HealthDay News) -- Nearly half of young males reported being pressured or forced into unwanted sexual activity, according to a new U.S. study.

The survey of nearly 300 college and high school students found those who were sexually coerced while drunk or drugged showed significant distress.

The findings were published online March 17 in the journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity.

"Sexual victimization continues to be a pervasive problem in the United States, but the victimization of men is rarely explored," lead author Bryana French, of the University of Missouri, said in a journal news release.

"Our findings can help lead to better prevention by identifying the various types of coercion that men face and by acknowledging women as perpetrators against men," French added.

Researchers surveyed 284 young males, aged 14 to 26. They found that 43 percent reported having an unwanted sexual experience. In 95 percent of those cases, a female acquaintance was the aggressor.

Among those who had unwanted sexual activity, 18 percent said they were physically forced, 31 percent said they were verbally coerced and 26 percent said it was the result of "unwanted seduction by sexual behaviors." Seven percent said drugs or alcohol were involved.

Half of them had sex, 10 percent said there was attempted sex, and 40 percent said the unwanted sexual activity was limited to kissing or fondling. Being coerced into intercourse was associated with risky sex and more drinking by the victims, the study authors noted.

That’s the way George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf spoke to U.S. News & World Reportabout the new California law requiring colleges and universities to adopt a "yes means yes" standard for their sexual assault policies. Banzhaf's selection of this particular hypothetical is an obvious one. A description of a man performing sex acts on an unresponsive woman would have raised a lot of red flags for most of us: Is she conscious? Is she too drunk or too afraid to speak up? If the supposed victim is a man, these questions vanish or become a sort of tired parlor joke. The assumption that men always want sex and that women are inevitably more reluctant is so universal in our culture that the unambiguous rape of men by women can serve as a punch line in popular movies.
However, the reality is not humorous: Women do sexually assault men on college campuses, on a regular basis. Each year, according to an estimate in a literature review, roughly 19 to 31 percent of male college students experience some kind of unwanted sexual contact, and researchers say the vast majority of that is perpetrated by women. These men's experiences usually aren't as horrific as those of women who are assaulted, but they represent a clear, and mostly hidden, problem. They also contradict standard assumptions and cultural scripts about male aggression and female passivit

According to a 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men in the United States have been raped. The actual number is likely higher, experts say, as incidents of sexual violence are severely underreported in the United States -- particularly among male victims.

Experts say any sexual assault victim requires extensive emotional and psychological healing after the incident, but male survivors have a harder time putting words to what happened.

In 2012, the FBI's Uniform Crime Report made a significant stride by redefining rape as: "The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim."

The prior definition -- "the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will" -- hadn't been changed since 1927, and sexual assault awareness groups say it alienated victims that didn't fit the mold.

Veteran confronts rape, suicide: 'I am angry that others are going through this'

"Often, male survivors may be less likely to identify what happened to them as abuse or assault because of the general notion that men always want sex," says Jennifer Marsh, the vice president for Victim Services at RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organization.

"Males have the added burden of facing a society that doesn't believe rape can happen to them ... at all," says psychotherapist Elizabeth Donovan.

She says gender roles dictate that males are expected to be strong and self-reliant -- men are viewed as those who seek sexual conquests instead of those who "fend them off."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone women get aroused (lubricated) while being raped. It's a physiological reaction they can't control. Does it still count as rape? I'd say so. Same for men and erections.

Yeah, these folks aren't wanting to hear it. Mentioned in 7:22 and I'm getting gouged. No helping the ignorant, which means no helping victims.

I hope I misread this... you are not saying victims are too ignorant to be helped, are you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone women get aroused (lubricated) while being raped. It's a physiological reaction they can't control. Does it still count as rape? I'd say so. Same for men and erections.

Yeah, these folks aren't wanting to hear it. Mentioned in 7:22 and I'm getting gouged. No helping the ignorant, which means no helping victims.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post really highlights the reasons that victims of sexual assault don't come forward or pursue legal action more often.

Physiological reaction and physiological reaction are totally different things. Both male and female victims can and may experience erection, lubrication, and orgasm during rape, even violent and brutal rapes. It DOES NOT mean they "liked it" or "wanted it". It means that physiologically, their equipment is working. That's it.

This guy, by his own account, was too drunk to consent. The woman could have gotten him to achieve erection by rubbing or stroking him while he was passed out. Guess what - penises love that kind of attention. Again - physiological reaction, not psychological.

He also doesn't specify what kind of sex they had. If you don't think that a woman can sodomize a man, you need to spend more time on the explicit forum. Do you really think a man would tell people if he was coerced into anal sex by a woman half his size? Even if he had been consenting to it in the past, he could not consent given his intoxicated state.

Just because things "don't make sense" don't mean that they aren't true, or don't matter. A lot of assailants are the folks no one would suspect.

If is guy believes he was assaulted, he can access mental health care like ANY assault victim, male or female, and should be encouraged to do so. Males often have a lot of PTSD after assaults simply due to the fact that they have always felt "in power".

Am I the only one here who needs to stretch her imagination to envision your scenario?
I think even the most empathetic judge would have to chuckle at such an occurrence.

Thanks for proving my point. It's attitudes like this that perpetuates "rape culture" for both genders.

And also, thanks for not being a judge or anyone needing to uphold the law without bias.

Exactly how many men do you know who were raped by women?

What do you think the answer would have been 50 years ago if you'd polled men about how many women they knew who'd been raped?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post really highlights the reasons that victims of sexual assault don't come forward or pursue legal action more often.

Physiological reaction and physiological reaction are totally different things. Both male and female victims can and may experience erection, lubrication, and orgasm during rape, even violent and brutal rapes. It DOES NOT mean they "liked it" or "wanted it". It means that physiologically, their equipment is working. That's it.

This guy, by his own account, was too drunk to consent. The woman could have gotten him to achieve erection by rubbing or stroking him while he was passed out. Guess what - penises love that kind of attention. Again - physiological reaction, not psychological.

He also doesn't specify what kind of sex they had. If you don't think that a woman can sodomize a man, you need to spend more time on the explicit forum. Do you really think a man would tell people if he was coerced into anal sex by a woman half his size? Even if he had been consenting to it in the past, he could not consent given his intoxicated state.

Just because things "don't make sense" don't mean that they aren't true, or don't matter. A lot of assailants are the folks no one would suspect.

If is guy believes he was assaulted, he can access mental health care like ANY assault victim, male or female, and should be encouraged to do so. Males often have a lot of PTSD after assaults simply due to the fact that they have always felt "in power".

Am I the only one here who needs to stretch her imagination to envision your scenario?
I think even the most empathetic judge would have to chuckle at such an occurrence.

Thanks for proving my point. It's attitudes like this that perpetuates "rape culture" for both genders.

And also, thanks for not being a judge or anyone needing to uphold the law without bias.

Exactly how many men do you know who were raped by women?

Anonymous wrote:Anyone here 'know' the details of the rape of a man by a woman?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does a guy have sex when he's passed out drunk?

Anyone?

Anonymous wrote:Anyone here 'know' the details of the rape of a man by a woman?