The Ugly Truths Exposed by Our Reaction to Male-on-Male Sexual Assault

...Man e no like woman, woman no like woman…

Trigger Warning: This article discusses sexual assault, victim blaming and rape culture, whichmay be distressing for some readers.

As Simi said "...Man e no like woman, woman no like woman..."

A male student was allegedly caught raping another male student. Which is horrible. No one deserves to be raped. No one. 

The thing that shocked me was how, instead of men to use the incident to rise up and rally round the victim and you know come out and share their own assault stories or come out and encourage men to speak up when assaulted. 

They rather exposed themselves as being okay with rape as long as its happening to a woman. Those words dehumanized women and made them out as objects to be used to satisfy men's violentl desires. 

Whenever women come out and say what is happening to us, men don't have anything better to say other than 'it happens to men too' or 'not all men'. And therein lies the crux of the matter. Men don't care about other men they only care about silencing women. 

Can you imagine the audacity to ask if there were no women in the school to rape. The boldness to tweet it and say it online. The stupidity and stunted thinking. Some people didn't develop properly in their mother's womb. Honestly. They need to go back there. 

This just exposes the truth. Men don't like women. They never have. I doubt they even like other  men. Or maybe that's them projecting their own self - hatred. 

Another thing that struck me about this incident was, no body was asking what this student wore when he was raped. No one was claiming that he "brought it upon himself." No one was accusing him of "leading the rapist on." 

So yh, I guess people do understand the concept of NOT victim blaming but only when it's in regard to a man. Which is just sad. Because no body - man or woman - deserves to be blamed for being raped. 

Now, equally distressing was this tweet I saw. 

Let me be clear. Any gender can rape any gender. It's not about strength, as in physical strength (though that plays a role) it's about power, control and violence. 

By questioning how a man can be raped - after all they have "manly strength," - we are invalidating the victims experience and trauma and playing into the hands of the patriarchy. Essentially, we are saying that if you are raped as a man then where you ever a man at all? As though being raped is a female thing. It in not. 

All in all as Nigerians, we have failed yet another victim.