When Men Are Raped

Update: 3/30/2020: I have included the DV order attachments, which I filed in February, to the bottom of this article. It includes details which I originally was too uncomfortable to share. I included the attachments in the companion piece I wrote, Unconditionaly Loving Those Who Hurt Us, so I have added it to this article also. 

Male raping is not often thought about in the “Traditional” sense of how we think of rape, although male rape is common (discussed below). I am sure that traditional physical overpowering rape does happen, but it is less common. The reason for this is common sense, most of the time men are stronger and so it would be challenging to rape most man by force. The male rape I experienced is often much more evolved, requiring time and patience of the perpetrator.

My acceptance of the reality that I had been raped by my former wife took me over 8 months to fully realize, and not until a person I loved sent me a harsh text which triggered a flood of emotions on February 1, 2019. It was easy to see the physical and emotional abuse which led to my wife attempting to kill me on June 16, 2019 but accepting that I was so powerless and feeble in the marriage that my wife was forcing me to have sex on a regular basis was too hard to stomach and outside of my minds capacity of acceptance at the time. It took a lot of time in deep pain and then healing to get where I am and I am going to share the phases which helped me understand and heal.

Note: I have learned so much since the ending of my marriage including that between 33-40% of reported domestic violence cases are women perpetrating on men, this astounded me and this article discussing a survey of 40,000 households in 2013 found that 38% of the cases were women raping the man. The reality is that perpetrators are both men and women and pretty evenly balanced between the two sexes. This is one of the main focuses Heal Hurt will work on, breaking down the myths that perpetration has anything to do with sex and is actually just a human issue. 

As with any trauma bonded relationship, it is very hard to break. If you are in a trauma bonded relationship, please reach out for help! It will not get better. For me, it took over 6 months to completely stop missing this woman I was traumatically bonded to, who manipulated every sense of power and control out of my personal being. After the relationship ended in June, I was completely terrified of sex and had no idea if I was going to be able to preform it in the future. With my previous wife, forms of rape started nearly our first night together but at this time I would have never guessed what was happening. To me, an attractive woman was pushing me into sexual activity, why would I stop it? It was the 2nd night after we started dating that we had sex for the first time and most of the experience was rather nice. The only part that did not feel right is that I rarely have sex that quickly. A week or more is a nice goal that I set in relationships. We had only spent a few days together as friends and I would have definitely waited longer if I had understood how to hold my boundaries at the time.

In my past relationships, I had never been one to hold boundaries and boundaries are going to be a major topic of discussion on this Heal Hurt platform. They are the foundation of  a healthy connection between two individuals. It was not until the relationship that followed my marriage when I realized I had never fully felt safe with any partner in the bedroom up to my wife. Feeling truly safe for the first time in my life was beyond an incredible experience and one that everyone should feel. The challenge is that it takes a very special connection for two people to feel safe with one another when we are completely vulnerable by being naked with another human being.

So with my former wife who I would learn after our final day together had Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD for short, boundaries was not something that was possible. From the get go boundaries were crushed by her and it began on our very first day dating. We were in Portland, OR on a road trip and I said a silly line as I was fueling up the car and about to drive,  I turned to her after getting in the vehicle and I said “I see you”, in a silly voice. It was almost like I was playing peekaboo. I have no idea why I said it but when I am feeling good, I often get silly and playful. We had just had a really fun and exciting day adventuring around the city. She immediately replied, “I love you too”. This was a shock, we had not been dating for  18 hours and barely knew each other but I immediately felt what I would learn later is what is called a red flag.

In my dating relationships “I love you” often would be spoken 1 week — 1 month. I had never run across it basically on day one. With my most recent relationship, those words were not spoken until we actually fell in love together around month 4. That was an amazing experience and a story for another day, but actually falling in real love and not during the chemical phase of lust and sharing the “the words” is special, really special.

