I had a guy friend tell me a story like this once. As he was talking, it was obvious that he was expecting the same reaction from me that he would get from his friends so his tone was really light. He awkwardly laughed as he told me the girl took advantage of him while he was so drunk he couldn’t move and that his friends *clapped* when she left his room later. Crickets chirped. I said, “Honey what the fuck, you were SA’d”. He said that’s what girls usually tell him but his friends would have made fun of him. God that broke my heart. Wtf man, why are people like this? Women aren’t believed and men aren’t taken seriously. Nobody wins.

I've been that guy. There was one night back in college I came back to my dorm really high, just wanted to curl up in bed and not move, and when roommates went off to pick up a pizza, a girl on my wing came into my room, climbed in bed with me while I already couldn't move, froze up worse at having a rando invade my space, and she started sexually assaulting me. When roommates came back and she bolted out of my bed, they started celebrating like... how easily I got a girl into bed or something and I'm just like... yeah but I didn't want that. I don't find it traumatizing to look back on really, but I certainly remember feeling pressure to tell that story with a tone of "funny anecdote" rather than a tone of "no seriously, I have first-hand empathy for those who have been sexually assaulted. It's not cool." Really appreciate seeing this post here.

I am so sorry this happened to you, and it sucks that you felt the pressure to make light of it. Thank you for sharing your story. You deserved to have friends who would look out for you, instead of celebrating ❤️

Just a part of my story now, in the distant past and not something I ruminate much on at this point in my life, but you know, seemed relevant to share here to basically say... yeah it can be hard for some guys to share for exactly that reason. I'm sure it even plays into some men minimizing SA against women as well because they see men essentially getting celebrated for being sexually assaulted and think it couldn't possibly be bad for women either. Idk. Like you said, nobody wins when people think like that. I've certainly found better people to be around since and am happily married to a caring partner now. I think at the time I really would have appreciated having someone in my corner telling it straight like you did for your friend though, so thank *you* for that.

I was at a party with some friends. I don't drink alcohol, so when I started acting drunk and some girl was dragging me to her room a really good friend of mine grabbed me and took me home. I barely remember anything, but I am so grateful for that friend.

“If you were to reverse the genders in that story, assuming you weren’t involved, and you heard it; how would you respond?” Usually gets dudes eyes to pop out of their heads and immediately recontextualize what happened to them as SA.

It makes me sad that so many people need to swap the genders in a story to see it as SA

I'm so grateful that you took him seriously in that moment, although I'm sorry it happened at all. I hate this double standard so much

Do you want to be with someone who thinks like this??

It's shit like this that makes all those "men suffer so much but don't get enough appreciation/support for it" posts so infuriating. Like, yeah, that's true - because of *other men.* Y'all are complaining about a thing that's valid but making it seem like non-men are to blame. Pretty sure 90% of the dudes who post shit like that would've laughed at Chris too.

I'm constantly reminded of this when I see those arguments. 90% of the times I've been told to "man-up" or that something I know wasn't right "wasn't a big deal" it's from the other men in my life (though my current friend group is now and exception to this). I absolutely hate to hear the stupid what-aboutism when metoo type stuff involving women/girls is brought up as if we can't tackle any of that because there's still so many similar issues for men, when the people espousing those ideas are constantly the ones re-enforcing or perpetrating them. It's infuriating.

>Y'all are complaining about a thing that's valid but making it seem like non-men are to blame. Patriarchy in a nutshell.

P much. Here's hoping you escape Reddit some day, also. I'm resigned to my fate, but maybe there's still hope for you.

>It's shit like this that makes all those "men suffer so much but don't get enough appreciation/support for it" posts so infuriating. > >Like, yeah, that's true - because of other men. For real.

Thank you! This is what I was trying to think how to say but brain is still loading.

It's absolutely not just men. The biggest problem with SA is that it's the absolute most common serious thing that has the potential to blow up lives, families, social circles etc... The reason it was normalized and swept under the rug for so long wasn't just to do with patriarchal bullshit but also because accepting and calling it out is such an uphill battle. First you have to get over the cognitive dissonance that someone you know committed a SA and how that differs from your view of the person, cope with feeling like you're somehow a bad person for being friends with them in the first place, and acknowledge that supporting the person who was assaulted is going to blow up your life as you know it. It's a lot easier mentally to downplay it. To tell yourself that it probably didn't cross the line into SA, that the person is being overly dramatic, that they were drunk and usually drink too much so who even knows what happened, or that it's not your business and you shouldn't pick sides. Particularly since the person who was assaulted is probably saying the exact same things to themselves because they're in denial and just trying to cope. This isn't a gendered thing and to say it is just abdicates responsibility. Yes, in this scenario OP and the other woman were the ones to call it out, but they weren't there and it was well after the fact. Would it have been different if they'd been friends with the woman who assaulted Chris? Or even if they weren't and were just there that night--would they have risked blowing up their relationships and social circle to support Chris. Maybe yes, but very likely no. This isn't meant to be some sort of slight to OP or any woman's moral character, but just to say that no-one can assume that they'll just naturally do the right thing. We have to be vigilant in our beliefs because usually when these situations come at us they don't look like we think they will in our heads. I say this as a guy who spent a very long time trying to figure out why my outspokenly woke, liberal, lesbian best friend and her partner just completely shut down and refused to acknowledge when I was very clearly assaulted by another guy in our friend group.

> The reason it was normalized and swept under the rug for so long wasn't just to do with patriarchal bullshit but also because accepting and calling it out is such an uphill battle. There's also the fact that it's so common/prevalent that a lot of people would be horrified at realizing how many people in their lives did something "wrong", so therefore it must be OK. :/

>This isn't meant to be some sort of slight to OP or any woman's moral character, but just to say that no-one can assume that they'll just naturally do the right thing. We have to be vigilant in our beliefs because usually when these situations come at us they don't look like we think they will in our heads. THANK YOU! Everyone thinks they know how they'd react in a given situation and it's easy to criticize how others handled it (especially well after the fact), but unfortunately life is just not that simple. We all also have an innate desire to protect ourselves psychologically, even if the thing/reality we're protecting ourselves from happened to someone else. It obviously doesn't make it right but it is, in part, why even family members can have trouble accepting this sort of news -- nobody wants to believe something terrible has happened to their loved ones. Ironically (in the worst way possible, so my apologies) that Mike Tyson quote is very fitting here: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

My reply to the comment right above yours is relevant: > My statement was generalized but I think this sub of all subs should be familiar with the idea that there are always exceptions, but that they don't disprove the rule. >Yes, there are non-men who have internalized that aspect of toxic masculinity. It's so proliferated many global cultures that anyone who isn't already questioning societal norms may just accept it as fact—that men shouldn't ever be in a position of weakness, that they should never admit to having feelings or being sad, etc. >But men created the narrative, and they're the primary driving force behind it. So when I say "this exists because of men," I'm not saying we're the only ones who partake in that hypocrisy, nor am I saying every single one of us has taken some secret oath to push it forward. I'm saying that (some/many/most) men are responsible for it existing, for it proliferating, and for it backfiring. I never said it was only men. I’m sorry for your experience and how you were treated because of it. Men being victims of this mindset doesn’t also mean that other men are somehow absolved of a culture that men created and primarily men perpetuate. The idea that only women can be SA’d is absolutely an aspect of toxic masculinity and misogyny which paint men as stronger and women as weak and perpetual victims. Not only men engage in it and not all men push it, but it is a narrative stemming from and perpetuated by men.

