Justice Is Never Blind: Why Male Rape Is Underreported

Not Guilty

A few short hours ago, my phone informed me repeatedly that a London jury determined that Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey was found not guilty of nine counts of sexual abuse against four different men. Three men spoke about Spacey grabbing their crotch, which Spacey explained was him flirting and "making a clumsy pass." The fourth man accused Spacey of "penetrative sexual activity without consent."

Research shows that all too often, male rape—particularly homosexual male rape—goes unreported and unprosecuted, and juries are often hesitant to convict, most likely because of the false belief that men cannot be raped.

Looks Matter

Of course, in the case of this morning's verdict, the possibility of an additional level of potential jury bias exists.

It is common knowledge that our culture values the fame and fortune of celebrities, but science continues to uncover significant research about the influence celebrities have over the average person's daily life. When a celebrity dies by suicide, there is more traffic reported on informational websitesas well as an increase in people seeking help for themselves or their loved ones.^{1, 2} Celebrity endorsement has been long-established as a way to boost product sales as well as to raise awareness of the necessity of yearly physical health screenings. And a huge part of why celebrities are so successful at influencing our behaviors is because we perceive them as trustworthy.³

According to the psychological theory of social influence, referent power is a specific kind of social power that comes from being liked or admired by others, which could suggest that a celebrity on trial is more likely to be acquitted based on their likeability, rather than their influence. In addition, celebrities are often more attractive than the average person and it has long been established that attractive people are more likable than unattractive people.⁴

Jury trials are also problematic because of social influence. In the 1950s, a researcher named Solomon Asch created a series of studies to determine how people were influenced by peer pressure, which has since become known as the Asch Conformity Experiment. Groups of people were asked to pick out the two lines that were most similar in length out of the five lines given.

The correct answer was obvious.

However, all but one person in the group was in on the experiment, which largely consisted of the group choosing two lines that were clearly not of the same length, in an attempt to see if the social influence of the group would change the subject of the experiment's decision on which two lines were similar in length.

Seventy-five percent of the participants conformed at least once, while only twenty-five percent of the participants didn't conform at all.

Clearly, justice isn't blind.

Homosexual Rape Makes People Uncomfortable

Up until 1994, there was no such thing under English law as the rape of a man, instead nonconsensual sex of a man was referred to as "buggery," and carried with it a lesser punishment than the rape of a woman.

Even today, the number of men who report an incident of homosexual rape is remarkably lower than the number of women who report a heterosexual rape, a statistic that is believed by many researchers to be due in part to negative police attitudes towards men who are victims of violence. According to one study, between 90 to 95 percent of men do not report their rape (Forman and Wadsworth, 1983), and of those who do report the rape, four out of five men who reported their rape to police later regretted doing so (Walker, Archer, and Davies, 2005).

Not only does lack of reporting deprive people of the possibility to pursue justice, but it also leaves victims of rape feeling alone and helpless. Perhaps most significantly, this lack of disclosure allows "societies to continue to deny the existence of male rape" (Javaid, 2018). ⁵

Another thing that allows societies to continue to deny the existence of male rape is the lack of consequences for the offender.

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We Need to Support All Victims

Our society needs to find a way to break apart in order for male rape victims to be accorded at minimum the same support we purport to provide to female rape victims. Then again, perhaps if society was more willing to acknowledge and deal with male same-sex rape, it would be easier for all victims of rape, regardless of gender, sexual identity, race, or religion.

Source: Eugene Barboza/Pexels

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