New study results published in the American Psychological Association journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity, reveals that 43% of men, both high-school and college-aged, say they’ve had “unwanted sexual contact.” Almost all of those cases – 95% – were initiated by a female.
The data indicates that of 284 young men surveyed, 18% admit sexual coercion by force, 31% of men said they were verbally coerced, and 26% say that they had experienced “unwanted seduction by sexual behaviors.” Half of those surveyed said they ultimately were forced into sex, 10% said sex was attempted, and 40% said the coercion resulted in fondling or kissing.
The study’s co-author, Dr. Bryana French, a teacher of counseling psychology and black studies at University of Missouri says that male victims are often less willing to describe the details of the sexual coercion, “but when asked if it happened, they say it happened.”
According to French, the study defined “sex” as oral, vaginal, or anal, making it a possibility that the sex didn’t involve an erection. French compared male and female anatomy, saying that even in cases of an unwilling male victim, it is not impossible for a man to become erect, saying “Sometimes when women are experiencing sexual violence, their bodies respond in ways that don’t correspond to how they feel.” She continued, explaining, “they can not want the experience to happen, even if their bodies said otherwise.”
French conducted the study in order to show that men are victimized and hopes to minimize the trivialization of male rape.
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