r/MenGetRapedToo Jun 23 '17

Obtaining professional help: a guide for men

56 Upvotes

Nearly everybody -- the victims themselves, therapists and counsellors, and scholars in the field -- agree that good professional help is extremely valuable for men and boys who have undergone sexual violence. Rape and sexual assault are isolating experiences. Speaking with somebody in real life helps to break that isolation. A skilled, sensitive therapist or counsellor can also help you find new perspectives; put what happened into a broader context; and suggest useful strategies for dealing with the aftermath. r/MenGetRapedToo is a strong advocate of guys obtaining good outside help. It makes a big difference.

Unfortunately, good outside help in this area is very hard to find. You're almost certainly going to have to work at it; it's not likely (though it could happen) that you're going to be successful on the very first try. So if you take away nothing else from this post, remember the following Golden Rule:-

It's like dating. Keep at it until you find the right person.

A characteristic pattern can be found in sexually assaulted men's help-seeking behavior. They wait far too long to seek outside assistance, and do so only when they're already in deep crisis. Then they go to see somebody. Often, that somebody isn't the right person for the job. The male victims, disheartened, drop out after a couple of frustrating sessions. But instead of saying to themselves, as women and girls much more typically do, "OK, that was a bust: on to the next candidate on the list," they never seek external help again. Instead they either retreat in upon themselves still further; self-medicate with booze or drugs; or both.

Don't be that guy.

It's unrealistic to expect to be successful first crack out of the box. Go into this prepared for the long haul.

All that said, where might you start looking?

 

RAPE CRISIS CENTERS

In many respects these are the obvious places to approach, in English-speaking countries at any rate. There are a lot of them -- more than 1,300 in the United States; more than a hundred in Great Britain -- and you're not likely to be far away from one. They're free to the client. They do this kind of thing for a living. Most have 24/7 hotlines, so they're easily accessible day and night. Still, for men, RCCs also come with definite structural limitations, and it's important to be aware of these.

The first is access. In a lot of countries it's legal for RCCs to refuse to provide services to male clients. A lot of RCCs in Britain will not deal with men or boys. The same is true of many Canadian ones, and in New Zealand. Of those that do, the services provided are rarely on an equal basis. For example, some RCCs will only take calls from boys under the age of 18. Others will provide telephone counselling only, but not allow men or boys in their offices, which they maintain as women-only spaces. For trans people it's even more complicated. Some will provide services only to FtM people (on the ground that they're chromosomally female); others only to MtF people (on the ground that they're now living as women). Spend some time with the RCC's website -- most of them have one -- to see what their access policies may be. This is preferable to running the risk of being turned away in person, which can be highly traumatizing.

Elsewhere, as in the United States, equalities laws prevent RCCs from discriminating in this way. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're safe spaces for male victims. The RCC sector in the States is overwhelmingly female in composition: around 98% of their personnel. For the majority, male sexual victimization isn't very much on their radar screen, or high on their list of priorities. Very few provide any kind of useful training in this area to their counsellors; in fairness to them, we're unaware of places where such training can be obtained. Their counsellors spend their entire day hearing about barbaric treatment of women by men; it's often psychologically hard for them to switch gears and start thinking of men as victims rather than perpetrators. A lot of halfwitted men like to telephone RCCs, especially late at night, and troll them with abusive or obscene calls -- yes, this really does happen; it's not a feminist myth -- which raises the index of suspicion when a male voice is heard at the other end of the line. And some RCC people do operate out of a very rigid theoretical framework that can result in them "overwriting" men's lived experiences with their own preferred interpretations. This is especially the case when a female perpetrator may be involved.

Are we saying "Don't ever approach an RCC?" Not at all. But these structural limitations do exist, and have real consequences. It's important to be aware of them.

As with most things, detailed reconnaissance helps you to avoid encountering upsetting experiences further down the line. Check out the website very carefully indeed: all of it, not just the section -- if it exists -- about male victims. (If such a section doesn't exist, that indicates something right there.) Look for evidence that the organization in question has given some thought about how to reach out to male clients. Does the RCC have a name suggesting otherwise, e.g. Women Helping Women (Greater Cincinnati) or stock photos of victims that don't include any men or boys? Do the statistical data it provides rely on harmfully narrow definitions, or out-of-date figures about the prevalence of sexual violence against men? Does its list of external resources include useful items suggesting actual awareness of the dynamics of male sexual victimization?

If you have a trusted female relative or friend who is willing to make the first contact with an RCC on your behalf, she may be able to help you find out what kind of services might be available to you, and what experience the organization possesses in working with male clients.

Bear in mind that most RCCs only see clients living within their catchment areas, so that except in the biggest cities, you may not have much of a choice about which to consider.

