Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Men That Say "NO!" By: Jalen Robinson

The Men That Say “NO!”
By: Jalen Robinson
            When deciding my second blog I already had an idea in mind. As I looked over the possible topics I ran across sexual assault regarding women as the victims. But why do you never hear about men as victims as well? Men can be victim to sexual assaults and rape as well. This blog will talk about men being victims as well and giving a few statistics I ran across. I also will be opening up on a personal experience so read at your own risk.


            While researching for this blog I came across a website named “Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network” (www.rainn.org). This is known as “The nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization” by Worth magazine.[1] This organization states that men are victims of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and rape just like women are. In the United States almost 10% of the reports crimes involve males as the victims.[2] Sex assault can be anything from non-consented sexual touching to forced sex. They organization also has hotline number for survivors to call and get help. Many victims experience threats from the violator to keep the experience a secret. The site claims that self-blame can be a common mental affect of being a sexual assault victim. Anything can become affected by this sexual assault. The victim can be psychologically, emotionally, and relationship wise be affected. There are also a plethora more of sites victims can visit and numbers they can call to get help.

There is a myth that “Boys can’t be sexually used or abused, and if one is, he can never be a real man.”[3] That is 100% false. This blog topic is one I am familiar with; I will take this blog to let my guard down and open up a little bit. Any type of sexual assault, rape, or rape culture should be reported to people who can help the person being raped. After that the person may need to contact some sort of counseling to help them deal with any emotional scars. I believe the emotional scars are what cut deeper than the actual physical scars. Those are all crimes and should be taken seriously. I have my own person story behind this issue. I as a male was once sexually assaulted before and I’ll never forget it.
I was about six years old and I remember spending the summer with my grandparents. They were having some type of party and all the adults were in the kitchen or living room. I could remember hearing Keith Sweat playing in the background; my grandparents loved Keith Sweat back in the day. I was in the bedroom with my cousins and the television was on. After a while all of my cousins left the room expect one of them, but I won’t say any names so I’ll just say her name is Asha. Asha and I were really cool back in the day; whenever I would come to my grandparent’s house I would always see her along with the rest of my cousins. I remember her closing the bedroom door when everyone left and slowly approaching me. That should have rung some bells in my head in the first place. She then said to me “Jalen you are so cute you know that?” I didn’t pay it any mind because I was too busy playing around with my Goldberg wrestling man.   

Then all of a sudden I could feel her rubbing my leg. I looked at her hand told her to stop but that did not justice. After that she got on top of me and started to kiss my face all over. Asha is about three years older than me so she was bigger than I was, there was no way to possible to force her off of me. I had on shorts at the time so she slowly worked her hand up my leg into my shorts. I didn’t cry or anything, I just looked at her like why are you doing this? After a while I felt her reaching for my genitals. I remember being in a shocked and terrified state and I couldn’t move a muscle. Suddenly she hopped off of me really quickly and sat next to me. My grandma walks in the room to check on us and ask if everything was ok. Asha says everything is fine and then my grandma looked at me. My heart raced so fast and I was in so much shock that I just nodded my head and said “Yes ma’am”.

To this day nobody knows that story, not even my parents. The only person that knows that is my girlfriend who I have known and opened up to since we were five years old. I have never talked to Asha about the incident and I don’t know if I ever will. It’s safe to say Asha now has two babies with two different fathers. I don’t have nightmares or anything but it does run across my mind from time to time. Maybe I’ll talk to someone one day about it if it ever bears on my mind too much.

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