Male Rape: Breaking the Silence

If I had seen someone like me with a similar story,

telling it in their own words,

I know it would have helped me,

and I just think the more of us there are saying this happened

and it's real, the easier it is for people to rebuild their lives.

I suppose, as a man,

you don't ever think that you can be someone that's going to experience

sexual assault or rape,

which is something I, kind of, didn't even really consider,

because I didn't think it would ever happen to me.

It's a hard thing to come to terms with for anyone.

Why is that happening and no-one talks about it?

Why can't you talk about it?

-Hey.

-Hi, darling. How are you?

-I'm good.

-Good to see you.

Sophie is my friend from university -

one of my, kind of, best friends.

I didn't know you for the first year.

Yeah, it was second year.

Second year was when we met.

-We got in so much trouble!

-HE LAUGHS

And we had so much fun together.

There was one particular girl who I quite liked,

and I thought she looked cute, and so I started dancing with her.

And things, you know...

I was like, "Oh, she seems nice,

"and she seems interested.

"I might be on to a winner. I'll tell Sophie to go home."

And then she whispers in my ear, "You know I'm gay, right?"

-And I kind of went...

-And just...

-HE SIGHS

"Have you met my friend?"

Literally, "Have you met my friend?"

Sophie was, kind of, the one who was there consistently afterwards.

You know, she saw me, one week, two weeks, five weeks, six months later,

and so she really knows what that time was like.

I can't remember what my first impressions were.

We hadn't met before at all.

We'd, kind of, talked that day.

I remember there were lots of little life things that we had in common.

We danced a little bit at the bar,

and kissed a little bit, I think.

He was staying with a friend of his,

and he asked me if I wanted to go back to his friend's house.

And I was like, "There is absolutely no reason for this to end.

"I find this person really attractive."

So we went back.

At that point, I was totally down to have sex.

The problem came when he started wanting to have unprotected sex,

which is not something that I would do with someone

outside of a relationship,

and he, kind of,

really didn't care about that.

He did this really weird thing of saying that

what he was doing was fine,

that, "OK, we're not going to do this,"

and still doing it.

Almost as if he tried to convince me that, you know,

what he was doing to me wasn't happening,

that I would just, kind of,

not notice it.

And I kept... And there came a point where I just, kind of, froze.

I think I just tried to make it all seem like I was fine.

Erm...

I really remember thinking that if I started making a fuss,

that he would...

I just... I really didn't want to do that,

I just wanted to get out of there.

I wanted it to seem like that hadn't happened.

And on some level I think I was trying to convince myself

that I was fine with what had happened

because then I could just go home and have a shower,

and write it off as something...

something that was OK.

But that only...

That lasted probably until I got out onto the street,

and then I more or less just collapsed up against some railings,

and started trying to call people to come and help me.

I came to yours and I was just pretty much destroyed inside.

Erm...

I am, like, 90% sure that if I hadn't had somewhere to go,

I'd have just picked a form of public transportation

and put myself under it.

I hear people all the time say, especially men,

"Oh, if someone tried to do that to me, I would do X, Y, Z,

"and I would punch them in the whatever."

And it's like,

they have no idea what they're talking about because it's not...

It's not the part of your brain that decides stuff

that is in the driving seat when that's happening.

There used to be a pub there, actually, the Bull.

Erm, it's actually where I lost my virginity.

Like, behind the pub, not in the pub.

She didn't go to my school, she went to another school,

but there's also a youth club round there,

and she'd come to the youth club.

and we got pissed one night,

and, yeah, the magic happened over a barrel behind the pub.

Proper romantic!

Well, yeah, so, everybody would get pissed in the pub and that,

and then there'd usually be a house party going on.

And then, obviously, for me,

I wanted to go into the gay village and stuff like that,

but, because I wasn't ready to tell the people that I was

knocking about with that I was gay,

it was always kind of sneaking off on my own, do you know what I mean?