So as you can see the stage was set and I was not prepared for what was next. This relationship flew faster than my mind could have imagined. I felt like I had my self power and control but I would realize later that I had almost none. Everything was a manipulation of the woman who I married after 10 days of dating. One of the common traits of someone with BPD is the ability to almost psychically understand your desires and wants and give you everything you crave for a while. The challenge is that this chameleon work is short lived and takes a great toll on the BPD individual. To me, I had met the absolute perfect partner in every capacity, but like all things that seem great, they often are not. For my former wife, this charade was only able to be kept up for about 6-8 weeks. The facade began to crumble and the hurt and pain she lived with her entire life started to show, for she had experienced horrors which I can barely fathom and these traumas led me on a journey over the next 6 months which I could have never envisioned before.

So our first night together was not as I would have created if I had been in control of my body but less than 48 hours after we had agreed that we liked each other and wanted to be more than friends, I was having my boundaries pushed. I would learn how important these beginning experiences will set up the future of the relationship. This woman understood that I would be very easy to manipulate and control and she used these honed skills to overpower me emotionally at first and then as things got more disturbing, physically.

Around 8 months into the marriage, Early January 2019, I remember how I began to feel discomfort and the beginnings of fear about my new bride. It was around this time that she began to make threats to me and started a pattern of self abuse involving her beating herself in the head with both fists when she would be feeling bad about her actions or anything that caused her to feel triggered by life. Fear of the partner I am guessing is required for male rape to happen regularly. After a while I was not feeling too good about things. I recall starting the conversation in January about separation with her in hopes it could happen amicably, but I would learn much later that one of the core fears of one with BPD is abandonment. I have had fears of being alone but nothing I have felt could be any comparison with one with BPD. A sense of abandonment creates a “fear for their life” inside of them and depending on how severe the BPD is, can lead the threats to my life and hers, which was how I experienced it.

But isn’t this a dream for a man? Before I get into the experiences I wanted to talk about the fantasy. Most people think that having a woman push herself on a man is a dream. I believe in the beginning it sort of manifested like this as I felt this woman was my dream come true for a while, and so I did not realize that she was actually breaking down my boundaries and taking control of my being. Having a partner who is interested in having sex a lot is great but ONLY when the boundaries of each partner are being respected and each partner feels safe in the experience.

Male forms of rape that I experienced

Humiliation

Humiliation is one of the first stages of rape that I experienced. Around January my former wife would start discussing other past lovers while we were in bed. I could not believe my ears. I had never had a partner break this unwritten rule of not discussing our sexual experiences, especially when vulnerable and naked. I have had a few partners who, when we were in a deep loving conversation, share with me their rape experiences or other heavy content but never during sex. My former wife was asking me to do sexual positions and things which her past partners had performed on her and was sharing in detail how they did it and how it was “Amazing” it was. I felt sick, fear and confusion when this began which continued for the next 4 months of our marriage, almost to the end. There was a point when she discontinued this form abuse but I believe it was because she had full control over me and did not need to humiliate me to get me to perform in the ways she wanted.

Coercion

Shortly after January was when my former wife began to threaten me to perform tasks. Because I was starting to fear her and at that time I simply wanted to dissolve our marriage and go into a dating relationship, she used coercion as a tool to control me. She threatened initially that “She would destroy me” exactly as a former ex had done who, at the time of writing this, has continued harassing me since our breakup nearly 5 years ago. I had shared a bit of my experience about this ex with my former wife and she used this information as a way to control  and manipulate me. I heard regularly starting in January and until the end, “ I will be twice [or more] worse than [ex’s name] if you don’t stay with me.” and based upon what I was experiencing I believed her. I was feeling foolish and trapped in the marriage and I did not know how to safely resolve the situation. At the time, I really wanted to make things work and I would continue this until the final day and honestly for a while afterwards but I learned that was not possible. By February, I had lost all hope that I was going to just easily separate our marriage and move into a safer dating relationship which was not as demanding as marriage. This is when my depression over the marriage began to set in. I was beginning to fear my wife.