 

SPECIALIZED AGENCIES FOR MALE VICTIMS

The good news is that these avoid a lot of the structural problems that attend RCCs. The bad news is that they are (i) exceptionally few; and (ii) invariably small-scale organizations. The biggest of them, and in many respects the template for others -- Survivors UK in London -- is criminally underfunded and has a hefty waiting list. Others are little more than one or two activists with an answering machine and a website, living from hand to mouth and all too likely to go abruptly out of business. If you're seeking one of these, expect to click on a lot of dead links.

Still, where they do exist, they're worth checking out. Unlike RCCs, they're less likely to be free to the client -- Mankind in south-east England, for example, charges on a sliding scale. In general, though, you're going to need to be unusually fortunate to have access to one of these services. We do recommend trying. The mere fact that you approached them for help, even if you don't wind up receiving it, is evidence that they can use to prove that the need exists and to press for better funding and resources in the future.

 

COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY COUNSELLING

If you're in third-level education, your institution is likely to have some kind of student counselling service, provided at low or no cost. Some of the smaller schools arrange private practitioners, off campus, to deliver the service; larger ones usually maintain their own staff. Very big universities may even have peer-to-peer student counselling programs.

The advantages here are the facts that the resource will be either on-site or close by, and the cost is probably bundled with the price of tuition. Again, though, access difficulties can exist. If the counselling facility in question deals exclusively with sexual violence -- a good thing -- often it's physically located in the university's women's center. For a man to go there may not cause any problems; at other times or places, the atmosphere may be unwelcoming or even hostile, depending on the campus climate. Either way, though, it may be difficult for him to preserve his incognito. More generally, campus counselling often has long waiting lists, particularly at certain times of the year, around examination period.

Peer counselling can, paradoxically, be the most helpful for male college students who have experienced sexual violence. While the counsellors may not have a great deal of detailed knowledge of how it affects men in particular, their views on the topic may be more intersectional and less rigidly binary than one is apt to encounter at an RCC, and they can also be more empathetic and prepared to listen.

 

PRIVATE-PRACTICE THERAPISTS AND PSYCHIATRISTS

It's important to understand the difference. Psychiatrists are medical doctors; they've been through the same basic training as any other M.D. and can prescribe drugs. For that reason their services are the most expensive, although insurance may pick up all or some of the cost. In many continental European countries, psychiatrists are also psychotherapists: they do "talk therapy" as well as medical intervention. That's much less common in North America, where a psychiatrist will see you about a particular problem but is likely to want to pass you along to someone else.

In most countries the therapeutic field is entirely unregulated. Anyone can hang out a sign pronouncing themselves to be a "therapist" or "counsellor" and start seeing clients. Some subscribe to professional bodies that try to uphold some kind of minimum standards among practitioners, though a lot aren't particularly effective at policing their members. For these reasons, though, the very first thing you ought to talk about when you interview a therapist is about their qualifications and experience. Don't be afraid to pursue this line of inquiry head-on, with follow-up questions if you're not clear on anything. Apart from anything else, it's a useful screening test. No bona fide practitioner will resent such inquiries; quite the opposite. If your proposed therapist is evasive or shows signs of asperity about being asked, that's the reddest of red flags. Thank them politely for their time, and go elsewhere.

Therapists with training in the field of sexual violence aren't very numerous, though they can be found. Hardly any specialize in male sexual victimization. Of those who do, the majority have experience with child sexual assault only, because that's what men are more likely to disclose and the area in which the clinical literature is most highly developed. If you're an ASA (adult sexual assault) person, the best you may be able to hope for is an open-minded practitioner who is willing to learn on the job alongside you.

Your other chief possibility is a trauma therapist. TTs specialize in working with people who have undergone traumatic experiences, which can vary from exposure to combat to being involved in a road traffic accident (and innumerable other things—being an aid worker in a disaster-hit area; being a member of the emergency services, and so forth). They ought to have had some kind of postgraduate qualification in the field, and be working under a supervisor—take the absence of either of these as red flags. Surprisingly, TTs often know less about sexual trauma specifically than one would imagine. But any qualified TT ought to be able to help you at least with symptom management: controlling flashbacks and dissociative episodes; developing grounding techniques; integrating your experience of trauma with your daily routine.

 

ONLINE SUPPORT

For victims in the U.S., an organization called 1 in 6, which has recently extended its remit to male victims of all ages, is now running online support groups for men. These are held in the early evenings EST from Monday to Thursday, and at noon EST on Fridays. We haven't received any feedback on them as yet. But even though face-to-face therapy is always preferable, the online equivalent is a great deal better than nothing. We hope to see many more initiatives like this in the future.

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Finding a professional who can help you -- which in large measure means showing you how to help yourself -- takes work, a lot of it. This is a marathon, not a sprint. The virtues of doggedness, persistence and a refusal to become downhearted or to throw in the towel are what make for success in the end.