It kind of started off good, like,

it wasn't like I was going back to somewhere and being like,

"I don't want to have sex," do you know what I mean?

I did.

And we'd, kind of, been kissing a little bit before,

but then it, kind of, changed.

Like, he started doing more sniff, and I didn't want to do sniff,

any more sniff.

And he started to become, like, a little bit, kind of, aggressive.

Cos he was physically bigger than me,

so he started criticising that I was small,

calling me a skinny little faggot, and stuff like that.

I just thought he was being a complete dick, like,

and I just thought, "I'll get my stuff and I'll be gone."

And that's when, you know, um, it, kind of,

came out of my control.

I, kind of, got my T-shirt, went to put it on, went to turn around,

and he smacked me on the back of the head.

I said to him, "What the fuck are you doing?"

And then he, kind of, grabbed my mouth,

like, against the wall.

I don't think I tried to fight back at that stage.

I think...

I think I was trying to figure out what was happening.

I think I probably went a little bit into shock.

And then I was on the bed, and, yeah, he raped me then.

And I had...

I remember I had my arm up against my back

and that was, kind of, the pain that I was...

That's the pain that was going through my head, my arm.

I just wanted to get my arm back down, do you know what I mean?

And then, when it was finished,

I threw up and apologised for throwing up...

..repeatedly.

Yeah.

That was the first time I'd had sex with a man,

if you can call it sex, yeah.

We're off now to see Lloyd, who...

We were in a relationship, um, five years ago,

and the relationship broke down, erm,

mainly because of me but a little bit because of Lloyd as well.

I had quite a lot of anger issues at the time so I think that that,

you know, put a massive strain on our relationship.

And I think, you know, I needed to deal with it and, until we split up,

I didn't, and I haven't really dealt with it now, so...

We're going to his mam's house,

and, yeah, me and Lloyd have become really good friends

since we broke up, mainly because we work together.

HE KNOCKS AT DOOR

-Hello.

-Hiya, Lloyd, are you all right?

-How are you doing?

All right, how are you?

-Yeah, I'm all right.

-Hi, Lynn.

-Hi, are you OK?

-I'm good. how are you?

-Not bad, not bad.

-Do you want a coffee?

-Yeah.

-Mwah!

-Mwah!

-Nice to see you.

-Oh, and you.

When we were going out, you never told me the story as in, like,

"This is what happened, A to Z."

-Yeah.

-It was always bits.

-Bits of it, yeah.

Because I wasn't ready to talk about it, do you know what I mean?

But it was enough for me because I, once you told me,

I kept trying to make you go to therapy.

Yeah, I know. I know you did.

And you just would not have it at all.

You were just very unpredictable.

I just... You...

Some days, I just never knew what your mood was going to be.

You were very up and down, very erratic.

I think you were very, very ashamed of it at the time

-cos you couldn't even really speak to me about it.

-Yeah.

And it was only just kind of coming out on the surface then, wasn't it?

-Yeah.

-So, erm...

I can understand...

your reactions, how you found it,

that you needed to block it all out by drinking, by taking drugs,

-by going off the wall, by fighting...

-Fighting.

..by actually getting rid of a lot of your anger,

and you've said that as well,

that you had a lot of internalised anger that,

you know, it was the only way that you could get it out.

In retrospect, if you'd dealt with it earlier,

-it would have been a lot different, our relationship, probably...

-Yeah.

..because you had a lot of anger when we went out.

You only felt comfortable to be intimate if, you know,

there was alcohol involved.

-Yeah.

-But I used to get nervous about alcohol with you.

Because I was an angry drunk.

Exactly, so, it was very, very difficult, and it was... Yeah.

Oh, God.

It's very, very strong of you to do this because a lot of people just

won't speak about it.

-Yeah.

-Which is why it's such an important subject to be raised

because, you know, it's a taboo.

When I met Lloyd, he, kind of,

he really brought out that kind of creative side in me,

which I think helped massively in the sense of my brain, kind of,

shifted into being able to be constructive

and have something to, kind of, aim towards.

