A disturbing trend continues in the media today. Last night in Montana a woman allegedly raped a man at machete-point. Only one article I could find uses the word "rape." The rest use terms like "forced sex on," "forced him to have sex," and the like. They seem to show no such delicacy when a woman is raped. In fact, at the time of this writing, if you google the phrase "man was raped," the top news results are mostly stories about a man raping a woman.
Now, last time I checked, there is a word we use in america to describe the act of forced sexual intercourse, and that word is rape. Legally speaking, not in Montana, of course. They evidently don't have rape - the law on their books that would seem to apply here is "aggravated sexual intercourse without consent," but bear in mind that I'm a Virginia lawyer and not getting paid to research Montana law.
I'd like to think that news outlets were being responsible with their use of words, but the news media isn't exactly known for that sort of thing in the dark future of 2018. Also, this is a trend. Our society shies away from saying that a man was raped, and I don't know why. I mean, we do the same thing with children. We say kids are "abused," which is a pretty fucking broad term that covers all manner of shit, including rape.
Men can be raped. Kids can be raped. It's an ugly word. But it's an honest one.
There is broad discussion in America today about changing male behavior. That we have a real problem with toxic masculinity. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I hate that term, and I want to expound on my perspective a little. The problem as I see it is that we use the phrase in two different ways.
One of the ways is to imply that all masculine behavior is toxic. This is a misappropriation of the term, certainly. But a prevalent one. And one that I think doesn't really do any of us any favors. It's okay for behaviors to be generally masculine or feminine. And I'm using behaviors in the... I guess psychological? sense of the word. I'm not talking about activities, I mean behaviors. Fighting is an activity. Aggression is a behavior.
The other use of the term, and the appropriate one, is to point out ways in which society has directed the development of the individual male subconscious in a way that is harmful, and this is important, to the man in question.
"Well that's not a very feminist thing to say!" you might gasp in outrage.
Not exactly. Because toxic masculinity isn't about, and shouldn't be about women. Discussions around toxic masculinity serve a feminist purpose because having healthier, more mentally and emotionally healthy men should reduce the disproportionate amount of violence women suffer at the hands, and bats, and guns of men.
Back to the rape thing. One of the ways that I think society is doing the American male a disservice is the "stiff upper lip" thing. Men are supposed to be strong, driven, and powerful. We aren't really provided with a lot of examples of emotionally healthy dudes that think it's okay to cry if you need to.
Now, I'd bet a lot of this is related to reproduction, because (let's face it) a lot of what we do is related to reproductive success. Maybe guys that don't cry have less to cry about and so they are more attractive. I don't know, but I just spent the last twenty minutes on google scholar grabbing articles and book chapters to read. But that isn't the point.
The point is that however we got to here, we are dealing with men that have a tendency towards stoicism. If that's societal, well, we need to change it, and if it's biological... well, our whole civilization is built around minimizing how our biological impulses interfere with our ability to work communally. So it needs to be addressed now, one way or another.
Biological impulses. They rest at the heart of this. Self-control is a limited resource, and there are probably tons of folks out there with stories of how someone just sort of snapped and started acting crazy. Everyone can only control themselves so much, and the trigger to violence can be the most insignificant thing. There is a reason "the straw that broke the camel's back" is a phrase.
You have a limited reservoir of internal strength. So there is no sense in wasting it on shit you don't have to control. And now we can finally get back to the guy that was raped.
One of the steps we can take on this path of a more healthy, stable man is to allow them to be victims when they have been attacked. Instead of dancing around the issue, go at it head on. Because it is horrible that it happened, but it is okay that it happened. They aren't less of a man because they were raped.
This isn't just about rape. It's about the idea that it is somehow wrong for a man to be a victim. And this is disastrous, because we are all victims at some points in our lives. None of us are truly in control, and life has a way of reminding us of that.
And by letting it be okay to be a victim, maybe we can make it okay to cry. And to heal.