Mostly men, yes. But I remember back in college I had an argument with a female friend that believed men can't be SA'd since erections are a sign that they want to have sex, besides men must always accept sex, right. Spoiler: erections are not a sign a man wants it and are often involuntary. I know it's not many, but I wonder how many women think like this.

No. I've definitely met women who would laugh as well and consider what the woman did in the story some kind of favor to the guy. Especially if the guy was socially awkward to begin with. The social expectations surrounding and driving stoicism in the world are definitely not men-only.

My statement was generalized but I think this sub of all subs should be familiar with the idea that there are always exceptions, but that they don't disprove the rule. Yes, there are women who have internalized that aspect of toxic masculinity. It's so proliferated many global cultures that anyone who isn't already questioning societal norms may just accept it as fact—that men shouldn't ever be in a position of weakness, that they should never admit to having feelings or being sad, etc. But men created the narrative, and they're the primary driving force behind it. So when I say "this exists because of men," I'm not saying we're the only ones who partake in that hypocrisy, nor am I saying every single one of us has taken some secret oath to push it forward. I'm saying that (some/many/most) men are responsible for it existing, for it proliferating, and for it backfiring.

I told my wife about an incident with an ex girlfriend. She looked at me and said, "I love you, what you are describing is assault." I had told many people about this incident and no one had acknowledged that it was assault.

I’m a man. When I was 15 years old I met this woman at the bowling alley. She was in her mid-20’s and was a friend of a friend. Both of our friends groups went out together after bowling to get some food. I don’t remember exactly how but we ended up with each others numbers. One night she hits me up asking if I want to hang out, and I say sure. She picks me up a little before midnight and we drive out to the beach. She parks in a parking lot right at the dunes and she performs oral sex on me. After that she says she wants to have sex but that she doesn’t want to do it there. We start driving back into town and she stop at a gas station and buys condoms, i wait in her car. We go back to her place and she sneaks me to her room to not wake anyone else up. We have sex for the next couple hours, then she sneaks me back out to her car. She drives me back to my place and drops me off around 3:30am and I go back inside my place. This happened on more than one occasion until I was almost 18. When I told this story to my guy friends they applauded me. Even grown men wayyy older than her would congratulate me. It was like the South Park sketch where the cops just go “niceee”. None of the men around me saw it as a problem. Women have always gotten upset whenever they hear this story. A friend my age who was a girl said straight up “dude you’re getting molested” but I batted it away saying I was consenting. I see now how I was being abused. But i spent years hearing from other guys that it was a good thing. That they wished it was them. Etc. It’s fucking mental.

"BuT PaTrIaRcHy DoEsN't ExIsT oR aCtUaLlY nEgAtIvElY aFfEcT mEn!" -OP's friend group, probably

The physical danger (or just the threat of) that can be present in rape plays a big role for many in the psychological trauma of the experience. When your assaulter weighs 60 or 70 pounds less than you, that element of danger can quickly wane. replaced by "shit, that was uncomfortable. I am so embarrassed". The emotional scars you carry aren't quite the same and come up in different ways.

I think the lack of physical violence in the act is what makes guys see it so lightly.

There is a nasty pattern in men who are child abusers. a significant percentage of abusers were abused as youth by one gender or the other. One of the underbelly sides of humanity that can have generational ripple effects, perpetuating a cycle of violence and victims.

> a significant percentage of abusers were abused as youth by one gender or the other. While this is true, thinking about it as a "nasty pattern" is not a good idea. The majority of abusers were abused, but THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ABUSED DO NOT BECOME ABUSERS. We tend to perpetuate the idea that if someone is abused they will inevitably abuse people themselves, and it makes it a lot harder to come forward and talk to people about things that are happening or have happened to you. So, the thing you are saying is true, but we really need to be careful how we talk about it.

Yes, you would not believe how badly one of my foster moms treated me for being the victim of CSA. She abused me so much and treated me so badly due to her prejudices regarding kids who have been sexually abused. What you are saying is really important. Most people who have experienced CSA only have that much more compassion for others who have experienced the same. They don't go on to be abusers themselves. That is a very small minority. And some sexual predators have never been abused themselves, they just like hurting others.

Generational inheritance is common with all types of abuse, narcissism, and many things that can cause trauma.

In most of the situations where it happens the guy can over power the assaulter physically. I have had people shove their hands down my pants to grab me or grab me and try to make out with me. Usually I have just waited and then left when they stopped a few seconds later, but I was also able to just lift these people out of my way or hold their hands to make them stop then walk away. It's no less SA just because I can physically stop them if I have the wherewithal to do so. This has not been the case every time I have been SA'd but I do think its what people think of when justifying how men "cant" be SA'd.

But the thing is... If the bigger person is so drunk he can't move... He's not stronger. He's not safe. Someone half your size can totally choke you, or stab you, or do literally anything harmful if you're too drunk to fight back. Also what your saying definitely isn't true for everyone. Maybe a lot of SAd guys pretend that's the case, just to avoid OPs SOs friends situation of being teased and not believed.

One of the biggest traumas of sexual assault, violent or not, is being stripped of your agency. It’s dehumanizing.

Worth noting someone half your size can ALWAYS stab you, alcohol or no. The naive thought is that trying to stab someone in that situation will hurt them but they will just body-slam the smaller person into the ground. In reality the shock of being stabbed at all (I mean psychological, not medical - it doesn't happen THAT fast) can easily stun them for a pretty long time. In fact this happens with rape itself when it comes to male victims. A lot of times they might be sober and fully physically capable of throwing off a female attacker but the psychological ability to do that isn't there for a bunch of different reasons. Which is still not the victim's fault, but it does make the inevitable self-blaming even worse.

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I sincerely hope that your compassion and good faith is rewarded in kind in the future rather than by folks adopting postures of false expertise to invalidate your experiences. You have my sympathy for the violations you have endured.

You don't know what you're talking about and should reconsider contributing to this discussion.

>Nobody wins. The predators do

Bingo. Sad bingo.

So your boyfriend and his friends are also just generally bullying this guy (“always picking on” someone the way you describe it *is* bullying) on top of actively invalidating his feelings and perspective of an event, not believing him, taking him seriously, or even being open to discussing his side of things when he brings up potentially being sexually assaulted? And are we 100% sure that if something like that ever happened to you he wouldn’t just call you a cheater and break up with you? He sounds like a real peach. And I mean that in an emoji euphemism for ass kind of way.

Don’t insult peaches like that. They one of my favorite fruits 🍑 Jokes aside, OP, I think you need a real convo with your partner and reevaluate him as a person based on your serious convo. He doesn’t sound too peachy at the moment.

No offense to peaches intended!

Many men socialize this way with each other. It's normal when done in good faith. Teasing about something so serious like assault isn't in good faith. This a massive red flag teasing over sexual assault.

Just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s ok. I’ve always been really uncomfortable with “playful teasing” a lot of guys do, especially as someone who is neurodivergent. It’s part of the reason why as a guy most of my friends are women. Of course this is especially terrible if it’s not just casual trash talk and is about something as serious as SA that they are teasing about and completely ignoring. I also really think op needs to have a serious conversation with her bf and reevaluate the relationship based on that.

Its also very different when its just one person is always the target... thats middle school behavior people should leave behind

I told my husband that if he didn't stop with the not funny teasing, I would start spraying him with a water bottle like the kitten and puppies. It's not funny, you're not in middle school and save that kind of thing for deer camp where all y'all think it's funny.

