal taboos state that if a man's raped, he's weak because he apparently couldn't use his manly strengths to fight off his attacker. He's weak and shunned for his weakness. Mocked. I imagine this man will likely suffer in silence out of fear of this societal shaming.

    And that's all I'm gonna say about that. Just...good luck. You'll need it.

    *dips back into the water*
     
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  6. Dagolas

    Dagolas Banned

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    He gets drugged with chloroform.

    Don't know if it's clear, I don't want to depict it happening, when the narrative starts it's a year and a half after the incident.
     
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  7. DueNorth

    DueNorth Senior Member

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    Not sure what the question is--are you asking how a man might react to such trauma? There is not just one way, but there is considerable literature on trauma, trauma recovery, male sexual abuse, etc. One literary example that comes to mind about how a man responded to childhood trauma is Pat Conroy's "The Prince of Tides." However, sounds like you are asking about how a grown man would respond. Depends largely on his psychological makeup before the rape.
     
  8. Inks

    Inks Senior Member

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    Note: Chloroform doesn't work like it does in the movies - it is a major dramatic myth. It would take about five minutes to take effect.
     
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  9. Ben414

    Ben414 Contributor Contributor

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    This is not true, and, as someone who works with Child Protective Services everyday, I strongly resent this misinformation because ignoring gender disparities results in weaker prevention and response strategies.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2015
  10. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    What is not true?
     
  11. Ben414

    Ben414 Contributor Contributor

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    That 40% of child sexual abuse victims are male.
     
  12. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Do you have any figures on the financial aid available to males? From my understanding there's none.
     
  13. Ben414

    Ben414 Contributor Contributor

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    I'm not sure what you mean by financial aid. There are many services that could potentially be given to the victim and/or family for free from the government--but the vast majority of them do not include giving money directly to the victim and/or family. I'm not aware of any gender differences among therapy/counseling, psychotropic medication, the many forms of independent living services, career/education services, mentorship services, or the many forms of family support services. The only potential area I can think of as a possible difference would be social support groups for child victims of sexual assault that are run by nonprofits funded in large part through government grants, but (1) I'm not sure if there is an unbalanced proportion there; and (2) There are more pressing issues in the area of child sexual abuse prevention and response systems that need more attention. Even male child sexual abuse victims would be better served through systemic improvements that would benefit all victims.
     
  14. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    The only example I have is 601 abused women shelters in Canada and no abused men shelters. This looks unbalanced to me but I don't do math for a living.
     
  15. Ben414

    Ben414 Contributor Contributor

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    I was explicitly talking about child sexual abuse victims; women's shelters are designed for adults. In those cases, though, we would need to bring up sexual abuse statistics, where men are much, much less likely to be victims than women (especially when you take away prisons since shelters are not usable by this population). Frankly, though, I don't have enough in-depth knowledge of the services specifically available to adult sexual assault victims to be able to have an informed opinion on the matter.
     
  16. Australis

    Australis Active Member

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    Sources:
    Sorry, the Aust gov removed their info.
    http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/9/A/6/%7B9A6BF515-76DF-4A03-940F-913610809387%7Dtandi429_002.pdf

    But Bravehearts has a catalog
    http://www.bravehearts.org.au/files/Facts%20and%20Stats_updated141212.pdf

    Most of the various studies have results between 30% & 45%.
    But who gives a stuff what the exact percentage is. It's a problem for both genders, and when people pour on the hate against one set of victims, saying that they're not likely to be victims, then these people do a lot of damage.

    It's no wonder boys don't report the abuse when they're not likely to be believed.
     
  17. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Actually when a woman uses a shelter she can and does also take her children. When a female partner abuses a man, he tends not to leave as he then has no way of protecting his children.


    I am not following why you wish to now change to sexual abuse. Men get sexually abused by women, so whether it's one percent or 40%, it still needs support and aid.
     
  18. Ben414

    Ben414 Contributor Contributor

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    The 1993 study they cited showed 1 in 3 for girls and 1 in 6 for boys by the time they're 18. That would be 33% male. The 1997 Padayachi study they cited showed about a 25% for males and 75% for females. Johnston and Saenz found that girls were 2-3 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than males. I'm not going to comb through all of the stats dump they cite, but what I'm seeing is more 70/30 and not 45/55.

    My information is much more recent, and we have gotten better at identifying child sexual abuse (the paper mentions this). The difference between 75/25 and 55/45 is incredibly significant, and the 2015 numbers that I pull directly from official US statewide databases show much closer to a 80/20 split than 45/55. More recent studies show a 80/20 split (Sedlack, et. al., 2010). The US Children's Bureau shows a 80/20 split. Your strawman argument only proves my point further that you don't know what you're talking about except that you can use google and pull up a report. Unless you can actually speak eloquently about why pointing objective statistics on child abuse discourages boys to not report abuse? If so, I'm willing to hear because it's part of my job to understand these things and I'd be happy to be further educated in the area by someone with as strong of a background in this area as you.