So, I've dealt a little bit with the anger,

and I've become more creative,

and I've started writing.

I think if I hadn't been able to have that creative outlet,

then I probably would have either committed suicide

or been imprisoned,

one of the two.

There is such a feeling of being alone.

One of the things I did when I was writing the play is

I read about other guys' stories wherever I could find them.

They felt exactly like I did,

which is like I was the first guy,

the only guy this had ever happened to.

-Hello.

-Hello, guys.

-Is one of you Alex?

-This one.

-Hi.

-Hello.

-I'm Tanaka.

-Hello.

I'm in Canary Wharf to start this walk for Stay Brave UK,

a charity that are doing this walk for male survivors

of sexual violence.

I've brought my friend. This is my friend Sophie.

-Hi there.

-Nice to meet you.

I think the thing with these events is that there are so

few times where you actually get to be in a space with

other survivors, other men who have been through these experiences,

and just being together,

being able to talk and support each other, it just doesn't happen.

I think this is probably the first time it's going to really

happen for me like this.

So, I feel quite...

I feel quite lucky. I feel quite apprehensive.

Just in case you don't know who I am, I'm Alex,

I'm the Chief Executive and founder of Stay Brave.

It's trying to make sure that the people out there,

who couldn't really find the help that they needed, find it,

and find it close to them,

near them, and first time.

Onward!

I found a number,

and I was told over the phone quite bluntly that

the helpline was for women,

and I was told that men are the perpetrators

and women are the victims.

For me, it was a little bit soul-destroying.

I had spent months getting into terms with the fact that...

just realising what happened.

Getting up to that point where you can actually ask for some help.

Exactly, and finally gathering up that courage and bravery

to get help and contact things.

But, erm...

And then just getting that completely crushed,

and there was no referral.

-There was no, "This is... We can't help but this organisation can."

-Yeah, no signposts.

But it's so difficult to get people, I find,

to have those conversations because there's this, like, awkward thing

that happens, A, when you talk about sexual violence or domestic abuse,

kind of, right off the bat, and, B, then, when people are like,

"Oh, you want to talk about, like, men who experience these things?"

And people don't really almost have a frame of reference sometimes.

Like, "I mean, you're a guy, so it's not really rape, right?

"It's just sex you didn't want."

-Mm-hmm.

-I've heard that and I'm like,

-"Think about what you just said."

-Exactly.

A few years ago...

I didn't do very well at uni.

I'd failed one of my units

so, during the summer, I had to resit it.

I needed to go to London to submit the work.

And, luckily, my sister and my best friend also wanted to go down

and see a show.

It was about 9pm-ish, so dark outside now,

and, erm, the bar wasn't too packed.

Enough people in there.

I think I'd finished my third or fourth drink,

but, as a student, you can always knock back quite a few,

so I wasn't drunk.

Erm...

I told the barman to order me another one

cos my sister was going to be another hour, maybe, and...

while I just went to the toilet.

I then went into the toilet and stood at the urinal,

and didn't realise someone had followed me.

They had come up, they had grabbed me,

and I didn't even finish peeing.

They just grabbed me, pulled me backwards...

I started peeing all over the floor,

and they then pushed me towards the wall where the cubicle was,

and I remember my head hitting the door frame,

and with my trousers still down to my thighs,

they were pushing me into the cubicle and locking the door.

Erm...

I tried shouting, but they very quickly

put their hand over my mouth,

and just kept banging my head against the wall, in the cubicle,

until I shut up.

And I remember just crying,

slightly begging through their hand.

I don't remember much after that.

What I do remember was wanting to get out of that cubicle,

and, um...

..I spent about 30 seconds, kind of, washing my face.

There was a bit of blood from a cut.

I managed to hide it, and walk out.

The thing is I didn't know who that person was. I didn't see them.

I just couldn't even give you a vague description.

They were taller than me and they were stronger than me -

that's all I could tell you.