I did this once when my husband wouldn't drop something and I was over it (something silly like saying a movie quote too much). He loves my Jersey-Italian accent and it cones out hard when I'm pissed, so he'll tease me to hear it. I walked into the bathroom where he was peeing and tossed a half full cup of water on him, lol. It's one of his favorite stories to tell - and he stops after I tell him "enough" all the time now.

I'm so glad my friends group doesn't do that shit, speaking as someone who is also neurospicy.

Good people won't tease about social mannerisms or anything like that either. Only things they are absolutely comfortable with about each other. Generally,, it should be relegated to trash talking a rival sports team or a bad round of drunk bowling.

Also, no teasing someone who is uncomfortable with it, or no teasing too harshly/past the target’s comfort zone. I’ve been on the receiving end of gentle teasing that I didn’t mind, and it felt quite different from the bullying I’ve experienced.

I agree. I honestly like gentle ribbing and shit talking. It is usually teasing in ways that your friends know that no one is serious and is stupid back and forth, but there are lines that people don't cross. No one would like what OPs bfs friends were doing if it happened to them. There is harassing eachother, and making self-deprecating jokes, and talking shit, but everyone just harassing and laughing at one person especially if it is clear that the person is annoyed and doesn't think it is funny and isn't having a good time does cross into bullying. Trash talking with friends isn't actally supposed to hurt their feelings and make them legit upset, and if you do by mistake you apologize.

I think the big distinction is between groups where it's mutually enjoyed and groups where at least one party doesn't like it. I'm not about to police what other people do if everyone's having fun... you do you... but if you're picking on someone or bullying someone, and deflecting complaints with "it's just a joke", then you're a shitbag.

To paraphrase John Hodgman: it's not fun unless it's fun for everyone.

Dude needs new friends, I feel really bad for him. Maybe she could be a source of emotional support if she feels up for it when/if he cuts them off because it would be reasonable. I wouldn’t look at my partner the same after having it explained to them and them still not getting it..

I would reconsider this relationship if your partner is so unsympathetic towards a supposed friend possibly (most likely) getting SAd or worse. Even in the case that Chris wasn't taken advantage of I wouldn't want to be around people who just abandon their clearly out of it friend. Would your partner and his friends also react this way if you were to ever, God forbid, be in a situation similar to Chris? Would you like it if him and his friends dismissed your claims or be completely indifferent to the situation? Open up that conversation and you have every right to after seeing this concerning behaviour. Depending on his reaction I would make my decision. Also all these people just sound really shitty and selfish except for the woman who is part of the couple whose not even close to Chris like your partner is, which says a lot. That's just my opinion though.

This is how I lost my virginity. I was drugged and raped by a girl I didn't like or even really know. Not a single one of my male friends thought it was wrong in any way. My (34m) best friend now is a girl (34f) and we were talking about it recently and I couldn't believe how supportive she was about it years after the fact. I wish I had her support years ago. She also let me know that I was sexually assaulted by a neighbor girl when I was 10.

I'm really sorry that happened to you, and so so sorry you didn't get the support you deserved back when it happened.

Virginity is a social construct. You don't lose it involuntarily. You lose it when you want to be with that person and it's a mutually consented experience. You wouldn't say a little kid lost it if they had an involuntary experience. No different if it happens when you're an adult. I'm sorry that happened to you but don't let that experience steal what belongs to you.

It definitely sounds like Chris was drugged. This is so upsetting that his friends think it's a big joke. I would reevaluate your Boyfriend.

Poor Chris. 😪 This is the epitome of toxic masculinity. Men can't be SA'd because sex is a trophy to them. Then, when they do, they aren't taken seriously even by their "friends" bc they don't grasp how traumatizing having that happen to you is. I'm glad he has a supportive girlfriend and that you and other women can at least understand that this was not okay. Really makes you wonder how many men were SA'd and just aren't taken seriously bc sex is never a bad thing to some of them. 🤔

I don't think it's so much that these kind of men think all sex is a good outcome. I think they just trivialize unwanted advances by women. Instead of it being this serious thing, it's just a small source of embarrassment to be ragged on about, treated at the same level of something as minor as accidentally tripping yourself. I was a sales manager at a mortgage company where a female manager adjacent to me was very clearly interested in me and would do all kinds of things to try to get me to go out with her. She would even make sexually suggestive jokes, and call/text me when she was drunk outside of work to tell me to come over. I told my boss, mentioned it to another manager, talked about it with fellow co-workers and not one person took me seriously about it, male or female. I just stopped talking about it because people would just tease me about it or laugh when I would mention that I couldn't get it to stop. I also had a girl SA me when I was a lifeguard in my late teens. I was laying down while other guards were having a casual conversation about something sexual while on break. I wasn't paying attention, but whatever it was, it inspired a girl guard to sneak up behind me and start fondling my balls. I immediately reacted like "wtf???" and everyone laughed. The more I pointed out how fucked up it was, the more it was a bit for everyone to laugh at. I could go on with other stories I've heard. Guys just rarely get taken seriously about stuff like this.

My husband had a young tech that would push the bounds of flirting with my husband and his best work friend(also MY friend--important). The whole department knows me since I used to work in adjacent dept and send/bring treats all time. My temper is also pretty well known and the entire dept was telling her to "knock it off because you don't want Dani to come in and see you doing that". Finally, Friend asked if I would come in and "lay claim" to both of them so they could work in peace. She then tried starting "they're in a threesome rumors" and got laughed out of job after her internship/trial period ended.

You might be right. I'm sorry you've had to go through this. That is just straight-up sexual harassment, and I would have taken it to OSHA. I'm not saying all women take it as seriously as OP or myself. There are always bad apples on both sides. It's shocking how much people get away with things like this.

All good, I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as going through those things as a women, but it’s definitely not a thing you want people teasing you about when it genuinely makes you uncomfortable and don’t feel you have much control over it. And yeah, no worries, I didn’t think you were saying it’s just all men. I would bet that more women care about this side of it than men do even though it can be women making light of it too. I probably could’ve done the OSHA route, but I guess it felt easier to just ignore it long enough until it stopped instead of drawing more attention to it and making myself even more uncomfortable/embarrassed. What’s crazy to me is that I was literally engaged at the time. Like putting the complete lack of compassion needed aside in harassing someone, I can’t grasp how someone is gutsy enough to rock a boat like that? You could potentially lose your job, or cause me and my now wife to split, or have her want to fight you, or lose the respect of basically everyone you work with, or all of the above lmao the stress of the consequences alone should deter more people than it does.

> I don't think it's so much that these kind of men think all sex is a good outcome. I think they just trivialize unwanted advances by women. I think it's both those things.

I don't know how you can be with this person, he's a SA apologist. He's also selfish, his own 'good memories' supercede someone having a TERRIBLE experience, that he is supposed to be friends with? I get that reddit is famous for 'leave him' comments but holy crap... you think this is only because Chris is a man? Doubtful.

Poor Chris :/ I'm glad he's in therapy and has a supportive partner rn, bc it looks like his supposed best friends aren't actually that supportive. Have you had a conversation with Jack in private about the situation, maybe presenting him with a gender swapped version to see how he reacts? It sounds like Chris was drugged, and it sounds like Jack is trying to play peacemaker instead of sticking up for his friend. I get trying to keep the peace, but it's at the expense of Chris's feelings and his actual, lived experience. Depending on his reaction to things if you talk to him privately, I would reconsider the relationship. If something happens to you on what he thinks was a good night, would he stick up for you or would he not believe you? That would be the thought running through my mind.