The next stage of dysfunction was in the form of death threats. I recall on 3/15, a few days after my birthday in 2019, my former wife threatened she would “slit the throats” of my two cats during one of her breakdowns. I had never heard anyone threaten an animal like that in person before and I had no idea what to do. It was scary! That day she had learned her mother had physically assaulted her little brother and she was 300+ miles away, unable to do anything to protect him, which led her into screaming at me and becoming a tornado which I had never experienced before. During the apex of the storm she was raging against everything and the cats were meowing for attention and she just lost it, slamming the door on them and threatened to harm them.

A week before was the first time she threatened my life, right before my joint birthday party with my best friend Scottie. We were traveling to the event and she began to have a breakdown. I felt she was not in the right space to spend time with others, I was honestly afraid of her and so I asked if she could not join me for the event. This fear of abandonment pushed her into threatening my life if I did not take her. The abuse lasted about 45 minutes in the car as we sat on the side of the road and then I started to drive to a safe space because I was fearful for my life. I drove to a 7-11 downtown and jumped out of the car and ran about a mile before the adrenaline subsided. The whole time she was running and screaming obscenities and making a horrific scene behind me.Like usual she was trying to play that she had been hurt by me and looking for attention from anyone who would listen. The streets were empty and so luckily this time no cops were involved. In May a very similar situation played out and we got to spend time with cops for the first time. When my muscles atrophied from running I had to stop and I started brisk walking. I attempted to call her dad for help but by this point he was struggling with what had happened in our marriage, he was dreaming that his daughter would not go down the same road she had been on with her former 2 long term partners but it was now happening a 3rd time.

I finally stopped and she begged me to take her back and also go to the party. Somehow she got her way, as always. I had no boundaries and now threats of physical violence were under her belt. There was nothing she could say that I would not give into, I felt completely powerless.

The threats to my life would get more sinister as time went on. By April she was telling me that if I ever called the police, she would kill me and make it look like an accident and I believed her.

Manipulation

Manipulation is the consistent way that I was raped. Because I feared for my life, I would do as she said every time.

Forced Sex after Fights.

I have experienced make up sex before and it normally was a wonderful re-connection between my partner and I. This was completely different, it was compulsory and after 2-3 hours of belittling or raging towards me, I was stripped of every sense of myself and easy to be molded into her demands. Anything would feel better than what I had just experienced and so her acting kind and loving, AKA love bombing after just threatening me was exactly what I craved, more than true safety. The few times that I did resist make up sex, she belittled and harrassed me until I gave in.

Sex itself was uncomfortable and compulsory.

After 2 months sex became compulsory and I had no choice. I had learned that if I tried to end the marriage, my life would be destroyed or she would kill me so I gave into every one of her demands. She wanted me to perform this very uncomfortable position where I would lay inside her on her back as she pleasured herself. I was not allowed to move during “her time” and she would scream at me if I did. I accepted this arrangement after a while and just performed my duties as she requested. She would blame me for why we had to do sex in this strange way. Everything was my fault. Only after she was pleasuring  herself could I make any movements or have more traditional sex with her.

Physical violence during sex.

She wanted me to preform physical violence upon her during sex. This is not that uncommon I have found, some slapping or spanking but when you are terrified of your partner, it is not play anymore. A few occasions she attempted to overpower me into sex but I would just give in shortly after it began.

Disturbing role plays.

I am familiar with a bit of role play, and it can be fun when between two loving individuals. I love to please my partner and give them what they desire. Well, our role plays began around February and initially it was very traditional. She would want to talk about being in a Boss/Secretary or Teacher/Student situation. The Teacher/Student roles led to spaces which I was not comfortable with. She wanted me to be her older brother. This was odd but I complied. If I did not play a long she would complain how it was the only thing that could get her going. By this time she had completely destroyed my sense of any skills in the bedroom. I felt sexually worthless. The next situation I was not prepared for because no one would be. One day she asked me to be her uncle instead of brother, this would then lead to her wanting me to be her “much older” uncle and she wanted to be MUCH younger, say 6 instead of 12 where we started in the brother/sister play. At this point I  protested and expressed how uncomfortable I was with these role plays. This was way out of my comfort zone aka boundaries and I really did not like where we were going. Again, if I protested I would be dealing with sometimes a 3 hour explosion of rage. I am not certain how I got out of this role playing but I believe the final 1.5 months I did not have to perform it. I believe it was simply because I was so afraid of sex that I never wanted to do it in the first place.

