Something important (CW for discussion of sexual assault, ignore the category)

Before we start, I’d like to say that I have never been SA’d and that I hope I never will be. I’d also like to point out that I am female, but I have chosen to make this post nonetheless, as I think it’s important to raise awareness of such things (plus, just felt like getting out my thoughts about this one scene from a movie I saw yesterday). 

Yesterday I watched the movie Nightwatch, and in it, there’s a scene where the main character’s friend sets him up with a sex worker, who then gives him a (nonconsensual) handjob as the friend told her the mc likes that. (In summary, the mc gets assaulted). Looking back on this scene, it has a comedic element to it, due to the circumstances of where it takes place, which are juxtaposed by what is happening to the character. I don’t know how to exactly articulate my following thoughts through a screen, so here’s the scene. (It’s not super graphic) 

 I am aware that the movie was made in 1997, so different times, but still… the way the scene was portrayed was (IMO) not okay. As mentioned before it seems to serve as a comedic break during the otherwise dark movie (I found it off-putting, and not funny at all.) Now, the youtuber Pop Culture Dectective made a great two part series on the topic of men being sexually assaulted being used as comedy in movies, where he goes more in-depth into this, but I’ll share my quick thoughts. While watching the second part I have noticed that movies (usually 2000s movies) use this as a form of comedy, where the notion of a man being assaulted or even raped by a woman, is completely out of pocket, and it is therefore considered funny that such a thing could even occur, perhaps also due to the fact that men are physically stronger than women and would therefore be expected to easily overpower a female attacker. Of course, in reality, there’s nothing funny about going through such a thing, as a woman being assaulted would not be shown as funny, right? Again, these are just my thoughts, and they do not necessarily echo the views of the youtuber who made the video.

It’s worth noting that while writing this I noticed that in the aforementioned scene she doesn’t ask him for consent, she just assumes he wants it. This (to me) ties in with the notion, that, since men are considered to be more straightforward about wanting to have sex, they must always want it. Well…newsflash, they don’t. Due to this stereotype, if I can call it that, come the comments of “oh you’re a man, so you must have wanted it/enjoyed it” and other similar but equally appaling and abhorrent bs. To think that anybody regardless of gender would actually ENJOY being violated like that, is quite frankly, disgusting. 

I am also aware that most victims of rape and sexual assault are female, and that the perps are usually male, and that in cases where the victims are male, the perp is usually also male. Of course, that doesn’t mean that women can’t commit these acts. Examples include the case of Brittany Zamora, a teacher who groomed and slept with raped one of her 13 yo students, or this news article. 

Notice how in the previous paragraph, the phrase ‘slept with’ is used and then crossed out. This was done purposefully, as I’ve noticed this in cases like this when a female teacher would assault a male student it would be worded as: ‘teacher accused of sleeping with student’, or even like this. Whereas if the genders were flipped, it would be worded as: ‘student allegedly raped by teacher’, or something similar. Another example of this is in this video. Phrasing these kind of events like this, (IMO) makes them look less bad, and downplays the severity of what happened. Think about it, which prior example sounds worse? I am aware that this doesn’t happen all the time, and some people use the right terms, like the author of this reddit post for example, but I think that as long as we keep phrasing these things like this, it will keep giving the impression that female-on-male rape is somehow not that bad.

I feel that if society were more open-minded about this, male victims would feel more comfortable coming forward if they knew they wouldn’t get shamed and laughed at.

With this, I end my rant.