I've had some really good conversations with people, kind of,

just here and there.

It's that old chestnut of, erm, not being alone.

I can know the statistics and I can know that, you know,

one in six men will be survivors of sexual violence.

It doesn't really...

It can still feel like you're the only person there.

It can still feel like you're the only person who's ever

gone through that.

Until you're in a room or in a city where you're talking

and walking with people, and having real conversations.

HE YAWNS

-Well done, everyone!

-Well done, everyone!

-Whoo!

All right, thank you so much...

Up till now, I've never...

I've never wanted to meet somebody else, another male survivor,

because I've not wanted to, like, accept or you know, get past...

not get past it but I've never wanted to accept it.

So, I wouldn't be like, "Oh, is there anyone else out there?"

But now I've got to this point and I'm able to talk about it, erm,

then, why not go and do something about it now,

and actually deal with it properly?

I'm off to a talk today, a guy who's experienced sexual assault,

and this will be the first time, obviously,

that I've spoken to anybody else that's experienced, you know,

a sexual assault, so...

I think that's what's making me a little bit nervous.

Do you think it would be really inappropriate to put my Grindr on?

See, I was just being a dick now because I'm nervous.

He, sort of, pushed me to the ground and he unzipped his trousers,

pulled his penis out and made me give him oral sex.

And one of the things I always remember, he had massive thumbs,

and he pressed his thumbs down into my shoulders and he said,

"You like my cock."

And I went, "Stop."

And eventually, I don't know if there was someone coming round,

after a few minutes, he picked me up and he kind of launched me towards

this line of cars that I thought were a taxi rank.

I turned round and he didn't run but he quickly walked off.

WHISPERING: God, that was intense, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was intense. What are your thoughts?

Oh, I don't know. I don't know what to think, like.

I think for the first part I felt like it was,

you know, it was just...

Obviously it's his, you know, his experience, but then...

obviously, I could relate to...

the, erm...

the other bit.

I don't know, I think I just need to think a minute.

But that was an hour, once every couple of weeks.

Did I feel that anyone understood me?

No.

I felt sick, like...

Talking about what happened to him when he was saying that

he went on that bridge, then I started thinking about

the night I went back to the guy's house and then...

I think I started thinking about it, kind of, more...

Or, just, I think now that I've come here and I've done this,

I think I've not really accepted it.

I think I've just...

..known all the right things to tell myself that I have,

do you know what I mean?

Like...

-Hi. You all right? How are you doing?

-All right?

-I'm Neil. How are you?

-Hi, you all right? I'm Phil.

-Hi, Phil.

Yeah, sorry, I...

HE CLEAR HIS THROAT

Yeah, that was really brave to do that, like.

Yeah, what was it like for you watching it?

Erm...

I wanted to throw up.

-Right.

-I had to go out towards the end cos I was like,

I'm going to be sick. Not like...

Do you know what I mean? Just...

-Hard to hear?

-Yeah, hard to hear.

Yeah, it does stir something, doesn't it?

Yeah, definitely, like...

But I'm sorry that happened to you as well, do you know what I mean?

It's like... You know...

I didn't want to speak to you at first.

I was like, "I don't want to speak to him."

-Nothing against you or anything like that.

-No, that's all right.

But then I thought, "You've got to go and speak to him

"because if you don't, you've come to this point

"and you feel all these things now anyway,

"so you might as well go and fucking talk about them,

"cos if not, it's a waste of time," do you know what I mean?

And I'll go back rather than go forward, so...

The thing I often say is this -

if you man up, it means you shut up.

-Yeah.

-If you shut up,

it means you put up or put them up -

then you fuck up.

Yeah. I like that. That's good, innit?

-And actually...

-You could put that on a...

Well, yeah, put it on a T-shirt or something.

And I often say that because it's really bad.

Actually, what does "man up" mean to you?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Because actually you could actually say that you are...

You could argue that you're manning up by talking about it,

cos that's not easy to do.

-Yeah.

