On Being Raped

A searing personal and political cri de coeur against the terrible crime we either joke about or ignore: the rape of adult men

When Raymond M. Douglas was an eighteen-year-old living in Europe, he was brutally raped by a Catholic priest. He eventually moved to the United States and became a highly regarded historian, writing with great care about the violent expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe after the Second World War, and parsing the complicated moral questions of these actions. But until now, he has been utterly silent about his own experience of trauma.

In On Being Raped , Douglas recounts this painful event and its endless, complicated effects. This is a book that lays bare the physical and psychological trauma of a crime we still fear to openly discuss: the rape of adult men by men. With eloquence and passion, Douglas dissects the reasons for our epidemic of silence around this issue, tells of the horrific responses to his attempts to seek help after the attack, examines what society demands of men who are victims of rape, and reveals how underreported this crime remains.