Author: Bhavini Kodavanti, NMIMS

This paper talks about the male victims of sexual assault in India. This paper analyses the myths regarding men and explains the reasons as to why male sexual assaults are not given limelight in the society. This paper debunks the myths of society. The paper also talks about the problems associated with the current rape laws and reasons why there is a need for change in these. This paper also provides a few cases of male assault cases. The research methodology used to conduct research for this paper has been mentioned. Also, the research questions in mind before conducting research on this topic have been mentioned. In the end, a suitable conclusion has been provided, which expresses the overall thoughts on this topic.  

The method used to conduct the research for this paper is a secondary research method.  

The research questions that came to mind before conducting the research on this topic are as follows- 

1. Why does India not consider male sexual assault victims? 

2. Are the current rape laws helpful for the male victims of rape?

Generally, when we talk about sexual harassment, we refer to it as something that happens only to women. But in today’s world, it happens to both men and women and that fact should not be overlooked. Not only the society has turned a blind eye towards sexual assault of men, but newspaper articles and other information providing websites have also done the same. Whenever the topic of sexual assault comes up, people automatically assume that it is related to the females. It is difficult to gather information from the men who have been sexually assaulted. One of the reasons for this could be that the world has still not accepted the fact that men can also be victims of sexual assault. And even if the men decide to come forward to speak out, their feelings are never considered as important, due to which the male victims don’t even want to talk about the assault now. Society also thinks that women can never be the assaulters. Even though the perpetrators can be male or female, the idea of a woman being the assaulter just rings the wrong bell in people’s minds. They never can accept that ‘a female has sexually assaulted a male’. The society also believes that rape of males reduces their manliness and hence labels the men with a sexuality. Society labels them as homosexuals and calls them unmasculine. The society considered rape to be a patriarchal crime towards women. There are several myths that have contributed to this thinking. The myths are- 

• “MEN ARE NOT VULNERABLE” 

In India, the upbringing of the male child is such that they are told that they should never cry and they are always the stronger ones. Also, as stated above it is always believed that a woman is the victim and never the assaulter. This can be due to the fact that in most cases that the public comes to know, it is men who rape women. Upon a survey conducted on 1150 people on whether a man can be the victim of sexual assault, most of the people said “No” because of the belief in the society that men can never be sexually assaulted.  

Rape of men has always been kept as a secret in the society, that the society has become completely oblivious to it or has started to ignore the topic. The male victims are not even able to express themselves freely due to the society and its imposed gender basics.  

We ned to keep in mind that rape or sexual assault is a gender-neutral offence. The perpetrator doesn’t see the gender of the said person as long as he/she can fulfil his/her sexual needs. Nowadays, the number of male victims of sexual assault has even increased. Due to the fact that the society mainly doesn’t pay attention to the rape of men, the perpetrators are freely engaging in the crime. It is important that laws are made in India that help the male victims to seek justice as well. Homosexuality is seen as a taboo in India. It is important that we understand that men are human beings as well and can hence feel every emotion. We should not throw away their feelings in the trash.  

It should also be noted that men can rape men too. Talking about the judgement passed by the Supreme Court that said that consensual sexual relations between two people belonging to the same gender is not a crime, it can be seen that India is a country that considers homosexuality to be bad. Homosexuality is seen as a taboo in India. As long as the society cannot accept homosexuality, it is not possible for them to accept the idea of a man sexually assaulting another man. 

• “MEN ARE SEX- DRIVEN SO RAPE SHOULD NOT BE A PROBLEM TO THEM” 

Society believes that men always desire sexual activities and hence, even if they are sexually assaulted, they probably just enjoy it. This created a belief that sexual assault of men is always voluntary and should not be even considered a problem.  

The thing to be kept in mind, while debunking this myth, is the generalization of all men. Sure, some men are sex-driven and maybe enjoy it, but even if that so called ‘sex-driven’ man at that moment had not given his consent to the sexual intercourse, then it is rape. Keeping that in mind, not all men are sex-driven. If anyone says no to sexual intercourse then it has no other meaning. It simply means that the person is not giving his consent to the intercourse and thus, the assaulter should stop. Men do not hang around with a board around their neck saying that they have always consented for sexual intercourse with anyone. We, as a society, should stop believing that.  

• “MEN ARE CAPABLE OF TAKING CARE OF THEMSELVES” 

As already mentioned above, society always happens to believe that men are the stronger section of the society and nothing can break them. If anyone sees a man cry, they say, “Mard hoke kaise ro sakte ho” or “Ladkiyon ki tarah ro mat”. All of these are examples of toxic masculinity. Men who cry and are not able to take care of themselves in case of any scenario are just termed weak and a boon to the society. Our society expects men to protect themselves on their own from any problem, and it says that if they cannot, they are not true men. One thing to be kept in mind is that rape is a severely traumatic experience. The trauma a victim of rape goes through is not dependant on one’s gender. The feelings that arise within the victims are not gender-based. If men are sexually assaulted, they are asked why they couldn’t protect themselves. Sexual assault is an extremely sensitive topic, and even if you want to fight back during the assault, it sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t. The emotions and fear that the entire mind of the victim feels at that time shouldn’t be merely reduced to the gender of the victim. It is important that we as a society first work on the idea of “toxic masculinity” and accept the fact that men CAN cry and men CAN have emotions. 

Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code defines rape. It says that a man Is said to have committed the crime of rape if he penetrates his penis, to any extent into the vaginal area of the woman, inserts any object into the vagina, manipulates any part of the woman’s body etc. As we can see by the definition of rape given by the constitution, even law considers rape to be a crime only a man can commit on a woman. If a woman has sexual intercourse with a man without his consent, it is not considered rape. We can see the injustice in law here.  

The problem with the definition of rape in this section is that first, it does not are into account non-consensual rape of men committed by women and second, it never considers women as the assaulters and only as the victims.   

There is no law in India that has been made to curtail to the problems of the male victims of sexual assault. One section that has somehow shown importance to the male victims as well is Section 377 of the IPC which says that sexual intercourse with any man, woman or animal without their consent is a crime. There is also the POCSO act, which is a sort of security to male children, but there is no provision for adult males in this act. India should also have laws for adult male victims if it has POCSO for the young male victims. But the idea of the society that it is only men that exploit women has led to such a situation where male victims cannot even have protection through laws.  

The rape laws established in other countries are gender-neutral and also consider men to be victims.  

1. In the UK, earlier there were no gender-neutral laws, but through the judgment given in the R vs. Ismail case, the laws also considered men to be the victims. But one thing to be kept in mind is that it still does not consider women to be the perpetrators. Section 142 of the Criminal Justice Act passed in 1994 says that it is a crime for a man to rape a man or a woman.  

2. The United States has always made rape gender-neutral. The definition of rape does not include any specified gender and the constitution has criminalised any kind of penetration without consent to be crime, done to any gender.  

Along with the above-mentioned countries, 75 other countries have established gender neutral rape laws. 

FALSE RAPE CASES  

The law due to the above-mentioned myths, has never considered the idea of men being the victims. Hence, their worries and accusations have been always unheard. But there are several false rape cases filed by women, due to family pressure or to seek revenge etc. Some of these cases include the Tilak Raj vs. State of Himachal Pradesh, Raghuvinder Varna vs. State of NCT of Delhi etc.  

The judgments given in these three cases give us a conclusion that sometimes women file false rape cases and use the rape laws provided to them to their advantage. The victims in these cases are put in jail even though they have done nothing wrong. All of this results in mental trauma to the victims even if they are later proven to be innocent, there will always be a mark left on their image that they are rapists. This is harmful to their career and future.  

Some of the cases of sexual assault committed against men in India have been mentioned below- 

1. In Pune, a physical education teacher was arrested for sexually assaulting a male student of class 9th in the bathroom after school hours  

2. The teachers of Kendriya Vidyalaya were arrested for sexually assaulting a grade 11th male student, by stripping him and harassing him.  

3. Four men from Shahjahanpur were arrested for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old by having anal intercourse with him forcibly.  

4. In Trivandrum, a female teacher was arrested for sexually assaulting her male students for a period of three years.  

These are some of the cases in which not only women, but also men sexually assaulted men. Sexual assault of men even though not as much as assault of women, but is still increasing in our country. If our country continues to be silent towards the assault of men, then the consequence of it is too traumatising to even imagine. The first and the foremost step is to establish laws for protection of male rape victims. This action will be of great help in breaking the myths of the society and also give confidence to the male victims to come forward and talk about their experience.  

The first step to be taken is to reduce the myths about men. This can be done by enacting laws that protect the male victims of rape. The expectation that men should always be tough and should never cry doesn’t apply in every situation. An incident like sexual assault remains as a permanent trauma. Expecting a male victim of sexual assault to be strong is acceptable, but telling them to never cry and telling them to just get over it is never acceptable. The consequences of a non-consensual sexual intercourse are the same for all genders. Our rape laws only focus on one gender, which amounts to gender inequality according to Article 14 of the Constitution. Educating the people that sexual assaults on men actually happen and break the myths in front of them is important. In this way, we can help in providing justice to the male sexual assault victims.  

1. Ayush Verma, ‘India’s silence on sexual assault of men and boys’, n.d., IP Leaders, https://blog.ipleaders.in/indias-silence-sexual-assault-men-boys/ 

2. Nikhil Mishra, ‘Gender Neutral Rape Laws in India- A Necessity’, 12 Oct 2020, Latest Laws.com, https://www.latestlaws.com/articles/gender-neutral-rape-laws-in-india-anecessity/ 

3. “Don’t boys get raped? Breaking the silence on sexual abuse of the male child in India”, 30 Apr 2018, Vol V Issue I, Rostrum’s Law Review, https://journal.rostrumlegal.com/dontboys-get-raped-breaking-the-silence-on-sexual-abuse-of-the-male-child-in-india/