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There are stories so gut-wrenching that they leave a lasting scar on your soul. I recently came across one that broke me and made my heart heavy with a pain that was not mine but felt personal, and deep. A Mombasa blogger was violently assaulted; brutally sodomized and gang-raped while being recorded by his perpetrators, in broad daylight. I want you to imagine that for a second. Broad. Daylight. His dignity is stripped away in the open for the world to see, while we remain largely unmindful of the silent cries of men like him.
How do you heal from something so vile, so dehumanizing? How do you stitch together the pieces of yourself when the very essence of your being has been ripped apart? I cannot begin to fathom it. The thought of it alone makes me sick with rage, with sorrow, with disbelief.
Another experience came from a close friend, a kind soul who five women had raped. You read that right. Five women. But here is the cruel twist: he does not even consider it rape. In his mind, because it involved women, he somehow believes it could not have been an assault. His confusion is heartbreaking. Society has trained him, like so many men, to minimize his trauma, to laugh off what would be a horrific violation if the roles were reversed.
It is time we talk about the uncomfortable truth; 14% of reported rapes involve men or boys. These are not just statistics; they represent lives forever altered, voices silenced by shame and society’s refusal to recognize their pain. One in six reported sexual assault involves a boy. One in 25 consists of a man. Let that sink in. These men and boys are our brothers, our friends, our colleagues. Yet, when we think of rape, men do not even come to mind.
For every man who comes forward, how many others bury their trauma in the depths of shame, too afraid to speak out, too scared to be ridiculed, to be told “Men don’t get raped!” And in that silence, they suffer, broken from within while the world looks the other way.
This is not just about male survivors; it is about all of us. It is about dismantling a culture that refuses to see sexual violence as it truly is, an atrocity that does not discriminate. It is about acknowledging the ugly reality that men, too, are victims, and they deserve the same empathy, the same rage, and the same fight for justice that we demand for women.
We must break this silence. We must stop shaming, start listening, and start believing. Because every survivor deserves to be heard. Every single one. We must acknowledge that sexual violence doesn’t discriminate, and every victim’s trauma is valid, regardless of their gender.
