Recreating masculinity: drama therapy with male survivors of sexual assault

Abstract

The topic of adult male rape has only recently begun to receive attention by researchers and clinicians. Most of the scant research that has been done since the topic was first tentatively broached in the late 1970s (Scarce, 1997, p. 12) has focused on the demographic characteristics of victims and perpetrators (Groth & Burgess, 1980; King & Woollett, 1997; Lipscomb, Muram, Speck, & Mercer, 1992), the presenting symptomology of survivors (Goyer & Eddleman, 1984; Rogers, 1997), the attitudes and attributions of blame by friends and professionals (Mitchell, Hirschman, & Hall, 1999; Washington, 1999), and attempts to understand both the prevalence of the crime and the causes for underreporting (Pino, 1999). There have been a few activists and cultural researchers who have endeavored to make the stories of male rape survivors known on a sociological level (McMullens, 1990; Scarce, 1997). While all of this research represents a much needed effort by a few pioneers to understand the nature and effects of this brutal crime, there has not been much offered, to date, in terms of descriptions of treatment progressions for survivors. In this paper, I will offer a review of some of the literature that has emerged about male rape and narrate a first-hand account of a drama therapy group treatment of three male veterans who were sexually assaulted while in the military. This admittedly small group may not represent the treatment needs of a majority of male survivors of sexual assault. I offer the work of this small group as an initiation of discourse towards the creation of a model of clinical work with survivors of male rape.