No matter who you see -- an RCC counsellor, a college counsellor, a private therapist or some combination thereof -- you need to develop a level of trust with that person if the therapeutic encounter is to do any good. That's not built up in a single session. Give it a fair shot. Expect to be uncomfortable while you're doing it. The earliest stages of any such relationship are the hardest.

But if it's not working out, don't persist with the wrong person. That should be a decision you make in weeks, not months. If you don't feel that you can tell your counsellor or therapist anything without fazing them (even if you know it will take a long time before you can actually do so); if you can't query them on something they've said without their taking offense; if they try to cram your lived experience into their own preferred framework, regardless of what you know to be the case -- those are signs you need to be working with somebody else. Tell them you've decided to make a change. Once again, the analogy with dating applies fairly well. Needless to say, there ought never to be any kind of romantic relationship between you and your therapist. But just as you need to "click" with somebody in your personal life, to be able to speak the same language with them, you need to have a basic level of comfort with a therapist or counsellor also. If it's not there, that may not be their fault or yours. It simply means that, for whatever reason, a sound therapeutic relationship never managed to become established. When that happens, it's time to look elsewhere.

Hang in there. And remember the Golden Rule.


r/MenGetRapedToo Jun 30 '21

The "Good Rape Crisis Center Guide"—updated

82 Upvotes

As many users here will know, rape crisis centers (RCCs) are somewhat problematical for male victims of sexual violence. In some countries (Britain, Canada, New Zealand) it's legal for them not to provide services to men and boys at all, and many or most in those parts of the world exercise that option. Even where that's not the case, though, men's experiences at RCCs can be spotty at best.

In the hope of providing signposts to those RCCs that have a good record of dealing with male clients, we invite our users to give the names of those places that, from their own direct experience, they could recommend to others. If you wish, please write a sentence or two about what makes the place stand out for you. But if you don't want to do that, simply telling us the name is enough.

You ought not to mention the names of individual counsellors, both to protect their privacy and because there's a fair amount of staff turnover in this sector. And you shouldn't add the names of RCCs where you've had a bad experience (these will be removed by the mods). What's most useful to us all right now is knowing where to go, not where to avoid.


r/MenGetRapedToo 1d ago

Taking down my fraternity for finding what happened to me hilarious and exposing it publicly against my will?

32 Upvotes

Happened when I was a teenager. I repressed it. Just like everyone else here it really fucked with me. Tbh it wrecked my life, sending me on a really dark course when I was originally on a path built for a promising successful future. It all got taken from me the night that man did what he did. But I repressed it. I went to uni and joined a fraternity looking for brotherhood, a support system. Turned out to be a snakepit. And when some of them found out what had happened to me when I was a teenager, they found it fucking hilarious, I still hear their laughs, they started cracking jokes about it and sent memes in our frat chat about how I was attracted to the man that ruined my life. I had no other choice but to control the narrative and go public with the truth of what happened to me. And it led to some really fucked situations. I'm talking life threatening situations. I'm now confirmed CPTSD. None of them got punished. I took it to the exec board and they protected the men who made the jokes and exposed my trauma to everyone else, while trying to gaslight me claiming those assholes never did what they did even though I still have screenshot proof. I'm now in talks with the alumni head looking for them to finally be punished and for a proper apology from the fraternity. It's taken some time because a "friend" on the exec team tried to convince me to stick around to make the needed improvements. Yet to no avail. I had to give our pledges consent training in private because the fraternity didn't see the purpose in it. It's years later, the damage still haunts me, and I'm ready to go scorched earth by exposing them to the university's newspaper. Unless they can meet me at my requests of acknowledgement, redemption, and vindication. Which isn't looking promising and it appears they'd rather protect those fuckers that majorly resurfaced the most traumatic moment of my life for nothing more than a laugh. i would ask if I'm right to take the fraternity and all its corruption down. If it's justified for me to expose all the abuse that happens behind those secretive walls they rely on. But I've learned in the 10 years since the initial incident happened to me, Karma doesn't exist, that abusers rely on us to take the high road to keep us silent, and I'm ready to take karma's place.


r/MenGetRapedToo 1d ago

Dating Is Hard

14 Upvotes

When I (23M) was between the ages of 6-12 I was abused by an older cousin. I believe he’s about 7 years older than I am. He would take me into his room and he told me to use my mouth and hands on him until completion.

Back in 2020, I went off to college and I got drunk one night and some guy came to my dorm. I don’t remember every detail because I was so drunk and I could barely stand. I remember him pushing me onto my bed and forcing himself on me after I invited him to my room.

