Statistics show that roughly 1 in 3 women and 1 in 33 men will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime.

With an estimated 54% of rape crimes going unreported, women are not coming forward for various reasons, either they are too afraid, they are too ashamed feeling that it is their fault or they simply cannot cope with the attention and ordeal of a trial.

With the number being as high as 1 in 3, it is shocking to find that approximately 73% of rape victims know their attacker, but only 6% of attackers are ever convicted.  Unfortunately, rape victims, whether they are male or female, very rarely get the justice they deserve.

The average age of a rapist is 31 years old, they are likely to be a casual friend or acquaintance to their victim.

Sexual assaults and rape where the victims are male, seem to go largely unreported, for some reason, there is still a taboo and a lot of myths surrounding male rape.

Male rapists are very rarely homosexual, in fact the vast majority of male rapists will identify themselves as heterosexual.

People also believe that men cannot be raped by women, but this is not true, whether she forces them to penetrate her or not, she can rape them with objects.

Any kind of rape, whether it is done to a man or to a woman, is not about sex, it is about power and many people believe that people will rape a man because it gives them a greater sense of power and control than raping a woman.

Rape accusations should always be taken seriously, no matter who the victim or attacker is, they should be investigated and brought to trial.

But with the shocking figure of only 6% of rapists ever being imprisoned, it seems that women are being taken less seriously when it comes to rape allegations.

So many different things will be held against her when she is in court, if she was drunk, that is a mark against her name, with the jury believing that she was either just too drunk to remember what happened properly, or that she consented and now regrets what she did, and this is her way of making herself look and feel better, or that she was stupid to be so drunk and she should have been more careful.

Knowing the victim is also bad news if you are a rape survivor, particularly if you are dating them or married to them. Marital rape and rape within a relationship (whether it is gay or straight) is still illegal but largely ignored.

Also, the amount of women claiming that they have been raped, when it has later been proven that they weren’t is highly damaging to the cases of other women that genuinely have been raped.

Because of the few that have told a hideous lie, those who are telling the truth are assumed to be crying wolf and they are seen as attention seeking, ruthless women, when in fact, they are the survivors of genuine crimes, and those who have lied have ruined the name of women.

Because male rape is so rarely reported, it is seen as more serious (when both are as serious as each other), as people believe that a man would never lie about being raped, because it would be too embarrassing for him to admit.

It is also assumed that a man would be more sensible than a woman, not getting drunk or leading the attacker on and then changing his mind.

Whether a man was drunk or not does not seem to affect his case, and whether or not he knew his attacker doesn’t either.

The truth is that whether a man or a woman is raped, it is the duty of the police to investigate as thoroughly as possible, the duty of the courts and the jury to examine the evidence as carefully as possible, this is the only way that justice can be served.