We live in a world where everything is double sided. One side of the world has features like brilliant infrastructure, different culture, an amazing nature which make it a better place to live. And the other side has features such as poverty, illiteracy, ”Male Rape” which leave us with a question that why are such things happening? Male rape is an act which happens somewhere in the dark and how it feels , Harish Iyer’s story will make you realize.
“My uncle was giving me a bath when I was seven years old and that’s when it first happened. At that point, I didn’t know what was happening to me , whether it was ok, whether it was normal. It was when I was 17 or 18 that I began to understand that what had been happening to me for so many years was wrong, so one day when he came to jump on me, I kicked him and said no. For the first time in 11 years , I said no to being raped”– said, Harish Iyer.
This is the Heart-wrenching story of Harish Iyer. Harish Iyer is a well known equal rights activist who works for a number of socio-cultural issues and he has contributed to those campaigns that support the interests of LGBT community , women, children and survivors of child abuse.
Harish Iyer was one of them who were sexually abused as a child. He was raped by his uncle when he was a kid and it all started when he was 7 years old after that it went on. First, he was forced him to perform oral sex and then proceeded to have anal sex with him many times. After this, he was being forced to do this many times and was also gang raped at the age of 12 by his uncle’s friends but remained quiet. The worst part was he was even scared to use men washroom because he feared he would be raped again.
In our country, there are many others like Harish who are still facing or have faced sexual abuse once in their lifetime which is really depressing . Problem is , we all live in a society where every 12-13 minutes case of sexual assault or rape of women is registered, according to data collected by National Crime Records Bureau but there are no such records about sexual assault or rape of men that have been registered as there are no laws to protect men from this heinous crime.
In Section 375 i.e Indian Penal Code, it is mentioned that rape is something that only a man can do to a woman, there is no place for adult male victims. Although child survivors of both sexes are covered by the protection of children from sexual offense act 2012 but nothing for adult male victims.
Not only India but many other countries like Sweden, America are still struggling with this reality. The biggest problem is that most countries don’t recognize sexual violence against men as a crime. Different countries have the different definition of Penal Code .
For example, Singapore’s Section 375(1) of the Penal Code defines rape as an act of a man penetrating a woman vagina with his penis without her consent. In America as of 1998, 2.78 million men in the U.S had been victims of attempted or completed rape and 1 out of 10 rape victims are male.
This preconceived notion of ours that men can’t be raped has been created by the media. This notion has been set in our minds because most of the time women are victims of rapes. The reason for this is that more rape cases against men are registered and hyped by media as compared to women, therefore, the crowd remains unaware. So whenever such cases come out of the blue, people usually don’t believe that this can also happen.
There have been many cases but are never brought into the limelight as these are mostly under-reported by both police and media as it is still not considered as a crime in our country. A country like Sweden has already set up the world’s first rape crisis center exclusively for men.
Sodersjukhusct hospital in the country started a 24-hour care for men and boys who have survived rape and sexual violence. Well, it’s a wonderful step taken by Sweden in this direction but what about other countries? what are they doing?
Boys are always taught that ” boys don’t cry, they should be tough and strong enough to bear pain ” as a result when such situation occurs they remain silent and keep on taking that pain due to which they enter into the depression stage. So it is high time now that we stop such discrimination.
It is time to save those innocent boys and men who are crying somewhere alone due to rape. Let’s save those who have just stop loving their life due to sexual assault. Let’s change that useless definition of ” be a man” that society has created and which is going on since ages. We must accept rape is not limited to gender.
Have you ever faced something similar ? Do you have something to add to this story? Share your views under the comment section