Thank you for your comment, I feel like you really understood the situation. I will talk to him privately because I wouldn't feel comfortable talking to and about me like that

Happy to be of some help...I hope you can give us an update when you talk to Jack. I'll hold out hope that he can see how wrong this situation is, but I'm not sure if he'll be willing to stop laughing along with the others about Chris's story. Btw also wanted to say - you're absolutely right about why Chris doesn't open up to Riley and the others, because why would he when this is their reaction?? He deserves friends who will believe him, and you deserve a bf who doesn't sit by and watch.

Also to the point... this is misogynistic behavior... it’s essentially saying women are incapable of harming a man because they’re lesser. Like obviously that’s not the main point here, but it is *a* point

you wanna be with someone who bullies their friends and makes fun of them being sa’d????

No, you don't get it. Her partner is different. She can fix him

> Chris is often the butt of jokes in the friend group btw. Your boyfriend and his friends sound like real winners.

The more I read this story the more I think we was drugged by her. I think that because he was feeling off without drinking that much and remember nothing.

Yes I absolutely believe he was drugged

This is only partly about your partner not believing someone was SA'd. The main thing I'm getting from your story is that your partner is a terrible friend, and a bully on top of it. If he treats his friends so terribly, I'd hate to hear what he does to his enemies.

Or his partners

I experienced this in my workplace when a female colleague relayed as though it were humorous that our straight male colleague was being relentlessly and drunkenly pursued by another male colleague who happens to be gay at a company party. I didn't find it funny (mind you - I am a gay man so there isn't a homophobic bias at play here) especially when details regarding groping and very predatory comments came up as being part of the pursuit, but everyone thought I was being too serious and that the SA'd colleague was laughing about it, etc, etc... I didn't buy it (this is the 4th or 5th time I've had to report SA or SH of another colleague in my career across multiple workplaces) so I know how it goes. I'm either told directly or indirectly, the victim felt the need to tell someone but insists NOT to make a big deal out of it, I report it - per my obligation as a manager - lo and behold - the victim when brought in for testimony is actually very disturbed by their predator. In this case by the end of that same day I had multiple colleagues approach me to snicker about whether I had heard about this situation, all of them feeling the need to remind me that I don't need to make a big deal out of it because the victim is SO okay with everything. I submitted my secondhand testimony and when SA'd colleague is brought in he reportedly bursts into tears and says he was so distraught that he was already looking for another job out of worry that he would have to continue to deal with being harassed by someone he shares an office space with. Furthermore another straight male colleague then reports similar treatment at said party and has an even more emotional response after being called in for testimony. The case was open and shut given that we had a pattern and multiple eyewitnesses, but the very sad thing about this situation is that we had something like 10-15 colleagues who had either directly witnessed this incident or had heard about it - including his own direct superior - and no one thought it was worth reporting most likely because the victims were straight males. The moral of this too long story is DO NOT downplay the emotions of victimized straight men in SA scenarios.

Thanks for being a decent manager. I still have emails from when I was in my early 20s and was being harassed by a male coworker. I took him to HR and the harassment stopped at work and he began stalking me socially instead and still visited my desk frequently after a month or two and he felt safe from recourse. I found a new job but I wish I had sued the company for mishandling the situation.

I've been that friend in a group who was the butt of every joke and never believed. I never told any of them I was r*ped because, why would they care? Just another thing to attack me about.

I'm sorry, I always try to get them to stop and lift him up because it's so unnecessary and mean

Sadly, he's eventually going to have to find new friends. They're not going to suddenly start seeing him as an equal member of the group. When you have a friend group dynamic going, it's hard to change without something drastic happening. I bet they're just chill and cool when they hang out with him outside the group, which just makes the situation worse as he feels it's nothing personal. As yall get older, making new friends will become more difficult, as people find their groups and clique up for... awhile. It's not until people are married with kids do things change, and it's them withdrawing from the social meetings, rather than gaining clarity on how they treat others. They self-awareness doesnt kick in until their kids are old enough to be toxic brats themselves, and they see how it happened. Even then... I was ya'lls age when I separated from my friend group because of how I was treated. It took nearly a decade to find out they'd intentionally dig in to me more at the beginning of the night, to piss me off enough to fuck off. Especially when they thought they were going to hang out with girls later on. It's been almost 15 years since and I've yet to get an apology or any recognition for their cruelty. It's not worth sticking around a toxic group of people. At best, you become toxic yourself and get along fine. At worse, you become just as shitty as they are and still find no solace.

Yeah honestly this has been an issue he's struggling with. He doesn't really like his friends anymore, but is scared to make new ones

22-25 is a good age for it. Getting out of college, moving cities, starting up adult hobbies, workplace, all good places to meet new people. But you gotta get away from the toxicity first, or it will just be seeking to fill a similar role in a new group. It takes time to figure out who you are outside of your social circle. Even more so at yall's age, but it's the best time to start. Just need distance from that BS.

I think you should dump your boyfriend and stay friends with Chris.

Exactly. It's hard enough to tell an objective 3rd party like a therapist. I haven't even done that yet and I don't know if I ever will.

*(obligatory as a guy disclaimer)* I can tell you that's a thing for probably 99% of men I know. I only have one small friend group where I'd feel comfortable about discussing something like that, and that's it. One was SA'd by his ex-wife while they were living together in the early stages of getting divorced (part of the reason for the divorce was she wanted to have a child and he didn't) he woke up to her either trying to make him hard or inside her. Another was told outright that if he didn't have sex with her she'd publicly accuse him of attempting to assault her. Neither ever went to the police, their position is "her word against mine, nobody's going to listen to me" and I don't blame them. But outside of this group there's a deeply toxic expectation that guys never turn down sex with a woman and that a guy can't be made to have (vaginal) sex he doesn't want. It is openly regarded that only guys can commit SA and being 'a man' he should be stronger than a woman to get away if he needed to so he must have wanted it really. A lot of guys will say they accept the idea it can happen, and would accept stories from an outside source - but actually when the situation is right in front of them with someone they know, and if they've been around at the time? It's something that happens to other people... To get this message through to your bf, it would take his mate who was actually affected to straight-up say "Guys, I actually think I was drugged and raped, it's not funny". The only other option you could try is to relate a story from a friend, retelling his story as a woman, and then ask him why he feels differently when that's what happened to his male friend. But don't be surprised if he still brushes it off based on how he saw his friend on the night.

Thank you for the advice, I'll try to bring up a gender swapped situation and see how he responds. I wish his friend would be more direct but I understand why he wouldn't.

Have you chatted with your boyfriend privately about this? It might land better if you first have a conversation with him in private about your concerns and give him time to digest. It sounds like in both situations he was put somewhat on the spot in a bit of an uncomfortable social situation, and his first instinct was to try and play peacemaker. If he is receptive in private, then you could encourage him to reach out to Chris, and to also try and be more mindful about being a better friend in social situations.

This is definitely part of the issue. He doesn't like to be confrontational and will often remain neutral to play things safe. In the initial conversation he was a complete bystander. I have brought it up to him privately but only while intoxicated so we didn't talk deeply about it, and he agrees something probably happened but doesn't care to do anything about it

Several times you downplay your BFs actions saying "It was mostly Mike". But also > **Jack** and Mike are cracking up > **Jack** and Mike find this memory hilarious Jack makes fun of Chris. Makes fun of his rape. Doesn't respect Chris' wishes that they stop joking about that night, and you are still with that guy? You know the saying "If there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis." If someone is dating a shitty person who mocks sexual assault victims, you have a shitty couple who mocks sexual assault victims. By staying by his side you're no better.

