Why Male Rape is a Female Problem...Let Me Explain

Firstly I think it's important to clarify a few points because it seems a lot of people are unaware or unwilling to be made aware about the reality of male rape.

• Male rape is not as prevalent as female rape by any means but it happens. It is very real.

• Men can be raped by men and women. No this isn't up for discussion.

• Just as female rape isn't humorous in anyway, male rape isn't remotely funny or acceptable either.

So why is male rape a female problem? Simple. Because victims of male rape are unfortunately considered weak or 'effeminate' by society if they come forward about their assault. Now I rarely dislike words but the connotations behind the word 'effeminate' is something that has always bugged me. I remember it first from Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire as Blanche Dubois uses it to describe her first husband. Later on I saw it used to describe men in a derogatory way and the negative connotations in my mind have sort of spiraled out of control.

Thank you Google...

Words are powerful so when we spend years describing men that don't fit into our stereotype of masculinity as effeminate, meaning of a feminine nature, and we believe this to be an insult, then we accept that women are beneath men, weak, vain, affected, 'campy', 'faggy'. We perpetuate the lie that being feminine means all these things and then we expect the women in our society to remain feminine so we can continue to see them as being weak. Then it becomes such a part of society and our thought process that men genuinely do not feel comfortable coming forward about such a traumatising issue because heaven forbid someone thinks they are 'like a typical woman'. 

So although male rape has disastrous consequences for its victims. We cannot overlook what this means for society's ranking of women either. As such, like much else, it becomes the responsibility of women to explain that being considered one of us isn't the worst part of your experience; there's a lifetime of trauma to worry about as well.  

Montage...Express Yourself

Art forms like graffiti and tattoo have always intrigued me. Don't get me wrong I do not encourage vandalism nor do I agree with permanently scaring your body. The art form itself is what piques my interest. Furthermore my creative writing blog should be enough evidence that I am very much a fan of self expression in all it's forms. This is one of the greatest purposes of art. 

Also I want to say a big thank you to Rashad Iqbal, a fellow student who graciously let me pry into his life for the purposes of this article and whose great insight made my article relevant.

So without further ado, my third montage piece...

Express yourself

When the staff of my high school got tired of watching students doodle on tables, walls and bathroom stalls they started throwing out hints about a graffiti wall. The concept meant that everyone could scribble their heart away on a wall built solely for that purpose if we stopped marking our territory on the body of the school.

There was hardly a part of Manchester that was truly devoid of graffiti and although it wasn’t always the most attractive, the brashness and the hurried feel that came with it was always attractive to me. After a while, seeing large spray painted letters and bold colours became the norm.

Dubai was a rude awakening for me. It felt like I had spent my life dreaming in colour and woke up to black-and-white. That was when I first started to recognise graffiti as an art form. I was sure that there was no graffiti here. But that isn’t strictly true. It might not be the invading kind you find in most of the western world, but it’s there if you look hard enough. It might not be all over the walls in between clean-cut buildings or on the busy streets, but the art is recognised by some here.

One of my first graffiti experiences in Dubai came from Rashad Iqbal, a 2^nd year student here in our very own Middlesex. As soon as I saw his work I asked him to do some things for me one of which he handed to me and has been with me ever since.

Speaking of the challenges of being a graffiti artist in Dubai he says that “there isn’t much support and at the same time all the paint supplies are really expensive here which makes it really hard to practice.” He also goes on to explain that not being able to see other people’s work around you on a daily basis like you would in other parts of the world means that he often lacks motivation and inspiration.

So how do you overcome these challenges? Well according to Rashad you need to develop your own interest and find an online community; his would be deviantart.com. He finds that although there are graffiti artists here in Dubai, they don’t have the strongest community presence. “When it comes to a community the strongest I have experienced was at deviantART.”

What you might find even more surprising is the fact that Rashad has actually displayed his work on a wall in Dubai. In fact he and about 350 other people were part of the charity event at the Graffiti Tunnel in Dubai Festival City organised by GYEM in 2010. He says that “they provided legal areas to do graffiti.”

As much as we laughed at our teachers in high school for making a big deal out of nothing, there was a tiny part of me that felt like a vandal when I took my marker pen out to hurriedly scribble “MiiMii was here” on my science desk. Maybe that was part of the thrill but more than anything was the recognition that graffiti could also be an art form.