Until recently, places like the United States and the United Kingdom had legal definitions of rape that included only women and girls as victims and men and boys as perpetrators . In the United States, in 2012, the FBI finally included both male and female victims in its definition of rape; the original, gender-exclusive definition was “the carnal knowledge of a woman by force and against her will,” including only women as victims. of sexual violence. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay As a result of the change, more men and boys have come forward to the police about their experiences of sexual assault. According to a 2014 Ministry of Justice report, there were 2,164 reported cases of men and boys raped or sexually assaulted in the UK. While the UK government has allocated funding to provide resources for victims, resources are still lacking for many men who are victims of sexual violence around the world. While more research into male rape is conducted and the contexts in which it occurs are made known, stereotypes about male rape victims persist across the media, and some nations even legally deny that men can be victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence. . Lower rape reporting rates are common among male victims due to these stigmas, not only in the US and UK, but also around the world, within the justice system and within societies and their social groups. Injustices remain to be resolved, preventing victims from dealing with their traumas alone. Starting from a young age, society influences children, including boys, in gender socialization. In most societies, masculinity is believed to embody power and dominance, while femininity is thought to embody passivity and submission. Furthermore, boys and men are often portrayed in the media as invulnerable to any physical or emotional threat and are expected to defend themselves. David Lisak, a clinical psychologist, stated that: “We have a cultural blind spot regarding this. We recognize that male children are abused,” Dr. Lisak said, “but then when boys cross some sort of threshold somewhere in adolescence and become what we perceive as men, we no longer want to think about it that way.” When it comes to describing gender-based violence, based on these constructs, the definition is more likely to describe violence against women and girls, thus linking acts of sexual violence only to female victims, not to female victims. male. There is some recognition of this problem, as in 2002 the World Health Organization called neglect of male victims a "significant problem", but women and girls continue to have more resources for the prevention of sexual violence and support services to turn to. While some female-specific advocates argue that gender-neutral terminology will only “cover up” the issue of violence against women, the continuation of this terminology could have negative implications for other cross-cultural groups of which men may be part. Violence against homosexuals and other members of the LGBT community occurs throughout the world, especially in places where homosexuality is considered a criminal act. Homosexual men are raped at higher rates than heterosexual men, and because homosexuality already exposes these mento a greater risk of abuse and victim blaming, caused by the stereotype that homosexual men have a strong sexual desire and “desire” to be raped; in these societies, these victims are less likely to receive medical care or counseling for their rapes. Transgender and intersex people in nations like South Korea suffer similar unrest and struggle resulting from laws that criminalize them for their identity. Ignorance and even denial of male rape victims will remain alive if laws and terminology are no longer gender neutral and anti-LGBT. After rape or sexual assault, both male and female victims suffer trauma in different ways, physically and psychologically. Some shared effects include post-traumatic stress disorder, sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and AIDS, injury to the genital or anal region, nausea, ulcers, eating disorders, depression, sleep disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, anxiety, anger, disorders of the lower self. -esteem, questioning of sexual identity, suicidal tendencies, stigma and sense of guilt for what happened. Male victims are very likely to question their sexual identity and take blame for what happened to themselves. One reason this may happen is because during sexual activity, a man often has an erection or ejaculates, but an erection or ejaculation does not mean he likes it or has consented to it; erections and ejaculation are involuntary processes, yet they have been used to discredit male victims in testimonies. Additionally, erections can also occur during times of fear, anxiety, panic, or pain. In addition to sexuality, men may question their gender or gender roles. A 2005 study found that nearly seventy percent of male sexual assault victims had problems determining their sense of masculinity and long-term periods in which they questioned their sexuality. These sexual dysfunctions and the issue of sexual identity can be long-lasting, and some heterosexual male victims have even begun to have consensual same-sex sexual intercourse after their rape experiences due to uncertainty about their sexual identity. As these effects are overlooked, this can lead to physical and mental consequences that can further endanger the victim. As in the case of rape and sexual violence against female victims, male victims can be raped or assaulted in different contexts, including armed conflict or in prison. , sometimes a combination of the two, but responses to victims, based on sex and gender, contrast markedly. Detention sites are popular locations for rape, not only in war-torn countries like Libya and Syria, but also in nations like El Salvador, Chile, and even the United States. Outside of prison systems, captured soldiers are also at higher risk of being raped or sexually abused by their captors, whereas in a home prison setting, perpetrators are more similar to other inmates. Even when nations that have been at war have established resources to help rape victims, the resources have gone primarily to women and girls with regards to recovery and reproductive health, while in justice systems such as those of Chile, Kenya and Peru, acts of rape against men can instead be classified as physical rape violence, not rape. To further unbalance resources, not all doctors are trained to recognize or treat signs of rape in men. Even in nations.
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