Danny Brown's Sexual Assault

Why We Need To Recognize Male Victims Of Assault

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Last week, rapper Danny Brown made “headlines” when he was on the receiving end of some onstage fellatio. Reddit broke the news, and Gawker eventually posted a full article complete with a grainy video of the alleged action. The “news” should have been shocking enough on its own, but things really took off in the ensuing article and discussions: Was Danny Brown sexually assaulted when the female fan decided she needed to know what was going on “down there?” The reason it’s a compelling topic, and why it spawned so much discussion is that as a society we still aren’t quite sure how to handle the idea of female-on-male sexual assault.

During my freshman year of college, all new students received sexual assault training by a third-party campus group called “One in Four.” Rather than an attempt to cash in on the boy-band craze of the early aughts, the group is so named because statistically, one out of every four women experiences some form of sexual assault in her lifetime. The lecturing officer told a story about a lone police officer (an accessible example of strength and masculinity) went to inspect something in an alley and ended up getting raped by two derelicts who ambushed and held him at gunpoint. The most important part of the story came after, when the officer had to deal with the shame, doubt and ridicule that can accompany the reporting of any rape.

Similarly, I remember an episode of Law & Order SVU in which, as a twist, the victim was a male stripper. In order to make things plausible, they concocted this ridiculous scenario where he showed up for a gig and was overpowered and restrained by three or four women and then assaulted. Even given the over-the-top circumstances, the crux of the case still hinged on whether arousal implied consent. Even though everyone knows that would be a ridiculous thing to say to a woman (oh, well your vagina didn’t dry up like the Mojave, so you must have wanted it), in this context it seemed a plausible, if not almost reasonable, question to ponder. Even in 2013, society is still of the opinion that having a penis makes us complete masters of our sexual domains.