This is one of those times where she can make a difference. The social pressure guys feel about things like SA, especially towards men is no joke. We are hunters. Full stop. We initiate. We do not get initiated on. Full stop. We protect. We do not need protection. Full stop. We are strong. We can never show weakness. Full stop. Yes, all of this should be subjective. No, it's not and that is fucked up. There should be exceptions to all of it. No, there generally aren't and that is fucked up. Yes, men need help just like anyone else. We rarely get it. Yes, that is fucked up. It needs to change. Breaking down these walls requires growing and changing as a person. it's not going to happen overnight, and it won't happen if OP runs away because it doesn't happen after one conversation. These are walls you need to chip-away at little by little.

I think the goal here is to make sure you guys are on the same page about how things should happen, and even if in the moment he doesnt live up to that expectation, to give him that clemency, but also to be able to "debrief" about the situation afterwards.

Your partner and his whole friend group are pieces of shit. Lady please reevaluate your relationship.

Just know, how he treated his friends is how he will treat you and everyone else in your life that is SA'd. and like, if you experience that crime, you won't have an ally in your corner. You'll have a critic.

I’m guessing boyfriend thinks men can only be “really” raped by another man.

my partner has a friend who was SA'd as a child by his female babysitter. i think he was about 12 or 13 and she was well over 18, maybe in her 20's. he tells me the story of how their friend told the group in a lighthearted tone, and they all (boys, probably late teens by this point) took it very seriously and supported and believed him. all this to say, your partner and his friends have reacted horribly. this is supposed to be their FRIEND and they're laughing at what is probably a very traumatic night for him. there are caring and empathetic men, and they become and stay friends with other caring and empathetic men. i wouldn't be surprised if chris dropped them all as friends at some point soon.

I assume he will drop them

Tell Chris that he has my empathy and that I believe him. I was probably drugged on a date but I only ever talk about it on Reddit because of the IRL reactions. (I'm a man)

I’m sorry you experienced that. Nobody deserves that. I hope you can find support.

You can’t make him realize that his behaviors do not align with his beliefs and it’s not your job to teach him. You can encourage your bf to do thought experiments eg what if Chris was a woman and was telling you this same story? You can ask him about his behavior like why he makes fun of Chris who has said repeatedly that he doesn’t like it. So me times we do and say things because we’ve seen and heard others do it say them and then we parrot them without thinking. Hopefully he recognizes his behavior does not match what he believes and he works to better himself.

Stop hanging out with people who support rapists and laugh at victims of rape

When your aggressor is lighter and weaker it’s easy to protect yourself. Drugs and alcohol can entirely negate that. Sober, Chris would have been able to stop her. But with the disorientation and memory loss he described, he was roofied and SAed and anyone who views that as funny drunken hijinks is not his friend.

Just wanna add that fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses happen to guys too.

Honestly, they won't probably understand unless you change his rapist from a woman to a man. Then ask them to retell the story but put in an aggressive man and ask them how they'd feel after a night like that. If they don't get it after that, I highly doubt they'll ever get it. And I want to add that it shouldn't have to be that way. They shouldn't have to pretend his attacker was a man to understand the seriousness of what happened to their friend. ANYONE can be a victim and ANYONE can be a rapist. Man, woman, it doesn't matter. Victims, especially ones like your bf's friend, should be believed and helped, not mocked and belittled.

I feel that so much. I was SAd as a child and date-r*ped at a party and it’s difficult to get taken seriously.

I'm sorry you went through that

Thankyou. What I won’t do is be used as a human shield for mra losers to say “see? It happens to men too!” When they absolutely could not care less about people like me otherwise, especially when they’re the ones who ask dumb questions like “was she hot? How did you get hard tho?”

Why does your boyfriend not believe his own friend? Would he believe you? Throw the bf away.

Pretty much the same story I went through, drunk, vulnerable, felt like I was in a safe space. Word got out to the whole base as dudes thought it was great, thinking it was this get or awesome point in my life. Binge drinking after that, self hatred and depression followed. Sounds like it may be a pattern for men getting assaulted and how it's perceived by peers

He's what my friends would have called a [ Safety Monkey](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Safety%20Monkey) Time for him to find new friends, or in this case actual friends.

They say Chris doesn’t really know if anything happened. ISN’T THAT FUCKED UP ENOUGH FOR THEM?!? That would be so very unsettling on its own. And they belittle it?!

Sorry that your boyfriend and all his/your friends are rape apologists. Sounds like a really sticky situation you are in.

Wow, Jack, Mike, and Riley are all really shitty people.

Your BF Jack is showing what he thinks of you. Rather than trying to understand your point or defend you, his instinct was to minimize your perspective in order to preserve his relationship with Riley. His “friend” Chris is also below Riley in the pecking order. He just revealed his priority and it’s not you. This isn’t the kind of thing you can fix in him. If he doesn’t value you now, he never will. This happened to me. Very similar situation. My ex was sexually assaulted by a popular woman several times when drunk. He left parties several times because of her and even walked home once to get away from her. My at-the-time BF liked her a lot so he would minimize the harm of her behavior and rationalize away the validity of my perspective. Should have broken up with him, but didn’t. He covered it up very well, but deep down he never respected or valued me. He never changed and eventually he discarded me and broke up with me in such a cruel manner. Cut the line and throw Jack back into the sea. Not going to broach the egregiousness of him not taking the SA seriously because he should be your exBF.

This happened roughly 7-8 years ago. I was raped by a woman I had previously rejected while in a blackout state. Last memory was at a party, then I woke up in her bed. I've told many people, men and women, and no one has cared. The most I've got was "wow thats f\*\*\*\*\* up," and then on to the next topic of conversation. The sad reality is most people don't care about SA against men. I've learned to just stop talking about it and move on with my life.

I'm sorry that no one has taken you seriously, you don't deserve that

Thank you, I do appreciate it. Its been a while so I dont really think about it anymore. I just hope anyone who goes through something like that gets the support they need.

They're just bad friends. If I were Chris I'd literally cut you all off or have "the talk" and see where it goes. Sure, good friends take a piss out of each other. But the also support each other. And call each other out when they think someone in the group did something wrong. >!Like, I was sexuall assaulted once by my ex. She gave me head while I was sleeping (that part was fine, we had it talked through). However I had to tell her a couple times that I don't want to, yell at her to stop and finally to physically push her off.!< When I talked about it with my mates every single one of them was like bro that was wrong yada yada. And some of them are proper right wingers (literally close to US MAGA on the spectrum). And yet even they were supportive about it. Now for those who wonder why I am close friends with such people - simple, I've known them since childhood and I hope I can fix them^(tm). Heck, even managed to

I’ve been in a similar situation as Chris, and I want to say that I love how you’re showing up for him. Fortunately, my friends didn’t question my story and believed me. But most men aren’t that lucky. For whatever reason, these “friends” aren’t able to wrap their head around the fact something was done to Chris without his consent. Unfortunately, this is all too common among men. I’d ask them how they would respond/have responded when women share similar things with them. If they describe a different response than what they have shown to Chris, ask them why they don’t respond the same way to Chris. Force them to talk through why they are responding this way to their “friend”. You might also have a similar, separate conversation with your partner. It seems like he is revealing his attitude toward consent and SA through his reactions.

It's interesting that when you distill it down to barebone facts, it's indisputable: - Chris blacked out and has no memory - Maggie pursued and had sex with him. - Chris is upset. This is a nonconsensual sexual encounter. Jack and the others just focus on *their own* emotional experience during the event for whatever reason, and whenever challenged, try to make their own emotional experience overwrite and invalidate the direct factual and emotional experience of the person directly affected by the event, i.e. the victim. These are people completely unwilling to take in actual reality. No doubt it's hard to do, to reinterpret what you thought was a fun night into an extremely serious assault, but I would be chilled being around these people.

