“If All I was Good for was Sex”: A Sexual Assault Survivor’s story
In a world where the unspeakable often remains unheard, there exists a profound silence that shrouds the experiences of male survivors of sexual abuse in Africa.
WARNING: This story describes incidents of sexual assault that may be triggering to some readers.
Editor’s Note: The interviews for this feature were previously conducted between 2019 and 2020, as stories were reported about sexual abuse under the #MeToo movement.
Legend* could not share his story — assaulted at home by a female maid and in secondary school by student guardians — because he felt no one would believe him. Then some Twitter users debated whether men experienced rape, and Legend decided to share a bit of his side.
Here’s the whole story.
“I met him in my first year of secondary school in 1999,” Legend says of his abuser.
At age 14, he was the average junior secondary school student attending a government school in the eastern part of Nigeria. Placed in the care of senior students typically termed “school fathers,” he looked up to them as his protectors and mentors, who would guide and help him adjust to the realities of secondary school.
Despite being a day institution, life at school was not without its trials. Legend described his school as notorious in the 90s, from extreme bullying to forcefully collecting pocket money.
“He was very caring; I had two school fathers who were friends. Back then, I didn’t understand what it meant to be gay because one of them seemed to have a girly walk, but he was good-looking and was very kind, and people flocked around him.”
It turned out that one of his abusers lived in the same neighbourhood as he did. “Most times, if I was going out or something and we saw, I would stop at his gate, exchange pleasantries, and go home.”
“I decided to go see him (on a Saturday) after being invited to visit several times,” Legend says, his voice full of emotion.
“He had his own room with a TV, played a porn movie, and left the room. That was the first time I watched porn, and I was quite fascinated.”
Legend says he was told to relax while his host went to get some drinks.
No one was home but the boys.
When his abuser returned with soft drinks, he sat beside Legend on the bed and began touching him. Thinking that it was because of the porn movie, Legend requested they stopped watching.
“He started touching me and said, “Hey baby, I’ve always wanted you.” I remember clearly that he wore blue jeans and had a boner.”
Suddenly, in awkward silence, Legend’s second school father came into the room and admonished him.
“Hey, why are you behaving like this? C’mon baby, you are going to like it.”
The two older boys proceeded to tease Legend before grabbing him.
“I was begging, shouting, and struggling, but it didn’t work out, and I was shouting; they ended up stuffing bread into my mouth — they pressed my shoulders and my neck into the mattress, and that was how it happened.”
Older and powerfully built, the boys molested Legend.
Legend wasn’t just facing troubles at school. Home was no safer.
His first encounter with sex was at the hands of his house maid.
“I was quite stubborn when I was growing up” Legend recalls fondly of his childhood, I even had a nickname — stubborn head — while growing up in my mum’s compound.”
One day, I was caught stealing meat from the pot by our house maid and she said she was going to flog me.”
She then gave him two options — taking off all his clothes or punishment from his mother.
According to Legend, his mother was a strict disciplinarian who adhered to a stricter version of religious practice.
“I told her I did not want my mum to know…I begged and begged her.”
He says the house maid then forced his clothes off and began to examine his genitalia. “When she forced my clothes off, she was like “oh, this is what you got — so this is the thing you use when following all the girls in the compound”.
The situation got worse as the maid proceeded to make Legend lie down — I had never had sex until that day.
“I told her I wanted to pee, and she told me to pee inside her.”
Legend did not know how to feel as he was too young to understand what was happening, but the abuse continued long after that first incident.
“When I refused she’d threaten to tell my mum that I’d done something.”
Tired of the daily abuse, he decided to tell his mum about the maid’s bullying but she accused him of being a peeping Tom.
“She hit me in front of my mum and told her she had caught me spying while she was taking her bath.” She said she’d caught me, but she had only beaten me. Because I was stubborn and my mum was religious, my mum shut me up and she said she believed the maid.
The maid constantly used sex as a weapon for any offense he committed.