Now that I’m 23 I’m now in a relationship and it’s hard to navigate intimacy. Some days I feel too hypersexual and other days I don’t want to be touched. I’ve talked to my partner about these experiences before but I’m scared that bringing up my trauma too much might ruin my relationship…


r/MenGetRapedToo 4d ago

Disclosure And Victim Blaming In Queer Hook-Up Spaces

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8 Upvotes

I've recently started to process some things that have happened to me over the years, and the best way I've found to process anything is to write. This piece isn't about the acts themselves, but what happened when I disclosed what had happened to people on apps such as Grindr, Scruff, Recon...etc. It references rape myths, victim blaming, traumatic invalidation, and CNC so do skip it if you're not in the right headspace for that.


r/MenGetRapedToo 4d ago

Think I was assaulted as a 17 year old

32 Upvotes

So when i was about 17 (im 34 now) I went clubbing with a bisexual male friend who I hadnt known more than a month. We were quite close and I liked and fully trusted him, but im straight so it was just a friendship to me. While we were out once he forced his tongue down my throat to "check if I was into men" then laughed about it. This fucked me up a bit but I just brushed it off like "men dont get assaulted, be strong".

Anyway a few weeks later we went clubbing again and I went home alone to his house, as he had quite liberal parents who were away. It was like 7am and we hadnt slept, so I went to sleep but he weirdly stayed up and was quite moody and angry when I asked why he wasnt sleeping. He was wandering about the room not really doing much. I went to sleep and woke up not long later feeling like there might have been cum on my face. It felt sticky and dryng. He wasnt in the room. I slept for hours after that and just brushed it off as a dream until a few days ago when I learnt online he had died and the memories came back. I remember sort of thinking "this sucks but if this is the worst hes done its not too bad its just cum", that was my only real memory of the event when I woke up. Im sort of 50/50 whether he came on me, but he defo forced himself on me in the club weeks prior. I feel so shit realising all this again.


r/MenGetRapedToo 6d ago

Does EMDR treatment help?

16 Upvotes

I (21M) dont really want to go into details, its something i dont allow myself to do even mentally. But i didnt have a good childhood iykyk. I have never like talk therapy, i always found it useless. I dont want to feel validated or made to speak about my past or my feelings. But lately i have been considering trying out EMDR treatment to manage my ptsd. It seems to be working for many people and can be supported with empirical evidence so im less harsh in my judgment of it. Yall ever tried this modality of treatment? Was it helpful or nah?


r/MenGetRapedToo 7d ago

Advice to help my husband navigate childhood trauma and SA?

17 Upvotes

My husband (29M) and I (29F) have been together for 10 years. When we started dating at 19, we both lived in the town we grew up in. When I moved away for college he moved with me, and we lived there for 6 years. Almost 3 years ago we decided to move back to the area we grew up in - we needed a change and job prospects were better.

Since we’ve moved back, his mental health has been getting more debilitating. He’s always struggled with depression and negative self image, but there’s a numbness that feels more extreme than it used to be. He also experienced extreme anxiety for a time through episodes of tachycardia and severe panic attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere. He was given medication to help, and the episodes aren’t completely random or out of control anymore. He was also diagnosed with adhd and prescribed adderall, but he doesn’t take it because he’s afraid it’ll spike his anxiety. Now, he just seems so beat down and numb all the time. He hardly ever seems to be enjoying himself, and his social anxiety is worse than ever.

He’s stopped seeing his doctor for med checkups - long story but he lost insurance for this year.

A year or so ago he revealed that he was sexually abused as a young kid. He’s not sure how old - estimates 7 or 8. It was some neighbors boys - one aged 18-20 and one a younger teen. It happened more than once - he’s not sure how much. He’s never shared this with anyone else.

He’s also missing large blocks of memories from his childhood, and his parents have said that he was a very happy kid until a switch flipped around that time and he became more distant. He thinks there is a serious trauma hidden in his repressed memories, and he’s scared of what it could be, because he does remember some really horrible things that happened.

Obviously, he needs professional help to work through something like this. He’s always been very resistant to therapy for himself, while he’s supported and encouraged me seeing a therapist. He tried for a few sessions of Telehealth last year, but he said he didn’t feel like she was making a difference and stopped going.

He’s expressed wanting help talking about these things from me, because he doesn’t know how. I think he struggled with a therapist because talking with a stranger is already so difficult for him. He said it helps if I ask him guiding questions, and to not suggest “getting help” so much because he knows he needs it, but it’s so overwhelming right now. I really struggled to figure out how to do this. I’ve done some research and haven’t found anything truly helpful.

Two weeks ago, we watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower on a whim, not knowing it dealt with childhood sexual abuse. It triggered him and led to him talking about some things. We watched it again last night, and I paid more attention to him and the movie. We had a good conversation after it last night. I had a few guiding questions - basically asking what he related to in the movie, what things feel like, etc. He said he’s blacked out before (the character does this too) - it happened when he was a young teen for sure. The last time it happened was right after we started dating. Each time we’ve watched the movie and talked, he said it felt like a release.

