In The Shadows: Making Sense of Gay Male Rape Victims' Silence, Suffering, and Invisibility

摘要

This article conceptually and theoretically explores, in particular, gay male rape victims' experiences and silences. This is done through examining and bringing together empirical findings from different studies relating to gender, sexuality, masculinity, police and policing, and, more broadly, sexual violence. The theoretical backdrop for this article is hegemonic masculinity to help elucidate gay male rape victims' experiences and silences. This article will also take into consideration social attitudes to these types of victims and the different ways wherein such attitudes discourage men who have been raped from coming forward to not only report, but also to seek help, whether that help comes from family, friends, and relatives or from the criminal justice system. Rather than considering all types of male rape victims, this article will predominantly focus on gay male rape victims to understand, more specifically, gay masculinity and how it differs to hegemonic masculinity. In short, this article recognizes that these two masculinities can be antithetical, but they can also have some commonalities. The author argues that gay male rape victims' enactment of gay and hegemonic masculinities is in constant negotiation, flux and fluidity through social and power relations, shaped by social structures, institutions, scripts and ideologies.