12 O’ clock at night, a man of 21, wearing dirty and torn clothes was sitting in a dark alley at night, crying, ashamed and abused, thinking about the injustice done to him. His phone was ringing but he did not have the courage to pick up. All he could think of was his assailant’s hands on him while he begged for her to stop. What would he say “mom, I got raped,” what would she feel, what would the society say “men don’t get raped”. All would laugh at him. And all of this for what? No action can be taken against his attacker because male rape is still unrecognized in India.

Rape in India is still primarily considered to be a crime against women at the hands of a man. As Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code clearly states, rape is something that only a man can do to a woman. All the adult male victims go unnoticed and uncared for by the law. The Indian society fights for women safety in terms of rape, assault, and molestation completely oblivious to the same violation of the men. People refuse to believe that men can too be raped because we live in a patriarchal society that believes that men are more powerful than women and can’t face sexual violation at their hands. They have an upper hand and could stop rape if they actually wanted to. But this is far away from the reality. Male rape is very much real and needs to be recognized.

Rape is a crime done by one to exert their dominance on the victim and to feel powerful in some sick and twisted way. No one is exempted from it- be it a child, a woman or a man. So why does our law discriminate against male victims? They believe that since it is a male-dominated society, the men will use this law to defame the women and the accused woman will have a hard time fighting these allegations because her family and society will absolutely cut her off.

So the man will cry till he gets the courage to face his family and the society, silently fighting an inner battle with his mind and suffer endlessly thinking what all had happened and how many more are there like him, silenced by the injustice curtailed under the name of positive discrimination towards women.

By:

Nandini Gupta

1B, BA(JMC)