Other things that might be relevant: • He quit drinking about 2 years ago - he was a heavy drinker/borderline alcoholic. I think the sobriety has led to trauma coming to the surface. • I’m suspect that moving back to the area we grew up in could have some deep triggering effect on him? I asked him this, and he said maybe, but he wasn’t sure. He does tend to feel better and more free when we travel, and he did not experience depression and anxiety to this degree when we lived elsewhere. • He has a really hard time with new people and hasn’t made many new friends since high school. He also doesn’t feel a lot of support from the friends he does have - they can have fun together but not much emotional support for smaller things (he’s never tried to breach this stuff with them, but has tried to talk about mental health in general or other issues in his life). • He said he typically does not feel safe with men, and has always felt much more comfortable around women. That said, he said he very rarely feels truly safe, like he doesn’t have to be on edge. He only feels safe with me. • His parents are good people, but don’t know any of this stuff. They were very young and poor when he was born, not compatible in marriage (they divorced a few years ago). We maintain normal relationships with them but not very deep ones.

I’m looking for advice on how to help him navigate this and lead him to professional help. Are there questions I can ask him that help prompt his ease in talking about it? Are there strategies/habits I can help him implement? What do we look for in professional help?

If you’ve been through this from his side and can articulate what kind of help you’d want from a partner, that would help me a lot.


r/MenGetRapedToo 10d ago

Excommunicated by family for addressing childhood sexual abuse

42 Upvotes

When I was 7 and my brother was 9, our live-in French Au Pair Agnes molested us. We were just little boys.

She had us masturbate together and touch each other. She told us about butt stuff and once had my brother try it on me. I scooted away in awkward discomfort before he could actually go in.

This was impossible for me to discuss for nearly thirty years because I felt shame about the continued sexual contact between my brother and me in the years after Agnes left. Since ~1996, my brother has been out of the closet and so it has been a lot to think about being his first experience.

I believe my trauma response to these events (and other crazy aspects of my youth) was to develop a keen memory. I hear about people who have blocked out similar memories and sometimes I get jealous. As I’ve told my mother, I can vividly remember the contours of Agnes’ nipples from when she had my brother and me lick them. This was 35 years ago.

The year we had Agnes with us completely desensitized my brother and me to sex at a premature age. It has had damaging effects for both of us.

In my brother’s case, he started meeting grown 40+ year old men from aol chat rooms at the roof of the Jewel Osco parking lot on Green Bay Road during his middle school years. And as my mother recently told me, he was a gigolo for a long time after that. He has never been married and until now he has had a hard time maintaining romantic relationships.

In my case, I think I can count on one hand the number of times in my life that I have gone more than 12 hours without masturbating. I cannot sustain romantic or sexual interest for more than a few weeks and I seem to get bored the longer abandonment stays off the table. I have probably slept with over 500 women and like my brother, I have never been married. And although I have never sold my body, I do have veteran experience being a John.

We are sensitive to my brother for a few reasons. He had delays growing up and hit a rock bottom in his early twenties as a crystal meth addict and dealer. He is now 20+ years sober and going back to school. The sobriety process has commanded nearly all of my parents’ attention into their sunset years. They are now 82 and 85.

In 2018, though, my brother made a failed move on my parents. He tried to convince them to remove me from their inheritance. I started asking - both out loud and inside to myself - how our brotherhood got to this point.

I realized that 28 years of holding this secret about Agnes and my brother was bearing a weight on my life. Maybe his too, though I could never be sure.

And so I told my parents about Agnes and the years after she left.

Two weeks after telling them, I was so alarmed to learn my brother booked a trip to France and was going to visit Agnes for New Years 2019. My parents told him what I told them and he felt the need to get in contact with her and arrange an in-person reunion. Interesting.

I’m not sure this was Stockholm syndrome; I think my brother is just that reflexive in his need to sit opposite me on any issue. Even in cases when I change my position.

The years since I told my parents about the abuse have been a complete disaster for my family. It turns out this is not nearly the biggest secret involving us. I had no idea about the show I was helping to perform.

In late 2020, I began asking my parents questions about these other secrets. My mother said she’d only answer my questions about the past in therapy. I did not appreciate her setting terms and pressed on with questions. I have not been able to engage her beyond denial before she shuts down to further questions. She has stayed quiet and she is proven to be unfazed by long periods (months / years) of complete alienation.

So I finally took my mother to therapy this March to address the family secrets and try to begin recalibrating her reality of who I am.

It was awful.

At therapy, my mother denied and minimized our abuse. She said that I’ve only alleged that Agnes told us that masturbation is ok. Then she introduced a new untrue story that a later nanny named Brian showed my brother and me a gay porno video tape.

I have been so triggered by my mother since our therapy this March. I can barely stand to hear her voice or see her face. I felt so small from her denial. It brought me back to when I told her my brother was smoking meth before he got in trouble and she shamed me for the allegation. And yet this denial is even worse. She’s gone from denying teenage drug use to denying elementary school sex abuse.