Not just an isolated issue
As it stands under Nigeria’s extant laws, a man cannot be raped. A bill aimed at recognising males as rape victims had passed its second reading in 2019, championed then in the country’s National Assembly by Senator Oluremi Tinubu who’s now the First lady of Nigeria.
Senator Tinubu was quoted as saying that the Criminal Code Act (of Nigeria) defines rape in Section 357 as an offence against women. However, times indicate that there are incidents of non-consensual sex perpetrated against the male gender.
Adding that the country’s laws and jurisprudence must evolve with the rest of the world.
The normalization of sexual abuse of young men as ‘something one enjoyed’ or experiencing arousal especially an erection has sometimes questioned if the act was against one’s will, but still does not dispute the fact that abuse is abuse.
In Nigeria, there is no data on male victims, and as men cannot report cases of molestation, the topic holds a particular stigma of taboo.
“Sometimes, I feel too ashamed to talk about it,” Legend says.
“Minimal research has been conducted exploring effects of sexual assault by men on other men first because the idea of a man getting raped is still being learnt. Less than 1 in 10 cases are reported because victims often experience shame, as well as a fear of having their sexual identity questioned,” says Aanu Jide-Ojo, a psychologist with The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERS).
“Victims should understand that their reactions are first valid; be it numbness, anger, fear, guilt, anxiety…it’s ok to feel how you feel and its ok to seek spaces that first validate the trauma that has been created and next help you feel safe in healthy ways,” says Jide-Ojo.
Present Day
As an adult, Legend says he prefers to be on his own and is never comfortable being naked in front of male friends.
“If I am in a house filled with guys, I can’t sleep.”
Legend was so traumatised by his experiences that he felt that all he was good for was sex, even though he confesses that he doesn’t enjoy it.
“I became addicted to porn and it led me to masturbation; at some point I asked a girlfriend if all I was good for was sex.”
The only thing you owe yourself next is healing
Legend doesn’t know what spurred him to make his X (formerly Twitter) thread documenting his abuse but he just felt that somebody needed to talk about the topic of male rape.
“I couldn’t write it on Facebook nor WhatsApp because people know me there but on Twitter I feel like a ghost.”
He feels that a lot of men are damaged because of their troubled childhood and it has affected them unconsciously.
“No one understands how it feels.
“After sharing my story…People think that rape stories should follow a certain script. But that’s not the case.”
Aanu Jide-Ojo says that a lot of rape victims carry resentment but she says: “survival of the rape is enough.”
“In most cases, there could be an underlying resentment that one should have fought the perpetrator or done something hence making themselves almost responsible for the rape but surviving the incident is enough.”
“The only thing you owe yourself next is healing,” she added.
Male rape Legislation across West Africa
In a hypermasculine environment such as is experienced across Africa, there is a premium placed on being ‘hard’. Men are expected to present as less emotional and to deal with issues on their own.
Sexual abuse falls under the ‘issues’ men are expected to deal on their own, and is such under-reported. As a mix of socio-cultural factors and poor legislation, have impacted reporting male sexual assault in Africa’s most populous nation, the situation not unusual in the West African region.
A look through the criminal and penal codes of the 16 West Africa countries, only six allow for men to come forward as victims of abuse and this is only because of the language of their laws on rape.
In sub-Saharan Africa, there is data that supports that child sexual abuse is a significant problem. From sexual touching to abusive sexual intercourse, despite underreporting, the rates range from 3.86% to 26.3%.
A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) tries to offer a broader perspective — before turning 18, 1 in 6 boys experience some form of sexual abuse.
In a region where hypermasculinity is deeply ingrained, the challenge of encouraging male victims of sexual abuse to come forward remains an intricate and multifaceted issue. Despite the potential for legislative support, which may evolve in the future, there are cultural and religious factors that continue to exert a significant influence. The prevailing social expectation for men to embody toughness, emotional restraint, and self-reliance often suppresses their willingness to discuss or report instances of sexual abuse.
* — not real name
