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Fox News’ “destructive” ignorance: Network gets schooled by male rape survivor

On Fox News last week, contributor Jesse Watters made some wildly ignorant and dismissive comments about men, boys and sexual assault. While discussing a statutory rape case involving a 46-year-old woman and a 16-year-old boy, Watters said, “It is a serious crime. But if you’re a 16-year-old kid and you have sex with your best friend’s mom, you usually get high fives.” It wasn’t the first time a pundit — on Fox or elsewhere — said something to make light of the experiences of male survivors. Two weeks earlier, Tucker Carlson argued that sexually assaulting a teenage boy is a victimless crime, since according to Carlson boys think any sexual contact is “the greatest thing that’s ever happened.” When his co-panelists limply pushed back on his comment, Carlson replied, “That’s just real. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want it to be true, it just is true.”

Despite Carlson’s assurances that he is speaking for all male survivors, he is not. Most people with even a modicum of compassion and common sense understand that sexual assault is a violent and deeply traumatizing thing for survivors of all genders, but hearing about the pain that sexual assault causes from the mouths of male survivors is something we could all stand to listen to more often. Michael Skinner — a musician, educator, advocate and survivor of sexual abuse — knows all too well the consequences of minimizing the sexual violence that happens to men and boys. 

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/19/fox_news_destructive_ignorance_network_gets_schooled_by_male_rape_survivor/

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