The “You don’t trust me and so it would be rape if we had sex” Talk.

I believe this was the most disturbing experience of my marriage after the physical assaults. On April 25th my former wife asked me to have sex and began seducing me. When we were pretty deep into our warm up time, she noticed I was not wearing my wedding ring. I had not worn it for about a month at the time and so this was not something new. I took it off every time she threatened my life and because the threats were so constant, I decided to not put it back on until she discontinued this form of abuse. We had just been fired from our 2nd counselor at the time because my former wife would not do the work and the counselor understood that we were never going to be able to do marriage therapy until she spent some time healing her traumas. During our 3rd session my former wife launched towards the therapist and the door which I believe made the counselor fearful and so during the 4th session she gave my former wife a piece of paper with 5 counselor names and some other support resources. This pushed my former wife and our relationship into a new level of instability.

So on this fateful night  in April, she noticed the missing ring and I expressed that I did not want to wear it because I was fearful of her. I said that until her actions changed and we were in a more stable place, I did not want to keep taking it off and putting it back on. I was terrified of her! This conversation while we were about to engage in sex led into her getting out of bed and screaming that “if we had sex right now, you would be raping me”.  I was so confused. Huh??? How would us having consensual sex be rape? She replied that because I did not feel safe with her, that it would be rape. This went on for 30 minutes back and forth and we finally dropped it with her masturbating to herself and I going to sleep. This engagement was another form of manipulation which I had seen a lot in our relationship. She would push me into sex and then rage at me and act like I was perpetrating on her.

During that evening we did not have sex and we did not have sex the following evening either, but on the 27th she was continuing this “I will not have sex with you until you feel safe with me” line. She was telling me that she was going to withhold sex until I felt safe with her. She continued to tease and attempt to get me to say that I felt safe but I did not. So on this night she said that we needed to start masturbating separately. I had no interest in masturbating but in the moment she said that she wanted me to pleasure myself with her watching. She then moments after telling me that if we had sex, it would be rape began to force herself upon me. She was touching me and then said “Don’t make me get on top of you, I am on my period and that would be gross”.  I told her that I did not need to have sex. I did not want to do anything sexual. She then replied “A man is lying if he say he does not want to have sex, unless he is gay”. She then tells me to get on her back so she can begin pleasuring herself. She then tells me that when I am ready to trust her, maybe she will be able to orgasm without her uncomfortable position of me laying on her back while she masturbated.

This situation was so perplexing while I went through it. When she started referring to it in allegations against me in October, I honestly had thought that we did go ahead with having sex that night she started screaming at me but after listening to the only recording of her actively raping me, I learned that we never had sex when she said no. Never. Even though I knew she was manipulating me in the situation, I accepted it and we only had sex after she coerced me to have sex 2 days later.

States of emotions

For most traditional rape where the perpetrator overpowers person in a single activity, I am guessing all of these happen at once but for more subtle raping where the emotional state is slowing eroded, this is what I experienced.

Discomfort

The first stage was uncomfortable, my boundary was gently nudged and I did not like it but again, a beautiful woman was pushing me so I also did not complain.

Embarrassment & Shame

When I began to notice how screwed up things were I felt deep shame and embarrassment for the situation I had found myself in. I know truly that we create all situations in our lives and I know that my choice to get married was my choice and so I felt trapped and embarrassed about my decision. I wanted a safe way out but I could not come up with one, every possible solution that I came up with was worse than staying, or at least I felt that way.

Sexually Worthless

I have had 2 relationships where the partner destroyed my sense of worth in the bedroom. They would regularly belittle me and blame me for all of their sexual issues. No one should ever treat another in this way. I am so grateful for the wonderful woman who came into my life directly after each of these dangerous partners, because both of them retaught me that I was not worthless. Yes, self worth comes from within but it is wonderful when someone else can help you see it. I will be forever grateful for these two amazing angel women!!!