Seems my brother is denying it too, along with my father.

My response to their denial was to ask for Agnes’ email address. I explained that their denial helped prepare me to confront my abuser.

And so now, here we go again. My 44-year old brother blocked my phone number last month.

And then this past Saturday, he blew up my phone from my father’s phone and left me a voicemail informing me that my parents are changing the locks on the house back home and they are also blocking my phone number. This all because I had unkind words for my father about these denial issues earlier on Saturday.

Changing the locks. A “safety” measure in response to someone wanting to discuss tough subjects. I would say that it is funny to see what “safety” means to unsafe people. But it’s just sad.

Sad to know that my parents could not care less if they never see me again before they pass, especially if that means they do not have to face my questions.


r/MenGetRapedToo 10d ago

Hate opening up to people

13 Upvotes

I’ve recently started seeing a girl and i want to tell her about my past but i don’t know when or if i should at all.

TW:Rape when i was around 15 i was with a girl where i was consistently using drugs ( mainly xanax and oxys ) , the first time we had sex i was high and she knew that ( she was sober) at first i was liking it but then i just couldn’t keep going , i would ask to stop and she would keep saying things such as ‘just afew more minutes im close ‘ and ‘we might aswell just finish ‘ when i would ask her to stop even taking it to the point where my penis had gone limp and she would keep going eventually stopping after she had ‘finished ‘ and this was often how our sex would go.

At the time i wasn’t sure if this was rape or not , afew months later we stopped seeing eachother and then i started seeing someone else , one day i remember mentioning the sex me and the other girl used to have and she told me that it was rape . at the time i was still unsure she asked afew people what she thought about the situation and they all agreed , i then started opening up to afew of my friends and talking about the situation which afew of them supported me and agreed that it was rape , on the other hand i would tell friends of mine and then they would say it isn’t rape and i have been stuck in a headspace for years now that im not sure if it is rape or not and i’m now scared to open up to those around me about it .

I’ve recently started seeing someone new after taking a break from dating and ‘hooking up’ for a while and i have real feelings for this person but im so scared of opening up to them and telling them about that past experience as im unsure of how they would react , if they would say it wasnt rape, them thinking that i want attention from it or even them getting scared off cuz of it

if appreciate any advice on this , anyone that’s been through a similar situation and anything along those lines. Thank you guys


r/MenGetRapedToo 12d ago

Sometimes it feels like they made me gay

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9 Upvotes

r/MenGetRapedToo 13d ago

Does it ever go away?

13 Upvotes

It happened several times last January.

I had never had sex before. I was waiting until marriage. She took that from me. I never wanted it before.

Now I get these waves of wanting to bury myself in my weighted blankets and really wanting to have sex. It lasts for several days. It's very distressing.

LE and SVRC have failed me.

I have the most Amazing therapist, but she can only do so much.


r/MenGetRapedToo 14d ago

I got r*ped as a kid and I am afraid it effected my sexuality

42 Upvotes

In short I got raped when I was a kid by my own brother during my sleep and sometimes during the day, I was so young I didn’t understand what’s happening I didn’t even hit puberty yet, for the longest time I suppressed these thoughts and kind of blocked them and lived with him in the same house growing up which is stupid… after I hinted it to my family he stopped he stopped I can remember at least 4 times, idk how i managed to live in the same house but I guess I suppressed my emotions to an extreme level, I then had enough at 20, and I threatened to kill him but stopped, now I am trying to deal with it at 24 because… I’m really afraid I became bi/gay because of it but I feel over all asexual and I am afraid I will never be able to experience love… and I really feel like k*lling him, to just buy a gun, walk there, and defile him


r/MenGetRapedToo 15d ago

Can’t do sensual stuff with boyfriend without my mind going back to an unhealthy mindset.

10 Upvotes

For extra context, I have adhd, autism and aleximythia. My adhd and asd make my emotions more intense and dysregulated . Because of my aleximythia I still don’t fully understand why I’m like this, if this is a trigger or not, etc. I’m just really confused

My brother sexually abused me when I was 9-11 (maybe a bit of me being 12). For the longest time I thought it wasn’t affecting me, but now I face problems with touch, not being in control and superiority. I don’t fully understand all of this as ive only just gotten therapy and I’m starting some of it soon.

My sexual abuse and of how it affects me , means I can’t hug my bf for too long, or even kiss him. It was like I didn’t even know him, he used to be quite a shy and flustered person but when we were hugging and he asked if we wanted to kiss he was oddly very sensual and affectionate and his voice changed and he was in control. It just made my brain see him as a abuser (he isnt though) afterwards I couldn’t help but think “why is he acting like this is normal” when it was normal it’s just my brain can’t help but go to that mindset. Whenever I look at a picture of him I feel resentment, anger. It makes me want to avoid and isolate myself from him, I feel and felt like a small lost child. Like I had no control and I hated feeling so inferior.

