Men who were sexually abused by women tell their stories

NZ Herald 13 December 2016
Family First Comment: The inconvenient truth ….
“People seem to think being a male victim is not as bad as being a female victim and that if the perpetrator is a female the damage isn’t as bad not realising the psychological damage it can do and especially if that female is a mother. As in many countries males have been seen as perpetrators and not victims and our country is having trouble coming to terms with female perpetrators.”

Aaron Gilmore was not even a teenager when he was sexually abused by a family friend he regarded as a second mother.

But when he reported it to police years later they told him they couldn’t see what crime had taken place.

Ken Clearwater was 12 years old when he said he was sexually violated by a woman and asked to do things he could never comprehend and was left scarred, ashamed and broken.

He never reported that abuse or named the woman involved.

Both men carried a deep shame for years, worried that police and society wouldn’t believe that they had been abused by women.

Both men believe this is why males don’t report it.

Female sex offenders
While female sex offenders may seem rare, research released this month showed it’s a lot more common than previously thought.

A survey in the US found that a similar amount of women reported being raped in a 12-month period as the amount of men who were “made to penetrate” a female offender.
A new paper titled Sexual Victimisation Perpetrated by Women: Federal Data Reveal Surprising Prevalence, contradicts the idea that female sexual perpetration is rare.

Researchers used data from four main surveys, including from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, to reach their conclusion.

Using CDC data, they found that women and men reported nearly equal rates of non-consensual sex in a 12-month period.

It found 1.6 per cent of women in the US reported being raped in the past 12 months (1.9 million), which is a similar rate to the 1.7 per cent of men (1.9 million) who reportedly were “made to penetrate a perpetrator”.