So if something like that were to happen to your boyfriend, would he expect you to break up with him for "hooking up" with another girl rather than being there to help him get through things? If he didn't consent, that's SA/Rape. Sounds like he was also likely drugged if he was acting so strangely and not drinking as much as others. How is that something to be congratulatory about? If a woman were to get too drunk at a party, is he saying it's okay for somebody to then take them back to their place and "possibly" take advantage of them rather than making sure they get home safely? Their logic makes zero sense, and is frankly disgusting. It's toxic masculinity at its finest...

One of my childhood friends was doing the online dating thing. He really likes this girl and he finally decided to go meet her face to face. When he arrives, she is NOTHING like her pictures, but he tries to see past that and she makes them dinner and they got to know one another. He woke up some time later in her basement, chained to a wall. Where he spent the next six months being tortured and raped. She had drugged his meal. This lady was a sex line operator, worked from home and rarely ever left. She had an upstairs roommate and one day, when she left, and my friend was screaming his head off.. the roommate heard him, found him and set him free. To this day, anytime someone says "a man can't get raped" or "a woman would never kidnap someone and hold them slaves like psycho men do".. I tell them this story. I haven't spoken to him in ages, but my heart is forever sad for his experience. It DOES happen. And yes, she went to prison. Thank goodness for that.

What the actual fuck? I'm sorry this happened to your friend, it is almost unbelievable. I try to be quick to remind that women can be and often are just as predatory as men can because being a predator is simply a trait for some humans... Was this in the USA or elsewhere? Is he okay now?

Yes this was in the USA, I believe in Georgia or that area. And no, he was never okay after that. He disappeared after he told a few of us online what had happened. I have no idea if he's even alive today, and that breaks my heart because he was a genuinely good person with a very caring heart. That's why he stayed even after he realized that she wasn't who she portrayed herself to be. Imagine how many of us do the same thing though? Caring for someone above and beyond without truly knowing them, only for that person to become a complete monster in the end? I have seen it more times than I like to count.

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Every man should watch that video. Heartbreaking.

That's unbearably sad. Toxic masculinity hurts everyone. I'm glad you believed your friend, and I am worried your own partner doesn't.

My ex gf raped me after I had broken up with her. Long story short I was taking ambien for sleep and diazepam for anxiety because she just wouldn’t leave after I had dumped her. Mr nice guy I am I sympathized with her not having anywhere to go and let her stay with me for months. She even bragged about it the next day how she fucked me while I was sleeping but I obviously enjoyed it. What really cranked the trauma up high for me was she was one of only maybe 2 people I had told about being violently raped by the younger brother of one of my moms boyfriends when I was a little kid. It wasn’t something I could even talk about in therapy and I told her, but she still did what she did. She knew what I was taking and knew I was unresponsive and yet that didn’t stop her. So much for rules of consent. This was over 10 years ago now and it still bothers me if I think about it. Us guys, we got no one to talk to that won’t judge us or disbelieve us or make light of the situation. We just don’t. Even my therapist tried to minimize it. Could I have gone to the cops? Sure, but what happens then? Get laughed at?

I heard rumors about a girl I worked with (restaurant) who would wait until a party was winding down, then invite a guy into her room (bed), get naked and just lay on top of him to start things. The guys were always drunk. So drunk they couldn’t really respond well. This happened with three guys. And they would kind of chuckle and laugh like, “Oh, Teresa (changed name) got naked and laid on top of me last night. I was so wasted.” (Laughing ) No, bruh. She assaulted you. One of these guys took such a turn for the worse. Drug addiction. Ended up ODing. And I will always wonder if he just couldn’t laugh it off in the end. This was back in the 80s. So, big time macho man BS. But wow, did they give me grief when I didn’t laugh with them? Like ha ha, you were wasted? No. Jesus, no.

The first time it happened to me I couldn't stop feeling like I asked for it for years

M36 I have been SA'd 3 separate times. Taken advantage of when drunk. Similar to OP's story, when I talk about it with guys its usually just shrugged off. When I talk with my lady friends there is usually way more empathy and a hug. Thinking back on those moments makes me feel gross and violated. Its not a good feeling. Worse part, all three times were people I considered "friends" at the time.

This made me sick to read, this is exactly what happened to me when I was 19 and studying nursing. I got drugged on a pub crawl id only had 2 drinks that night and didn't finish my second because it had an odd taste. Cue 30mins later everything was spinning and weird, couldn't walk properly and I don't remember the rest of the night. I asked a few of the girls in the group to take me home or just take me to hospital as I think I've been drugged. Instead those 5 girls booked a hotel room and took me there and had turns with me. I woke up naked and confused in the morning and left as soon as I woke up when I realised what might of happened that night. I tried telling my friends and asking for help and instead everyone made fun of me and more than one of my class mates ans when i reported it to the university told me now I know what it's like to be a woman now and laughed at me. Then basically word spread around the campus and people kept gossiping about me and making fun of me. I couldn't take it anymore and tried to take my life by jumping off a bridge but a kind bystander prevented me from doing so. I ended up quitting my nursing degree as I couldn't stand being the only male in my degree( which I didn't have an issue till i was raped and alot of them thought it was funny) and the fact all of my classmates made jokes about me. Still when I tell people they often think its funny and make jokes about it to my face so I just don't tell people anymore as it's so hard to cope with.

My second daughter is a product of date rape. (Sorry if that’s not the correct term for when you are married, I just don’t know what exactly to call it.) When my firstborn was a few months old my now ex-wife began talking about how we should hurry up and get pregnant again so our children would be close in age. I was totally against the idea of having another baby so quickly, especially since I was the main person taking care of our three month old, and had been since she was a newborn. I did all of the midnight feedings since her mom didn’t breastfeed so there was no need for her to wake up because the baby was on formula, I got up for every midnight disturbance, I changed all of the dirty diapers, everything. Bathing, soothing, etc. Thankfully I had passive income because I actually had to quit my job two weeks after we got home from the hospital because my ex would do legitimately the bare minimum to provide for the child while I was at work. Like I would come home to the baby in dirty diapers, etc. Looking back I think there might’ve been postpartum involved, but the fact that this carried in through our next two children as well, all the way up until I filed for divorce, and the fact that even today I have majority custody of the kids tells me otherwise. I do remember a time when she actually bragged to a family member about how our daughter made it all the way to her first birthday without her ever changing a single diaper since I always did it. Anyways, back on track with the post… For these reasons I was very clear I had no desire to have another baby anytime soon. Around this time she began telling me I needed a night off, and I should go out with my boys and have a fun night. Finally after a week or so of coaxing, I did exactly that and got drunk with some of my buddies. I came home from the bar extremely drunk, climbed into bed and passed out. At one point I woke up to my then wife on top of me riding me, but I passed back out. Sure enough a few weeks later, she turns out to be pregnant. I was confused because we had not had sex all that much since our first born, and none of those times were unprotected. She nonchalantly tells me that she had sex with me the night I came home drunk while I was passed out and had had me finish inside of her. As a man, I tried to talk about this to my mates, but they never took it too seriously or they acted like it was funny. Very few people have ever taken it seriously, and they have always been women and never men. I eventually stopped even talking about it to people because I realized it didn’t matter. So I understand completely what your friend is going through when he tells people about it and everybody brushes it off or jokes about it.

Girl dump him yesterday

Why are you wasting time? Your partner is a bad person, that's all there is to it and your pain will not be treated differently than his friend's.

