Male rape occurs far more frequently than many think in today’s society. Statistics show that one in 10 rape victims is male, yet men rarely report these crimes. And when they do, they are often met with skepticism and ridicule.
HuffPost Live Host Marc Lamont Hill spoke with Andrew Sawyer, who claims he was abused for nine months last year by four male coworkers. After reporting multiple incidents to his supervisors and the human resources department at his work, and then escalating his case to the authorities and taking several lie detector tests, Sawyer’s perpetrators still go unpunished.
“I told the HR lady,” Sawyer shared, "and she laughed at me. She told me to write some statements down and she said they’ll do an investigation and that they were going to let me go home with pay. And when I went home that day, it came to my mind that I need to tell somebody else that will listen.”
When he brought his case to the sheriff’s department, Sawyer claims he was faced with victim blaming.
“They said to me, ‘Let’s say you were in the shower, in a football locker room, and it was you and a whole lot of guys. If a guy was to grab you on your crotch, do you think he was grabbing it to just to joke around, or do you think he was grabbing it sexually?’ And that’s the way he put it.”