The Star Observer last week reported that a man was sexually assaulted while attending a sex-on-premises venue, political speak for sauna, in Melbourne.
Police say a male victim was held down in a private room and was sexuality assaulted by two men on September 25.
The scary part for me was that I had a similar experience recently when visiting a sauna in Brisbane.
I had met with a guy with a bigger and more muscular build than me, and we were having what seemed to be a good time. Sure, he was a little rougher than normal but I was rolling with it as it was nothing I felt I could not handle.
At one point he said he wanted to fuck me and threw me onto my back. I explained to him that it had been a very long time since I had been fucked so to go slow and we鈥檒l see how it goes. I put the condom on him and tried my best to relax.
On penetration it was rather painful, too painful. It seemed the guy I was with was not understanding the pained face I was pulling. I said, 鈥淣o, this is too painful. Let鈥檚 stop.鈥�
At this point he pushed in deeper and just grinned.
I said, 鈥淪top鈥� again and tried to push him away. He was not moving and made no attempt to withdraw. This was when the fear stuck.
It was gut-wrenching. I had all sorts of images going through my mind, not sure what to do, and then it hit me that if he wasn鈥檛 going to move, I would. I was able to slide back on the bed to get away from him.
Thankfully he still had the condom on, one of the biggest fears in my head. I was able to get up, call the guy a fucking asshole and leave the room.
What pissed me off the most was that he stood there in the shower telling me that I should have fought back harder and he would have let me fuck him.
I was white-hot angry. I wanted to smash his teeth in. I don鈥檛 even think he understood that what he had done constituted rape.
Statistics from the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault report that in 2005 alone there were more than 900 sexual assaults on men reported to the police. However, reporting of male sexual assault is considered low for a number of reasons.
Male rape victims are increasingly likely to be represented among sexual assault survivors, who as adults feel more able to disclose incidents that occurred to them as children.
Approximately 70 percent of the male victims represented in the 1992 national survey were assaulted before the age of 17, most commonly by family members or other adult male acquaintances. Almost half (47.4 percent) of the male respondents had, prior to the survey, never disclosed their abuse to anyone.
While men describe similar disincentives to reporting sexual assault, there are other factors that have historically worked against any serious public or legal recognition of the sexual victimisation of men and boys.
For example, prior to 1980 in Victoria, the offence of rape was gender-specific 鈥� men could only be the perpetrators of rape, not the victims.
Further, before the last decade, most studies examining the prevalence of sexual violence have tended to focus almost exclusively on women鈥檚 experiences.
Any public recognition of the extent to which men and boys experience sexual violence has therefore been minimal. Moreover, male victims have themselves been hesitant to disclose their experiences for fear of being labelled future perpetrators or homosexual, or because they fear being treated as social outcasts, liars or as emotionally weak.
However, in recent years there has been an increasing awareness of sexual violence crossing gender boundaries.
The Victorian Law Reform Commission鈥檚 Interim Report (2003) indicated that just over one-fifth of reports of penetrative offences such as incest and other sexual assaults against children were made by male victims over the past eight years.
Some counsellor/advocates from the Centres Against Sexual Assault also suggested that men were accessing their services in greater numbers than they had in the past and relating experiences of both childhood and adult sexual assault.
The reality is that male-on-male rape does occur, probably more than we care to admit. Most frightening for me is the thought that it can happen at a sauna, a place I had always thought to be safe, where people relax and enjoy time with other guys.
If you find yourself in a situation you are not comfortable with, the highest priority is to get out as fast as possible without harm to yourself.
In a sex-on-premises venue creating noise, screaming to get other people鈥檚 attention can scare the person enough so they will stop what they are doing and give you a chance to get away. Don鈥檛 ever feel afraid to kick, punch or bite to buy time to get away.
The idea is not to cause harm but to create a diversion to allow you to escape. As a police friend of mine says, 鈥渟tun and separate鈥�. Do a quick unexpected act of force that stops the assailant briefly and then get the hell out.
If you have been through an episode of sexual assault it can be a very scary and confusing time. Thankfully each state in Australia has a group you can contact.
These services are a great place to start as they are able to offer phone advice, counselling and guidance if you have been the victim of an assault, feel uncomfortable about a sexual encounter or would like an ear to talk about possible issues.
For a list of services, click
By DR GEORGE FORGAN-SMITH
General Practitioner
An excerpt from
Thank you for this article. It is true, whether it is a male, female, intersex or trans victim, that for the perpetrator it is about power over another and a sense of entitlement to another’s body.
as a trans-woman i understand rape very well, been the victim many times over but i wish people in the GLBTIQ community and woman or men or anyone in fact did not have to experience this horrible trauma. xo
I was the victim of a gang rape, 16 years ago. 3 men, who were in fact escaped prisoners, grabbed me on the beach at Surfers Paradise and proceeded to attack me violently. One or more of them was both HIV & Hep C positive, leaving me infected with both diseases. now, the emotional scars left me long ago, as a gay man I accept it for what it was; a violent crime but the physical damage remains. All 3 men were caught, convicted and sentenced to 14 years so they are now out and back in the community.