Who's afraid of a feminist?

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How men can be as vulnerable as women in India

"Initially, I thought it was a game or something. We always played touch-touch, blindfolded, or hide and seek. He asked me to turn around, his eyes suddenly strange, darker, somehow. I was really fond of my mama, but that night, when I was sent to stay with him, I don't know why I was suddenly afraid of being alone with him. It was the first time. It was dark. I did as I was told… as he made me place my hands over my head. Before fondling my privates. I grimaced. His nails hurt. He unzipped me wordlessly, and before I could protest, he penetrated me. I shrieked in pain. He placed his palms over my lips and shoved deeper," Pranay Apte, 27-year-old software engineer from Pune, pauses awkwardly.I wait.

"The doctor was actually suspicious. He asked my father how this happened. I still recall my dad lying. Making up an excuse when the truth was that I had herpes progenitalis. There were water-filled lesions inside my anus, puss filled, causing unbearable pain and bloody discharge. On the way back, I broke down, telling him how my own maternal uncle had been sodomising me. It was like being molested in a way. My father had no reaction. He sat there numb. My mother screamed, saying I was sick mentally, asking me to describe the episode a million times. I was about ten. I didn't have a word for what was happening. They were so ashamed. It was a curse I have lived with. My parents throwing me out of the house, when they caught me with one of my male friends, just after Holi, after my final year in college. We were wrestling in bed, shirtless. He was on top of me. My mother hollered, my father asked me if I was gay. It's like my sexual abuse was a dent on their masculinity or something. This is the first time I am talking to someone this way… I'm scared to open up to women I have dated. What if they think the same? That I am less of a man? That I enjoyed it… I mean it went on, till my uncle died in an accident. He was drunk. I was 17. There are nights I still break out in a cold sweat. What if they think it was my fault? Like my parents. Why couldn't I break free? I guess I find it difficult to cry… still…"

According to Study on Child Abuse: India 2007, 53.22 per cent of children reported having faced sexual abuse (sample survey of 12,447 children across 13 states of India). Among them, 52.94 per cent were boys. Sexual abuse of boys mostly goes under-reported, under-recognised and under-treated, commonly due to sex stereotyping. Boys seem less willing to report cases of abuse a lot of times, scared of being branded a homosexual. There is a lot of shame and self-blame regarding the inability to prevent abuse, men traditionally known to be physically strong. Psychological responses are known to range from anxiety, denial, dissociation, and self-mutilation to suicidal ideas and dismal school performance. Read more here.