It could be because of my queer experience with attraction (I experience a lot of tertiary attraction, and I don’t know what attraction I experience to him so we haven’t labelled our relationship as a certain attraction) that I may not like it. I experience a lot of domestic attraction (or I believe that) so I feel it’s hiding itself as sensual or romantic attraction? I don’t know, all I know is my aleximythia can cause a hard time figuring out my attraction or love in general.

I feel disgusted and I felt violated, even though I said I was fine in the moment I didn’t know I wasn’t fine. During it, and hugging made me wnated to angrily cry out of maybe being overwhelmed or it genuinely was triggering me. I felt trapped and like a feral dog trying to be controlled. After the kiss and him kissing my neck we just acted like best friends again. I’ve never had a serious relationship like this before, all my relationships wss me thinking i liked someone but I didn’t and I was just people pleasing. Relationships are just like being best friends, doing what best friends do but you have a label, and for me I would say I ahve or used to have a attraction to him but it was; we were more than best friends but also less than full on lover. I don’t know anymore. I guess I should be expecting this serious stuff to happen in a relationship, and not expecting it to just be best friends with a label.

This is all I can describe right now. I have told him how I felt (5000+ words) but even then afterwards I can’t help but feel disgusted and looking at him or seeing his message makes me feel feral to a point. I feel guilty and shameful, why did I have to have aleximythia and why did my brother have to abuse me? I can’t even talk about this in therapy as I don’t know when my next appointment is (I have holiday this entire week.) it’s just holding me down, my body feels so heavy with all this guilt and disgust , like a rock on my back as everyone else sees someone who is fine. I told my mum everything is fine now with the situation, and writing it to him did help but I noticed it now very obviously didn’t. I feel like I want to isolate myself from everyone.


r/MenGetRapedToo 19d ago

Irked

27 Upvotes

I lost my virginity freshman year of college. We left a nightclub to party at 6am at a warehouse party . I put a lot of trust in my friend . He left me and I was drugged . Woke up super confused and bleeding . I ubered to the campus hospital . I had ripped pants w no shirt bc they drug me across a gravel parking lot .


r/MenGetRapedToo 20d ago

Happened over 35 years ago and still makes me upset

19 Upvotes

Was abused 35 years ago. Family friend made me suck me and did other stuff to me. I still get flashbacks and get very upset. I think it made me gay or bi but when I do something with a man I feel awful afterwards. Does anyone else experience this type of guilt?


r/MenGetRapedToo 22d ago

When will society finally accept and help male victims of CSA/SA from women or girls?

47 Upvotes

When will society finally understand, that women/girls can be evil?

Also when will some men/boys stop telling victims like me, that they wish, that what we experienced, happened to them and that what we experienced isn't bad at all?

When will lawmakers around the world finally understand, that women/girls can perpetrate CSA/SA on men/boys and people in general?

When will people stop denying the horrific reality of the CSA/SA women/girls perpetrate on men/boys and people in general? Will people ever understand, that victims like me do in fact exist and aren't some rare exceptions?

When will people finally understand, that the CSA/SA women/girls perpetrate on men/boys and people in general does in fact have painful consequences?

When will society finally not tell victims like me, that what happened to us was "motherly love" and that "a mother always knows what's best?"

Will people as a whole one day address this deep crisis or is the situation hopeless, because we as humans suck?

I want to know, if victims like me can ever hope for salvation from the pain society makes us feel.

I'm sick and tired of waiting for salvation and peace! I wish, we would get salvation and peace now!


r/MenGetRapedToo 23d ago

Autistic friend getting taken advantage of

6 Upvotes

My long time friend is 24M, and we live together. He told me he had sex with two people in our apartment complex (separately) and didn't like it. They also recorded it without his consent and are doing who knows what with the recording.

My friend's smart enough to be applying to medical school. He knows what sex is and can consent, but he obviously has a level of disability where he is easy to lie to and take advantage of. Call me overprotective, but I'm suspicious of anyone he gets with like this.

I believe the two people he had sex with are brother and sister, and they're both age 25-30. I talked to them a few times and realized they're both toxic people who want to put everyone else down. They openly do meth and get in loud fights with people in the parking lot at 3AM. This isn't a bad neighborhood or anything where that may be common. They've gotten lots of complaints from other residents and police have arrested the guy sibling twice. The landlord has been "looking into it" for months regarding them. They're very sketchy people I wouldn't want anyone I know associating with.

They came onto my friend separately and kept pestering him into showing his genitals and then pressured him into doing more after he finally gave in. Same story with both of them. And they apparently recorded it. They obviously orchestrated it together because they got kicks from taking advantage of someone with a disability who they could manipulate into going along with it.

