On Men Getting Raped. And Abused. And More. (Trigger Warning)

So Joe Scarborough said that if he had been sexually harassed by Donald Trump, he would have come forward earlier.

To which I ask:

Would you?

Would you really?

Because I’m pretty sure if Donald Trump, Alpha Male, had successfully pinned you – a dude – against a wall and grabbed your cock and maybe even, God forbid, raped you, you would have had a very difficult equation on your plate.

Because if you’re paying attention at all, you know the standard playbook people trot out against rape accusers is:

She’s a liar
* She secretly wanted it
* She’s crazy
* She should have fought harder

So what happens when you, a dude, accuse a known big-time dude of sexually assaulting you?

Well, the first three get melded into, “You’re secretly gay, and you want Donald Trump to fuck you with his huge alpha cock, and it’s a shame you’re so crazy you made all that up.”

So the story is not going to be, “BRAVE MAN STANDS UP AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT.”

The story is going to be, “CLOSETED HOMOSEXUAL MAYBE WANTED DONALD? WE DON’T KNOW.” From that moment on, even if you’re straight, you’re going to have a lot of questions swirling about your sexuality. What other cocks have you secretly sucked? You’re gonna have people debating how manly you are…

…which feeds straight into point #4, “You should have fought harder.” You think female rape victims get Monday-morning quarterbacked? Well, you’re gonna see every homophobic guy in existence talking about how they would have cold-cocked The Donald in a hot second, they wouldn’t have been frozen with shock or confused as to what was happening or even a little scared that Donald Trump was a guy who might scotch this $20 million business deal –

Every one of those guys are certain they would have decked Trump the minute any assault happened. You didn’t. So let’s go back to the question of whether you secretly wanted it, huh? Maybe you’re a gay dude. And in the mouths of these guys, “Gay dude” seems like a terminal insult instead of, you know, just something it’s okay to be.  (TOP TIP: It’s totally okay to be.)

Your masculinity is stripped. Because a real man doesn’t get himself into situations like that. A real man always knows what to do. A real man doesn’t let anyone take control of his life.

By losing control of your life, even for a moment, you lost your label as a real man.

Your whole contextual gender is now in question.

It’s gonna get discussed whether men can get raped. You’re gonna get asked whether you were hard when Donald touched you. God forbid you were, because even if you just happened to have an erection when a dude pawed you, that too is proof you wanted it.

And you know what happens on top of that? There’s enough assholes who think rape accusations are funny when it’s a girl. When it’s a guy? Well, there’s prison rape jokes going on alllll the time – don’t drop the soap in the shower! – and once this bombshell hits the news, every shockjock comedian is going to be making laaaaughing jokes about how you got Trumped, making you into some pansy who’s whining about a grope.

Rush Limbaugh’s gonna make fun of you. No question. Not if it hits national news. And then all of Trump’s friends will join in, saying how Trump is a nice guy and he would never do that….

And if you’re wondering where the anger at what Trump did to you is, well, it’s in there, but it’s mixed in with all this skepticism and doubt and moral judgments on you and whether you’re really a man and by the time it’s all out you have a bunch of people going, “Well, we don’t really know what happened, I can’t judge. It seems like everyone involved is a drama queen.”

Welcome to the wonderful world of rape accusations.

And here’s the thing about men being abused by their spouses, or gaslighted in relationships, or even raped by friends:

You exist.

The world will tell you that you don’t exist, because real men don’t get themselves into situations like that and guys who aren’t real men don’t exist.

But plenty of real men wind up abused. We just don’t hear you talking about it in public because, well, all the reasons I described above. There’s a lot of real men who’ve been abused, and survived, and even thrived – but they don’t talk about it because if you think it’s bad for women (AND IT IS), holy crap is it worse for a guy coming forward in American culture.

But you exist.

I see you.

And I understand why you haven’t come out to tell your story yet. I understand why it might take years. I understand why it might never happen, because it’s terrible enough when you’ve been beaten by your wife or raped as an act of vengeance or even just assaulted by a friend when you were drunk…

…but what happens after you start speaking can be so much worse.

So no, Joe Scarborough, if you had been assaulted by Donald Trump, I don’t think you would have come forward sooner. I think you’d be sitting quietly backstage, watching the headlines pile up, knowing what a firestorm your accusation would cause about Donald’s sexuality, and yours. I think you’d still be wondering whether you want to pay the cost of revelation, knowing that all that opened pain might not even do anything to the man who hurt you.

Then you’d wonder how many others were like you.

And you’d realize you’d never know because silence. Silence is so much easier.

—————–

You exist.

I see you.