-It's easier in the short term to just shut up.

-Yeah.

-And actually doing something that is very difficult,

you could say, actually shows a real strength of character...

-Yeah.

-..and is not weak, is a strength.

TANAKA: It can be really, really frustrating

because I almost feel resentful that this is still affecting me,

you know, whenever it crops up,

so you then get into beating yourself up because, "Oh, well,

"I should be past this by now. I should be over it.

"Why am I letting this affect me?"

I think it's taken until now for me to be able to walk into a room with,

kind of, other survivors.

I have, like, 1,000 anxieties about today.

Like 1,006 exactly.

-Hi, you must be Catherine.

-Nice to meet you. Hi.

-Welcome.

-You too. I'm Tanaka.

So, myself and Jeremy co-facilitate the group together.

For some people, anonymity is hugely important.

For other people, actually being able to take a stand

and to say something publicly is really important.

I've never really got angry with him,

because I knew him and I liked him,

and I think that made the abuse even more, a bit, difficult for me

because today, at 73, there's so much grief.

This is why, I think, that I cry,

because I've got 55 years of repressed, frozen feelings.

It's still very difficult.

She decided that she wanted to have sex with me.

She got on top of me and forced me to have sex with her.

And I'm saying, "No, really, please, stop.

"I don't like this. I don't want this."

And that happened.

She got astride me and had sex, got off and went to sleep.

And after that I just thought,

"That's it, that's the end between us."

"I'm not going to continue with this."

Anyway, that was really just the beginning.

It's just total disbelief that a woman can be domestically violent,

that a woman can sexually assault you

and that a woman can stalk you and terrify you,

but it was true and I was just disbelieved.

I was 34 years old.

I was about to become a father for the first time and I was attacked at

knife-point with a bag on my head by two people, strangers.

And I was...

HE EXHALES

I was, erm, raped and...

..abused for six hours in woodland near a lay-by.

I did phone a rape helpline a few months later,

after the birth of my son, and was told that it didn't happen to men,

and that was as far as I got.

There's so much shame.

There's so much shame that...

I'm so emasculated by it because I can't...

It's really hard to tell the woman you love that this has happened,

so I can only tell her so much without being just

overwhelmed with shame about it.

HE EXHALES

You mentioned this profound sense of shame

and I imagine that that's a feeling that is shared by others,

and this sense of feeling responsible about

events which were other people's responsibility.

I think for me, I, sort of, erm...

I end up holding on to...

these little bits of reasoning which are like,

"Oh, well, I could have done this so it was really my fault,

"or I could have done this or I could have not done this."

And I think part of that, for me anyway, is that it's just easier...

If I admit that actually it wasn't in my control,

which up here I know it wasn't,

that means that people can just hurt you,

and it's somehow easier to feel ashamed

-because that means you have a little bit of control, as well.

-Yeah.

I do have a bit of a wall, and I talk about this subject sometimes

in a pretty theoretical way because it's easier.

I mean, because, like, I was raped,

those emotions are pretty intense and they always will be,

and that's the way I know how to talk about it.

I can't be vulnerable all of the time.

It has to be the right time and the right place,

and for me this turned out to be it,

which I wasn't expecting.

It's one of the things I've been asked

every single time I've opened up about this kind of stuff

is, why didn't I go to the police?

Why didn't I report it?

Why did I sit in an alleyway for a while

and not ask for help?

I was too scared that they wouldn't believe me -

that they would pick apart what had happened to me and somehow

make it my fault.

The first officer that I talked to was really great

and really compassionate and, kind of, treated me with

a lot of respect.

The others were kind of patchy.

Some of them were a little bit indifferent

and I felt like I was being treated a little bit like a waste of time.

There was one who was trying...

In retrospect I can see that she was trying really hard to be respectful

and to make me feel comfortable, and failing quite spectacularly at it.

She tried to make some jokes and I understand, you know,

I can see that she wasn't trying to be malicious

but it just, kind of, fell completely flat

and then I carried those things around with me for a long time.

