Male rape is a deeply underexplored and often misunderstood issue within both legal and social frameworks. This article seeks to develop a socio-legal theory of male rape by examining existing legal definitions, societal perceptions, and the intersection of gender, power, and sexual violence. Drawing from existing literature and theoretical perspectives, this paper argues for a more comprehensive understanding of male rape that integrates legal, psychological, and social factors. The research presents an analysis of how male rape is treated in legal systems, the stereotypes surrounding male victims, and the consequences of these factors on male survivors. In addition, it proposes a socio-legal model that can more effectively address the needs of male rape victims, while challenging societal perceptions of masculinity and power. This article aims to inform both legal reform and public policy in addressing male sexual violence more effectively.

Male Rape, Sexual Violence Against Men, Socio-Legal Analysis

Bennett Capers, Real Rape Too, 99 CALIF. L. REV. 1259, 1264 (2011) (criticizing the invisibility of male rape in legal and social discourse and arguing for a redefinition of rape as a gender-neutral crime).

Samantha Lundrigan & Katrin Mueller-Johnson, Male Stranger Rape: A Behavioral Model of Victim-Offender Interaction, 40 CRIM. JUST. & BEHAVIOR 763, 767 (2013) (discussing male stranger rape and examining its behavioral structure).

Goffman defines a total institution as “a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life.” ERVING GOFFMAN, ASYLUMS: ESSAYS ON THE SOCIAL SITUATION OF MENTAL PATIENTS AND OTHER INMATES 11 (1968).

Here we refer to the classification by the prison authorities. Transgender individuals also make up the prison population.

Michelle Lowe & Paul Rogers, The Scope of Male Rape: A Selective Review of Research, Policy and Practice, 35 AGGRESSION & VIOLENT BEHAV. 38, 38 (2017) (discussing critical issues and problems with the United Kingdom’s policy regarding male survivors of sexual violence); Karen G. Weiss, Male Sexual Victimization: Examining Men’s Experiences of Rape and Sexual Assault, 12 MEN & MASCULINITIES 275, 275–76 (2010) (analyzing men’s sexual victimization experiences in the United States using a nationally representative sample of victim narratives from the National Crime Victimization Survey); CLAIRE COHEN, MALE RAPE IS A FEMINIST ISSUE: FEMINISM, GOVERNMENTALITY AND MALE RAPE 14 (2014); Ruth Graham, Male Rape and the Careful Construction of the Male Victim, 15 SOC. & LEGAL STUD. 187, 189 (2006).

For a review of 1930s and 1940s studies of male rape, see MARK S. FLEISHER & JESSIE L. KRIENERT, THE MYTH OF PRISON RAPE: SEXUAL CULTURE IN AMERICAN PRISONS 7–12 (2009). See generally U.S. DEP’T JUST., NAT’L INST. CORRS., ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON PRISON RAPE / INMATE SEXUAL ASSAULT (2007) (providing a forty-three-page long annotated bibliography on prison rape).

KRISTEN ZALESKI, UNDERSTANDING AND TREATING MILITARY SEXUAL TRAUMA 60 (2018); Heather R. Hlavka, Speaking of Stigma and the Silence of Shame: Young Men and Sexual Victimization, 20 MEN & MASCULINITIES 482, 483 (2017) (analyzing cultural perception that construct male sexual victimization as invisible and incomprehensible)

ZALESKI, supra note 9, at 60; Betsy S. O’Brien & Leo Sher, Military Sexual Trauma as a Determinant in the Development of Mental and Physical Illness in Male and Female Veterans, 25 INT’L J. ADOLESCENT MED. & HEALTH 269 (2013) (reviewing the literature on Military Sexual Trauma (MST)); Gertie Pretorius, The Male Rape Survivor: Possible Meanings in the Context of Feminism and Patriarchy, 19 J. PSYCH. AFRICA 575, 577 (2009) (presenting a philosophical analysis of the meanings of rape for male survivors); Hlavka, supra note 9, at 483, 489–99.