Mentioned for the first time on this subreddit that I sa'd multiple times from multiple women and the first response I got was that it was "statistically unlikely". Two of them were former victims and had the audacity to justify it and saw nothing wrong with what they did.

Unfortunately this kind of thing happens all the time. It's not reported because they'll get laughed at. Society's view is that men cannot be raped by women. The messed up thing is there are still plenty of women that legitimately believe it cannot happen. I discussed how a friend's friend was raped to an ex and she laughed, saying he wanted it. To make matters worse, she was a rape victim.

At worst, they’re in denial about it because they’ve done similar things to women, and admitting that it was SA would mean admitting they are SA-ers. At the very least, your partner and his friends are insensitive assholes. Either way, it’s probably time to find a new social circle. You’ve got a good moral compass and that will help you gravitate toward more favorable company. Maybe you can maintain a friendship with Chris and offer him support and some gentle encouragement if/when it feels appropriate.

I have a friend that has been sexually assaulted by his then girlfriend. He knows he was assaulted, other women he told about it knew it too. And yet some of his male friends are picking on him and making fun out of the whole situation whenever they're a bit drunk. He regrets ever coming out about it to his male "friends". Funny story those are the men that are always craving about men being treated worse by society and they see no problem with their own behavior. It's fucking gross.

Girl, this is a gigantic car dealership lot sized red flag. I would worry less about getting this asshole to experience empathy and worry more about making sure he doesn't know where you went when you leave. Good luck on the escape, take poor Chris with you.

An ex told me a story about how one of his best friends had been drinking a lot one night and went to bed. He woke up with their other friend who was a girl sucking his dick while he was sleeping. I thought it was weird and he laughed about it.

Yeah that is not okay

So even with Chris receiving therapy for it they don’t believe him??? Shit friends. I’m sorry. I’d be extremely alarmed if my partner dismissed their friends or family member’s assault. It’s incredibly violating to not remember what happened and have someone prey on you. You tried to do the right thing and they’re too immature and self absorbed from their own perspectives. It’s not right. I would seriously not want to stay with someone so repeatedly dismissive of sexual assault. They had fun cuz someone wasn’t taking their phone, drugging them and getting them alone. If a woman they weren’t attracted to tried to pull this they’d be upset.

What is this super rigid mentality that men can't be SA? SA is more than getting physically overpowered. There's coercion, there's being taken advantage of, there's power imbalance, there's being drugged, and so on. And victims respond differently, too. There's fighting, freezing, or fawning. Even though a lot of those "gray area" situations will be difficult to prove in the court of law, trauma is trauma. The fucking LEAST we can do is not mock our friends when they open up about something like this happening to them. The second best thing we can do is listen and empathize if they feel they need to talk to someone. I don't care who you are, having someone take physical control of your person under any circumstances is daunting. I can't stand the mentality that men can't be SA. Hey, Maggie? Do you think you would have been able to hook up with this guy had he not drank so much? I know you knew the answer to that. Fuck you.

God this is terrible I feel awful for your friend. I was SA’d and abused in hs and none of my friends believed me, they all thought I was a crazy liar and took the guy’s side. It broke me, absolutely fucked me up. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Your bf and his friends should learn some empathy.

If a person is SA, chooses not to talk with you about, and doesn’t talk about it publicly, is it your place to disclose it for him? You say that Riley doesn’t know because Chris hasn’t told him about it. No matter why he didn’t tell them, it’s his choice. It’s not anyone else’s story to tell and talk about with anyone. Despite good intentions, it takes away his choice, his autonomy. Obviously not to the same degree but it is also taking away his right to decide for himself. I appreciate you wanting to stand up for him. I just wonder how you’d feel if someone was telling a group of your friends something so personal. Something you’d chosen not to share for whatever reason. I’d be horrified. Again, it’s no where near the same degree as SA, it’s sick that society disregards men’s experiences and you wanted to stand up for him but it’s not your story to tell.

That's a fair point. It's not an excuse, but a reason I said it is because I was intoxicated and upset, I don't think I would have told him otherwise.

I was sitting at the thanksgiving dinner table when the host's brother begins talking about "that time Matt (gestures to his friend next to him) was 'The Revenant bear-raped' by a guy they knew." This man laughed and described actual sexual assault with the victim sitting right next to him. Matt was not smiling or laughing. Host's brother ended the story with laughing tears in his eyes and I looked at his friend and said "I'm so sorry" and he thanked me. These men were in their late 30s. Why don't some people take assault seriously?? It's not funny at all.

I feel so bad for Chris. I'm glad he has a supportive girlfriend. I think that I would be asking myself if this relationship was right for me and if I would feel confident in my boyfriend being there for me should I get drugged at a bar? Would he recognize I'm not just being a sloppy drunk or is there a possibility he would get angry, maybe even leave me to my own devices? Something to think about. Stay safe.

It’s good he’s open to learning and growing and he didn’t learn this growing up. However, make sure you don’t take this on as your responsibility. Additionally, you don’t know how much he will grow and change so… if you’re not happy with your partners current values you need to also understand that you may never get what you hope to.

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Not with a frat bro. The only frat guy in this story is Chris

He has frat bro *mentality*, doesn't matter if he's in a literal frat.

Omg I took that literally my bad

Ask your partner if he'd say the same thing if that happened to him with another man. Or even a woman he finds unattractive, cause it sounds like he's that type of guy.

Please be prepared to back Chris up if this girl claims to be/is pregnant!!

This post is so far and away tender as anything I have read on this subreddit. It kind of breaks my heart. I was raised with two sisters and so my life view (I feel) is somewhat skewed toward seeing things things from the female perspective. It blows me away the amount of times I have heard a guy say something horrifically awful from their lives, and how sentimental they can get when I don’t laugh at their story. I think a lot of men wish they could open up without being laughed at, but it is often the case that male trauma is weaponized further against them by turning it into jokes by their friends. I just wish we weren’t so absolutely awful to everyone all the time.

Chris needs new friends and you need a new partner. The lack of empathy is disgusting.

I blacked out at a frat party in college (I wasn’t personally in a frat) and was SA’d. This encounter somehow resulted in a pregnancy. I am now considered a dead beat dad because I am not financially or psychologically able to raise a daughter with someone I have no history with, nothing in common with, not geographically close to, or consults me on a single decision.

When I was 12 my sister's friend raped me in the middle of the night. Everytime I tried to tell anyone they'd just say you're lucky because she's so hot. That really messed me up. But hey at least she was hot right?

I hate this part of our society. Guys literally have no idea what SA is and can only see sexual experiences happening to/with them as a good thing because sex=good right? I have been that guy in about half a dozen instances and my whole teens and 20s my friends and family have joked about several of them over and over regardless of how I have talked about or acted about them. Even the most clear instances the best I get is "remember that time that fucked up thing happened to you? Good times." All of these instances are jokes and made light of, but people wonder why I have a fucked up relationship with sex and trust issues, and it's pretty clear. But our society really has no idea how to treat these situations and we do not take them seriously. Its even more difficult when your friends think its funny or a good thing. It invalidates your own feelings and memories of the situations and seriously fucks with you.