I feel like I didn't go to the police at the time mainly

because I'd never really, kind of, trusted the police

or had much respect for them, so, yeah...

But I think more so I didn't go to the police

because I didn't want anyone to find out.

It's just now I can talk about it,

which means that I can go and change that and do something about it,

which I couldn't do five years ago.

Is it Mike?

-Hello.

-How are you doing, Mike? Are you OK?

-Hello. Yes.

Good to meet you. Welcome to Avon and Somerset.

So, today we're doing what we call a partner-agency day,

where we're discussing how we can improve services for male victims of

rape, sexual assault, domestic violence and domestic abuse.

So there's a clear lack of engagement by the men

with the police and the criminal justice system,

which needs to be looked at.

Some of the men tried to report but they were laughed away.

We seem to treat men differently because for decades

we've had it, kind of, drummed into us that, you know,

women are the victims and males...men are the perpetrators.

Then we had Jay, aged 33 - again, intimate partner violence.

Again it was a female partner.

I've got to admit, like, coming here today,

any time I see a police officer,

I instantly feel like I've done something wrong,

so I don't know whether that, kind of, you know, stops people.

I didn't come forward, so I didn't report it to the police.

If I gave, kind of, one message to any male who has been affected

by sexual violence, you know, you do not need to come to the police.

Please, please, please, go to your local SARC,

the sexual assault referral centre, within 72 hours of the event.

The forensic recovery will be completed.

Those forensics will be stored for a lifetime,

so at any point you can decide,

"OK, I want to report to the police now,"

that evidence is there.

-Mm-hm.

-The victim is completely in control of what happens there.

I can't imagine reporting it now and having to go to court.

I do accept and I do appreciate it is incredibly difficult for anybody,

male or female, to come forward and report what's happened to them

to the police, but a lot of things have changed,

and have changed to make it easier for the victims.

Yeah.

Like, I've always had, kind of, questions whether or not

I should have gone to the police about it.

But, yeah, if I was able to, if I would have done

and I would have known that those services were available,

then I probably would have definitely been in

a better place than what I have been.

It's been seven years since it happened,

and I feel like I've got myself to the point where I could talk about

what happened to the police and put my pin on the map.

And although I've drawn a line under everything,

I don't feel like someone can ever really get over this kind of stuff.

What you do is that you come to terms with it,

and I feel like I've come to terms with it.

I can take my experience and I can make it into something better,

which is why I've decided to take my experience and help other people.

I don't think I'll ever really get over it,

but at least I've come to terms with it.

If no-one comes,

I am going to go on one of those, like,

really public social media meltdown things.

So, tonight is the open mike.

It's really about celebrating the lives of male survivors of

sexual violence, despite what we've been through,

and despite, kind of, the lack of support that we sometimes face.

I came up with this thing where I do facts about me.

One is that there is a birthmark somewhere on my body

which may or may not be a third nipple.

-VOICE-OVER:

-And it's been a scary journey -

like, I've been properly terrified for a lot of it.

Three is that the first meal that I ate after I was raped

was a chicken Pot Noodle.

I think probably the biggest thing I've learned is that people

will talk about this.

If we do it in the right way, and if we get over the fact that we're not

all going to do it, you know, perfect the first time,

people will, and we can, and it does actually help.

APPLAUSE

Scene four, slate 11, take one.

For me and Lloyd, you know, obviously we didn't work out.

But, you know, here we are now.

We work together, we've become really good friends,

we've got a great friendship and that,

and, you know, we're making a film together at the moment, so...

You know when you look round and you're looking at

all these words and you're starting to panic

and you're doing your breathing?

Go to get out of the bed, yeah?

And then just fall back onto the bed.

SHE BREATHES HEAVILY

No, I don't think I'll ever be able to forget what's happened,

but I think I can accept what's happened,

so I'm able to move on from it.

It has changed me, you know, it's changed my outlook on life,

but I'm not going to let it define me at all.