I told him that was rape, and he just says nah, he consented and just didn't like it. I'm thinking about confrontating those people or just calling the police.


r/MenGetRapedToo 27d ago

Therapist Said Being Molested 'Makes Sense' For Me

29 Upvotes

Hi, everyone. It's my (32M) first time posting here, but probably won't be my last. I even made a throwaway for the occasion. Before I say anything else, I want to be clear — I don't know I was sexually assaulted. If it *did* happen, it happened when I was young enough to forget or repress the memory. I have no way of proving it happened. I asked my mother, and she denied anything ever happened. Any authority figures who might have (and likely did) intervene to stop it are either dead or senile (Alzheimer's).

But for years, I've suspected I was molested by a woman (most likely either a teacher or another student) when I was in grade school. There are certain inconsistencies and strange emotional reactions I remember having as a young boy. As I've grown up, I've developed several strange sexual interests. I have an interest in older women, muscular women, and being beaten. I used to frequent a certain erotic roleplaying website, where I would always ERP as a young woman in a 'grooming relationship' with an older woman.

My girlfriends also tend to have very specific personalities — cold, almost emotionless but empathetic. I also feel 'safer' when my partner feels less affection for her than I do.

After years of struggling with this, I finally decided to get therapy. During my intake session, I explained all of this to my (potential) therapist, and he said that my issues and background 'make sense' for someone who had experienced sexual assault at a young age.

Like I said, I've often felt this was the case, but hearing it from a professional made me feel like it was no longer just in my head, or something I made up to make sense of my life. I really don't know how to feel about this. I'm scared that I'll never be happy, unless I can find a relationship with a woman who is willing to do CNC, with me as the 'victim' in that RP.

What should I do? How should I feel? Does it even make sense for me to feel like I *was* molested, since I have no way of ever knowing for certain?


r/MenGetRapedToo Jul 23 '25

Abuse and OCD

8 Upvotes

CPTSD and OCD. Emotional contamination, I-CBT and coping skills

This is gonna be long, complex and strange. I want to thank anyone who reads and responds. I’m having a very tough day and a very difficult season.

I was sexually abused for years by my mother and occasionally by another relative.

What affected me just as much or more was the physical, emotional and verbal abuse that was constant — hours of insults weekly (sometimes daily).

I began to develop OCD symptoms around 9 years old, and while I’ve had many different forms, contamination and emotional contamination have been the most long lasting and hardest to fight.

Standard ERP therapy can be re-traumatizing because my mother abused me under the guise of trying to cure me. I was constantly shamed for my OCD compulsions. I was told my behavior was disrespecting life, that I was sinning against god, and most powerfully, that no one will ever love me and that I am a failure. My mother even allowed my bipolar sister to bully me for my OCD because I ‘needed to hear the truth of what others think about me’.

My contamination OCD is strongly associated with this shame. While many with OCD are worried about getting sick or being contaminated — I’m even more afraid of contaminating others, especially those I care for (like my domestic partner).

Im not worried about making them sick or getting sick. It’s disgust that I feel I’m saving them from. I also feel like I’m protecting them from being sexually abused, something even harder to explain.

Since my coping with my sexual abuse involved me cleaning up and later, cleaning anything my abuser touched to protect me from the feeling of their touch — my brain eventually decided that if I don’t clean up after myself others will feel molested and violated by me.

I mean, if a germ was carried from my groin to a person via a bug landing on the toilet and then on our bed, what’s the difference? It feels to me like I could be abusing someone unless I obsessively clean to protect them. I feel terror and guilt when I resist cleaning.

Now, I’m not delusional. I’m aware these are disorders and my thoughts are just my own — still, the intense feelings of shame, guilt and responsibility remain.

I’ve done ERP, then I-CBT for OCD, and now doing DBR and EMDR and trauma work.

I’m trying to focus on values — fighting these urges with contrary values and beliefs. As well as on reality sensing — less ruminating on things unseen, and learning how healthier people (or at least those without this peculiar issue) respond and feel in these situations.

And so, I’m reaching out for some help. It’s summer time and bugs are my biggest trigger. They carry my gems around and make me want to clean for hours and hours.

Does anyone have any values or ideas that help you with your own different issues? How do you feel with bugs (I’m guessing most of y’all don’t have this odd issue and hearing your response can help me learn reality)?


r/MenGetRapedToo Jul 21 '25

SA survivor bf in denial

16 Upvotes

hi, my name is star and i have a bf who was raped and abused multiple times by his ex gf. this was recent as in 2024. he sometimes confuses me as her sometimes and gets angry and defensive. whenever i try telling him it was rape and that it wasn’t his fault he keeps saying it was his fault that he wanted it(he did not). i was wondering how can i support him in the best way possible that does not cause him to lash out? he does not hurt me physically or yell, but he does give silent treatment or is just very dry when trying to talk to. he is so sweet and caring but when he’s struggling he doesn’t voice to me since he feels it’s his fault. what can i do that could help him?