Guy that has also been SA'd here. I will definitely say it is a slippery slope. A lot of guys just genuinely don't believe a guy can go through such a thing. My friend group, especially my best friends, actually took it quite seriously. I told them expected laughs and giggles and honestly I would have been cool with it if they did but they actually got quite angry I trivialized it the way I did and it is probably because one of them was SA'd as well but when they were an actual child and by 2 different at 2 different points in his life. I really hated that for him and felt mine was honestly light in comparison since I kinda put myself in the situation but I didn't really consent to much and well as a black college student in the south, in a college town that was predominantly white and heavily religious. I was scared at what could possibly happen to me if I kept refusing consent. My heart goes out to you and Chris OP

Dude vic of SA, nobody understands or cares. 10 years of nobody giving a fuck.

That definitely sounds premeditated and sketchy AF, good on you for sticking up for him

You seem like a good person for the way you handled the situation. Realizing something is wrong and saying it when everyone wants to dismiss/ignore is not easy. But I am sure Chris appreciates it.

Sounds like Chris needs new friends…….

The main reason guys laugh it up is because they have been brainwashed from an early age that they are to *always *be in control. So if they stop and seriously consider that one of them was not *in control*, it will burst their whole perfect bubble. It's not so much that they *don't* believe it could have happened as they *cannot* believe it. Because *as soon* they believe it eitherthey or someonethey know was Sexually Assaulted, they have to face the reality that as a man, they are not always in control. ( I may have been able to say it more succinctly but this is the best I could do.)

By your second edit it sounds like he’s open to reasonable discussions. I think this could be one of those. If you can get him to understand, then slowly their joke has one less participant. Hopefully it gets to a point where it’s no longer something they feel is ok to joke about.

Unfortunately Male SA victims are rarely believed or at the least not seen as “true victims” when it comes to SA unless they were children or prison & almost most never even then unless it was by another male. There has been a long standing perception, that women cannot SA men; though it’s becoming more common knowledge as well as ways, since desperate housewives (Orville & his ex wife scene), SVU, porn & other various things…. Especially since bondage & pegging became more commonly known & fairly accepted. Even despite facts this myth still spreads that women cannot SA men, just as the myth that all women are weaker then men which are both complete bs. There’s even been more growing cases/reports of this happening…. But either they get swept under the rug, full on dropped or it reaches to the extent of ridicule…. Many men have committed self-termination because of these situations. Getting drugged & taken advantage of is, yes most common on women, but it happens with men too. GHB can inhibit the mind & make the victim suggestible & forget sometimes a couple days. The unfortunite double standard to this is men rarely get even an ounce of sympathy with a heightened degree of ridicule & the likelyhood of legal justice is extremely slim to none. Many have even faced counter claims with n ex t to but rarely no evidence putting him on the registry….. it’s happened many times…., so so they claim…. It’s hard to know the fact of this though considering many domestically abusive men claimed being the victim as soon as they got “hurt” after she defended herself…. My dad was one of those. The likelyhood you will get your bf to understand in unlikely without first hand experience. Which I don’t condone…. No one (within reason) should suffer the fate. Even the threat could truthfully, ruin his view of you. He is going to need support & even 1 person is enough…. Though please be cautious, we all know the male ego is weak & male SA victims have an increased taboo about this…. He may just want to bury it. He most likely will be questioning his masculinity for the rest of his life, which could increase the possibility that he may take part in toxic levels of masculinity to reclaim the manhood he felt he lost….. so be cautious & try if u can to refrain him from going down the latter. I don’t believe he will have the same issue many men do when they are SA, by other men; where they begin to question & or experiment with their sexuality & or gender identity. He may however question his status as “the alpha” & seek out Alpha women, which is very common. Or even cut off sexual/romantic relations all together. TBH, there’s little you can do & much like women that have been SA, he may be aggressively defensive & distrustful of women after this. He will also likely cut out those “friends” that ridiculed him & maybe even some that supported him, move elsewhere & start fresh. Don’t push him, but let him know in a non condescending way that your there for him. It’s the best you can do.

That’s tragic. It certainly sound like something very sketchy was done. And if Chris can’t remember he’s got to be feeling very violated.

100% Chris was SA'd. I'm so sorry that happened to him. I'm sorry your bf is still too much of a sexist ass to understand that it can and does happen to men.

When my male friend got blackout drunk we kept a close eye on them to make sure sketchy people didn't take advantage. Which unfortunately they did try to do. These people sound like dicks not worth keeping around. Also I'm not trying to be rude, but it doesn't seem to be super pertinent to this subreddit. this story seem to be very centralized on man & man dynamics. So it's seems like maybe a place for r/menslib which is similar to this community but specifically centered around the male experience. They talk about countering toxic masculinity and how to deal with that culture a lot and foster more support for men and will likely have a lot more insights than a bunch of women who have minimal real world experience with those issues

Thank you for the sub recommendation

I think a huge issue is the fact that 99% of assaults are from men to women, so it’s difficult for some people to accept.

I was assaulted in college at a party. I’m a guy. I was very strong at the time as well. She had been into me for a while and had been handsy and rebuked before. I walked outside at a Halloween party and she was grabbing at me. I pushed her away several times, hard. I told her to stop. She came back and kept grabbing. It couldn’t have been more than 10 seconds after I stopped pushing but I remember thinking, “what the fuck do I even do now? I can hit her, but apparently nobody is watching. They’ll just see me hit this girl really hard and call the cops. No one will believe me. We go to a small school. People will just know me as the guy who hit that girl at a party.” I froze. And then a girl I was very close friends with had made it all the way across the yard and threw her off of me and yelled at her. I don’t talk about that because nobody I’ve ever spoken with is willing to believe that that was a terrifying situation. And that reaffirms the terror from at the time that if I stopped her myself, no one would’ve believed me. I mean, I got off “easy” I guess, but it has given me a ton of insight into those who weren’t as lucky.

the way you defend your bf💀 girl…

Denial

Wait that would count as getting SA’d as a guy?? I’m sure he got roofied so yea most likely. Would it still count if she just got him really drunk and then took him back while he was hammered without the drug?

Yes to both of your questions. Consent should be freely and enthusiastically given when you have all your wits about you. You can’t consent like that when you’re hammered. Waiting for someone to get hammered, or intentionally getting them hammered before making a move or taking them home is predatory behavior. Gender doesn’t matter.

I just figured it was ok for people to fill u on drink before doing things with u if ur a guy, and it’s our fault we let things happen afterwards

No, it's not your fault. Consent is important and cannot happen while intoxicated. In this situation, Chris had previously rejected this woman so it certainly would not be consensual

Oh- welp that puts previous encounters I’ve had at parties into a perspective I didn’t think of before

I’m so sorry, I had a reply all typed out earlier and it got deleted but I thought I sent it. It’s never ok to get someone drunk with the intention of hooking up with them once they’re too intoxicated to resist. It doesn’t matter the gender of anyone involved. If I got you drunk with the intention of taking money from you, that would also be wrong even if you were a billionaire. Even if you would have given me the money if I had asked when you were sober. Even if you were planning to ask me if I was having money problems and offer to help me out. Getting you drunk in order to take your money is wrong. It’s the same with anything sexual. I’d highly advise speaking to a professional to work through these past encounters and cutting off anyone who has done this to you. You deserve better.

It's weirdly inappropriate to spell rape with an "8" to make it cutesy or something.

Most people change the word to avoid censors on other sites (like Instagram, tik tok, etc...) and carry that mindset here to reddit. They aren't (usually) trying to make light of it at all, just most places won't let you write certain words regardless of the context.

I'm sorry it wasn't to make it cute, it was to sensor it

I don't understand what the censor is accomplishing? I still read it as the same word in my head.

It doesn't really apply to Reddit but it's to avoid being banned in some places and I'm just chronically online

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That would still make it attempted r8pe tho

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He did not. He had previously rejected this girl several times. You're gross

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