Powerless

The next stage is feeling powerless against your attacker. About 2 months into this experience I felt powerless and I just stopped resisting. The conversations were creepy but they did not involve death threats at the time so I did not fear her yet.

Terror

The final stage that I experienced was terror. I was completely fearful of my partner and I hated sex and any intimate moments. I did my best to stay away from sex and I never wanted to bring it up because I was so nervous about what it would lead to.

Final Thoughts

My experiences of male rape is not quite what people would picture who have not experienced it. I am guessing that these forms of manipulation commonly happen to women, often without recognizing it. I had experienced a few of these stages with another partner years before but that relationship never got to the terror level and I never feared for my life. I oscillated between the uncomfortable and powerless emotional states. I could never have even imagined things would get to the terror state. It is hard for people to understand things which they cannot imagine doing themselves, most treat people the way they want to be treated, but perpetrator often treat people one way and want to be treated a completely different way. That was the most bizarre takeaway from my former marriage, I was constantly confused because of the rule-set for how she wanted to be treated did not match how she was treating me.

It took me a lot of time to accept the very embarrassing reality that I had been raped by my wife. None of these stages are acceptable but many of us accept the uncomfortable sex scenario because we chose to not support our boundaries.  I am sharing my domestic violence experiences to help others in similar situations feel less alone. I have learned how common these forms of abuse are yet NO ONE talks about it. I am guessing if I had macho male friends that many of them would have told me how envious they were to have a woman who forces herself on me. Any time one perpetrates on another, it is NOT OKAY!!! Feeling safe in a relationship and especially in bed is the most important part of  a healthy connection. Please survey your boundaries and make sure you are protecting yourself, and also support the boundaries of your loved ones. The ladder takes a lot of practice but it is equally important. Even if the boundary which your partner places makes no logical sense to you, do your best to support it.

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If you are experiencing the situations described in this article, it is NOT OKAY!!! Please seek local domestic violence and rape support in your community. Be safe and understand that boundaries are the most important part of a relationship, if your partner is not supporting your boundaries, then it is time for a discussion with partner, counseling, or a safe exit from the relationship.

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All details from this article are public records along with the video and audio recordings of her perpetrating on me during our marriage. Quotes in this article are taken directly from those records. During the marriage I recorded over 130 of her domestic violence attacks on me. The recordings began after she asked me to start recording our arguments in January 2019 after we got out of counseling with our first counselor. I  never listened to them until preparing my No Contact order, but I was glad I did as she asked to record them, I don’t believe I would have thought about it otherwise. I removed many of the situations which are in the courtroom documents because they are beyond my comfort to share publicly here and are still too embarrassing.

I have filed the rape and assaults with the Spokane Police and I have a pending domestic violence no-contact order on my former wife.

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As the first article I am sharing I wanted to welcome you to Heal Hurt. This no-profit organization is dedicated to helping others heal from trauma and domestic violence. I will be sharing more of my experiences over time, what healing modalities helped me heal my hurts and the site will be a wealth of information for anyone who is wanting to heal. I am truly grateful for all of my experiences including the traumatic ones because each one has helped me learn and grow as a human. Thank you and I wish you the very best on your journey to healing and finding yourself.

I wrote a follow up article: Unconditionally Loving Those who Hurt Us

Update 3/30/2020:

Afterword

I am feeling prompted to share the document from the Domestic Violence (DV) support order which I filed in February 2020. I had many fears about sharing my experience with the world, but I feel this is the right time. The file includes details about our life which I did not share in this article. The court has accepted two recordings as evidence in the DV case, and those with transcriptions are linked. All details are a part of the public record now. I pray that my former wife gets the help she needs so she does not harm another partner, as she has hurt her past three. There is a sweet and kind soul deep inside her. I am grateful for all that has come out of our short marriage. I have no resentment toward her and I only wish her the very best.

Domestic Violence no contact order notes.pdf