When Women Sexually Abuse Men: The Hidden Side of Rape, Stalking, Harassment, and Sexual Assault by Philip W. Cook with Tammy L. Hodo explores the underreported side of human sexual relations. The authors state from the start that their focus is solely on adult women sexually abusing adult men, thus there are no cases involving the statutory rapes of minor boys by women (often reported in the news in cases about female teachers). There is also no discussion about all other forms of domestic abuse (such as wives who slap, assault or mentally abuse their husbands). Cook and Hodo devoted chapters to each item in the subtitle, starting off with rape committed against men. They cited from actual cases and supplied a superabundance of endnotes, which provided plenty of references for their research. The number of rape cases, however, is rare.
I have a problem with accepting that a woman could be guilty of raping a man. There is a branch of feminism, often maligned by being called radical, that dismisses all charges of sex crimes committed by women. I however agree with this branch of feminism. That men might be able to claim rape victimhood is an insult to all women who have been raped by men. It is another example of the menace of men invading women-only spaces. Men calling “Rape!” is a form of oppressive delegitimization of the trauma of rape committed against women. A woman may be guilty of committing an act of sexual assault against a man, but it is not rape. To redefine rape to include men as victims is the equivalent of inviting the lions into the lamb’s den. In spite of the statistics the authors cite, I don’t believe that sexual assault cases against men are as prevalent as they claim. There is no epidemic of female sexual predators using men as punching bags in the bedroom, and it is ridiculous to claim a preponderance of supposed sexual assaults committed by women against men on college campuses. I do not buy the authors’ claim that the reason for an overall decline in male college enrollment is because of a threatening environment of a rape chill. What–men aren’t going to college because they are afraid of being charged for the rapes they intend to commit there?
I come to this book from the school of feminism where individuals take responsibility for their own actions. For example, when gay men cruise for sex, they take the hard knocks and roll with the punches (should there literally be any) if the encounter turns out to be less vanilla than expected. “Well that wasn’t what I was looking for” and the guy moves on, learning his lesson the hard way about what can happen when you pick up strange men in strange places. While no one should be subjected to sexual abuse against his or her will, gay men are more likely to take the bad experience in stride and chalk it up to another of life’s bad decisions. The same attitude should be the domain of men who are assaulted by women. Before you go running to the police about an alleged claim of sexual assault, ask yourself why it happened in the first place. I believe that most men are complicit in their own assaults, that is, often fetishizing a woman’s act of domination as some kind of thrill. Straight men love a woman who takes charge in the bedroom, and a woman who wields a little power or experiments off the vanilla grid is not guilty of assault if the man says or does nothing about it.
But what about getting to the bedroom in the first place? Fine, the woman you chose to have sex with might have surprised you by pegging you with a dildo before you could consent to it or not, but what about women who don’t even give the man a chance to consent to anything in the first place? Are there women who surprise men in dark alleys, forcing sex on them? No. Women who have been charged with the newer reinterpretation of the definition of rape are more likely to have done so within a group, where a mixed-sex crowd might sexually abuse another man. Some degree of inebriation often possesses both parties. In cases such as this the members of the group should be charged with sexual assault and not rape. I draw a line between rape, which often refers to the unwanted vaginal, anal or oral penetration of a woman versus a sexual assault of unwanted genital touching or oral or anal sex against a man. In my opinion, then, a man who is sexually assaulted is not raped and thus has no business calling a rape crisis centre. The last thing a woman staffing the phones at such a centre needs to hear is a man’s voice on the other end. The authors wrote about the abuse some men have received after phoning such crisis centres. Maleness breeds a grandiose sense of entitlement and an innate lack of sensitivity, so it is no wonder men felt it a right of theirs to call. However any man who believes himself to have suffered a rape should leave the rape crisis centres to women alone, unless he wants to face charges of harassment by calling them. No wonder they reported being hung up on.
Cook and Hodo filled their book with one-off examples in case law where a woman forced a man to attain an erection and then to have vaginal intercourse with her, or cases where a group of women overpowered a single man and performed non-consensual sexual acts against his person. There are even a few cases of penile amputation committed by women. All of these cases are not signs of a growing warrior woman mentality against men. They are anomalies that were blown up in the press. The press loves a man-bites-dog story, and sexual assault by women against men is so rare that it is still considered newsworthy. It does not mean that men have to look over their shoulders on evening walks home.
The authors raise the following point about responsibility:
“Another major concern facing male rape victims is society’s belief that men should be able to protect themselves and, therefore, it is somehow their fault that they were raped.”
Exactly. Their fault. Except for the rare occurrences outlined above, a man should be able to extricate himself from any sexual encounter with a woman. Remaining on the scene–without saying or doing anything–conveys consent, and men will always stick around in a sexual situation because that is the male psyche. Men are too sexually focussed to know when things are going wrong in bed. They’re too busy thinking about getting laid to switch to thinking with their brains about getting the hell out of there. A man will stick around in a bad bed situation every time for the happy ending that comes next. Blame for assault could sometimes fall on both parties, but in the sexual dynamics of our times blame should always fall on the shoulders of men first.
The only chapter of merit centred on stalking. Stalking is a growing threat in the digital age and the authors outlined the reasons women stalk men. Unrequited love and revenge for rejection are leading causes that women stalk. Stalking is profiled in all its forms (which can include cyber, in-person, telephone) and those who are stalked are genuinely fearful. Call the police and get a restraining order. Stalking is a form of sexual abuse and is thus covered in this book, and the authors raise a good point about the consequences of false accusations as well:
“Should not false allegations also be considered and condemned as sexual abuse?”
A good point, yes, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it sexual abuse. I would criminalize intentional false accusations nonetheless.
Near the end of the book the authors paint a schmaltzy scenario of male victimhood:
“When it comes to male victims of sexual abuse, it is even worse. We simply have to come to the conclusion even based on the limited data available, that this segment of our population is woefully underserved, unacknowledged, discriminated against, laughed at, demeaned, and diminished. It is, however, a much larger population than most of us would think exists. Even contemplating the serious existence of such a population of heterosexual men, as Dr. George terms it, is the last taboo.
“Researcher Cindy Struckman-Johnson puts it rather succinctly: ‘Our society has no place for the male victim of sexual assault’ and that ‘Our culture’s ignorance of male rape is compounded by the fact that most male victims do not report their experience to the police, health officials, or even to friends and family.'”
Victims of sexual abuse should have recourse for justice. But the way the authors state it makes it seem as if there is a male sexual abuse epidemic. Some statistics they cite–that male sexual abuse by women on college campuses is almost as high as vice versa–seem borderline hysterical.
When Women Sexually Abuse Men was a valuable source for learning about stalking and sexual harassment, the latter of which is on the rise especially as more women attain positions of authority. Yet sexual assault and rape by women against men is a nonstarter, a headline-grabber that shifts the focus from the real predators, who are and will always be men.