8/16/2019 Male Rape Information Sheet
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MALE RAPE INFORMATION SHEET: CONTRASTING DOMINANT
STEREOTYPES Tabulated by
T. Hasan Johnson, Ph.D.
Information on male rape is fairly recent because rape has
always been defined as something only women experience. Nowthat the
definition of rape encapsulates males, the findings have severely
challenged the prevailing feminist notion that rapeis a product of
a rape culture that only focuses on females, but rather
highlights that men and women merely have different
methods for sexually violating each other and themselves.
1. 2.78 million men in the U.S. have been victims of
sexual assault or rape. (1998)1
2. From 1930-2012, “the FBI defined forcible rape,
for data collecting purposes, as “ the carnal knowledge of a
female forcibly and
against her will .” Eventually localities began to rebel
against that limited gender -bound definition; in 2010 Chicago
reported86,767 cases of rape but used its own broader definition,
so the FBI left out the Chicago stats. Finally, in 2012, the
FBIrevised its definition and focused on penetration, with no
mention of female (or force).”2 (Although helpful, this
definitionstill ignores “made to penetrate” situations for males
–see below).
3. “A recent analysis of BJS [Bureau of Justice
Statistics] data, for example, turned up that 46 percent of male
victims reported
a female perpetrator.” (Ibid.)
4. 1 out of every 4 Black men and Black women
have experienced rape, physical violence, and stalking by an
intimate partner ina lifetime (2010).3
5. In a survey by Stemple and Meyer, “Women were more
likely to be abused by fellow female inmates, and men by
guards, and many of those guards were female (Ibid.).”
6. For example, of juveniles reporting staff sexual
misconduct, 89 percent were boys reporting abuse by a female
staffmember . In total, inmates reported an astronomical
900,000 incidents of sexual abuse.” (Ibid.)
7. “…Centers for Disease Control invented a category of
sexual violence called “being made to penetrate.” This
definition
includes victims [male & female] who were forced to
penetrate someone else with their own body parts [or foreign
item], eitherby physical force or coercion, or when the victim
was drunk or high or otherwise unable to consent. When those cases
weretaken into account, the rates of nonconsensual sexual contact
basically equalized, with 1.270 million women and 1.267million men
claiming to be victims of sexual violence.”4 “…both 1.1
percent in 2010, and 1.7 and 1.6 respectively in
2011.” 5
8. “…CDC finding: that women rape men as often as men rape
women.” (Ibid.)
9. “The CDC also reports that men account for over a third
of those experiencing another form of sexual violence—“sexual
coercion.” That was defined as being pressured into sexual
activity by psychological means: lies or false promises, threats
toend a relationship or spread negative gossip, or “making repeated
requests” for sex and expressing unhappiness at beingturned down.”
(Ibid.)
10. “…as criminologists Richard Felson and Patrick Cundiff
report in a fascinating recent analysis, a 15-year-old male
isconsiderably more likely to be sexually assaulted than a woman
over 40. (Ibid.)
11. “The CDC reports that 12.3 percent of female
victims were 10 or younger at the time of their first
completed rapevictimization; for male victims, that number is 27.8
percent.” (Ibid.)
When you add up “made to penetrate” cases, rape by the
newer FBI definition, and prison sexualassault/rape statistics, men
(statistically Black men especially) experience rape at much higher
rates thanwomen annually.
1 .2 3 ; p. 3.4 .5 .
