Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Some more Ressources on raped men.

TS recently linked a document that sparked my interest. Google scholar lead me to another study and 2 pretty good resources. Starting with the study:

Anderson; I. and Quinn, A. (2009) ‘Gender differences in medical students’ attitudes toward male and female rape victims’, Psychology, Health & Medicine, 14 (1) pp.105-110

[M]ale rape has been under-investigated, possibly because of the common belief that men could be coerced into unwanted sexual experiences (Whatley & Riggio, 1993; Struckman-Johnson & Struckman-Johnson, 1992; Donnelly & Kenyon, 1996) [...]

Many still believe that male sexual assault is impossible because men are viewed as initiating and controlling sexual activity, not as targets of sexual assault (Anderson & Doherty, 2008). Many people question how a man can be overpowered and forced into sex, while others question how a man can achieve an erection and perform in a sexually coercive situation (Sarrel & Masters, 1982; White & Kurpius, 2002; Davies & McCartney, 2003). In direct comparisons with judgements about female victims, studies on social reactions to male victims have shown that male rape victims are frequently judged as negatively or even more so than female victims (Whatley & Riggio. 1993; Struckman-Johnson & Struckman-Johnson, 1992; Smith, Pine & Hawley, 1988) although several studies have shown the opposite effect (Anderson, 1999, McCaul, Veltum, Boyechko & Crawford, 1990; Schneider, Soh-Chiew Ee and Aronson, 1994).

A frequent assumption is that a man could or should have been able to fight off his attacker (Perrott & Webber, 1996). Although several factors appear to influence responses to male rape victims such as sexuality of the victim (Anderson, 2004; Mitchell et al., 1999; White & Kurpius, 2002; Bunting & Reeves, 1983) where a homosexual victim is blamed more for being raped than a heterosexual victim, one of the most frequently observed influences of judgements of male victims is participant gender.

The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis that male medical students have a more negative attitude toward rape victims (regardless of gender of the victim) than females. This result is in line with previous research examining medical students’ attitudes toward rape victims (Best et al., 1992; Williams et al., 1999). These authors argue for the inclusion of rape education to the medical student curriculum in the hope of challenging misconceptions by providing factual information and improving future rape victim management in the medical and health disciplines. Our results support this conclusion. We would also argue that medical curricula need to focus not only on changing attitudes toward female rape victims but male rape victims as well given the finding that male rape victims were viewed more negatively than female victims by medical students (regardless of gender).

As for the resources, there is Survivors of male rape - The Emergence of a Social and Legal issue - Abdullah Kahn and Gender, sexual orientation and victim blame regarding male victims of sexual assault - Anna DeVries Lawler.

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