    Yes, I understand this. I'm not sure what argument you're making, though. That there are men and children who could benefit from a men's shelter? I agree. The issue is not whether it could help; it's the cost-benefit analysis of how much it helps versus expenditures elsewhere. Either way, I don't care to have this argument.

    I never switched to child sexual abuse. I responded directly to a claim about child sexual abuse, and then you responded to me. If you want to talk about something else, then it is you who is switching the subject. As I discussed earlier, I'm not denying that men and boys get sexually abused. Nor am I denying that spending money would help these issues. The argument should be a cost-benefit analysis as to what we should do about it, not a dogmatic-fueled fight. As I've said, I don't care to have this argument.
     
  19. Australis

    Australis Active Member

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    Internationally, epidemiological studies estimate prevalence rates of 7 to 36 per cent for females and 3 to 29 per cent for males. (Finkelhor, 1994)
    That's between 30% & 45%

    But honestly I don't care what the exact percentage is. But I can tell you, people who go on hate trips against victims before they're not the "correct" gender, do a lot of damage.
    Is no wonder that boys don't tend to report abuse when there's such hate.
     
  20. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    You are strongly resenting that some random poster on some random website might have his stats slightly wrong and wish to champion the cause against ignoring gender disparity because weaker prevention and response.

    It's pointed out to you that this very same dissemination of misinformation has led to a massive gender disparity in terms of prevention and response in a related area and you ... think a cost: benefit analysis should be done before 1 men's shelter is built to match the 601 women's shelters. Despite parity in DV. You don't want to have this argument. No comment. No GAF. Nothing.

    Gotcha.
     
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  21. Ben414

    Ben414 Contributor Contributor

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    So to sum up:

    1) You cite a study from 1994 after I've already said we've improved upon our ability to estimate these statistics and after I've already posted studies from current information.
    2) You also claim you don't care about the exact percentage, even though you continue to post old studies to counter my argument that show newer and more comprehensive studies with around a 80/20 split.
    3) You make a generalization under the argument that I'm 'hating against victims' without anything to back it up. To counter this ridiculously stupid argument, I would say you're hating against female victims by downplaying how often they're victims and even claiming that you don't care how often they're victims.

    You're doing a bang up job. Other posters around here can tell you that I normally keep a cool head. But when people make such ridiculously uninformed claims against me saying that I'm 'hating' against victims of sexual assault, I'm going to call out your bullshit.

    You don't seem to be getting that my talk about cost-benefit analysis was my way of saying, "I'm not going to comment on this." AND even after I pointed it out to you before, you somehow still don't seem to be getting that my comment was in response to child sexual abuse. I'll say this again: I never wanted to debate men's shelters. YOU are the one that brought that up. Bringing up cost-benefit anaylsis as the approach we should take instead of dogmatic-fuelded shitstorm =/= saying we should or shouldn't build a men's shelter. Argue with someone if you so vehemently want to push for male equality. I'm not being facetious on that prior sentence; I'm not saying you're wrong or right about men's shelters because I don't care to have that argument.
     
  22. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Look up the word, "trigger". Different things can make you remember experiences and react accordingly. Like for eg: touch the back of his neck, or saying something softly near his ear can make him jump up out of his seat or any other physical or emotional reaction.

    Just an example.
     
  23. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Oh I understood. I am now expressing my complete and utter astonishment at the disparity between your reaction to potentially incorrect stats and the definitive lack of care for abused men in Canadian society. When I learnt these facts I was astounded / shocked / outraged. I had one SJW here call me privileged for mentioning it but whatever you know?
     
  24. Ben414

    Ben414 Contributor Contributor

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    Ah, yes, the argument "If you don't do x to help out in y area, then you clearly don't really care about people." Tell me: how much do you do about preventing child sexual abuse? How much do you do about preventing poverty? About preventing malaria? About preventing global warming? About preventing indigenous populations from losing their land around the globe? About the refugee crisis in Europe? About the maltreatment of the elderly in residential living? About preventing drunk driving-caused deaths? Oh, you don't do care to research and write me an essay for all of those areas and thousands more? Sorry, you're a monster.

    Me, I only work in an area that actually helps thousands of victims of child abuse--including males. For example, did you know it's tougher for boys to be adopted than girls? Clearly I wouldn't help adoption agencies with this issue because I don't care about males. Don't worry: you go ahead and take the high road.
     
  25. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Ah yes the old, "Person said X so I'll imply he said Y and rubbish it". I think it's called a strawman.

    I said nothing about doing X to help out in area Y. I just drew a distinction between your reaction regarding potentially incorrect statistics and your lack of reaction when learning facts of the gender bias in abuse shelters in Canada. That's it. Dafuq malaria has to do with anything I have no idea but as a programmer, I'd suggest I steer clear of attempting to provide medical assistance to anyone who wishes to live.
     

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