I don't think you can judge whether or not someone was raped by whether the charges would hold up in court. That makes no sense. Just because someone would have "hard time getting charges to stick" doesn't mean that a crime didn't occur. Husband on wife rape has not always been a punishable offense, but that doesn't mean it wasn't ALWAYS a crime, right?
From the article, "Reversal of Fortune - The Rape of Men by Women," by Jarrod Reich:
"Whether forced into sex physically, emotionally, mentally, or socially, more men are
raped than most would believe. In fact, according to one particular study, “more men than
women reported having engaged in unwanted sexual intercourse.” The majority of such crimes
go unreported. In today’s culture it is nearly impossible for a man to come forth and accuse a
woman of raping him. Gender stereotypes in our “rape culture” fail men in two ways: they place
an unfair double standard on men and women concerning acceptable sexual behavior and they
presuppose definite roles for men and women in the sexual dialectic. It seems apparent that men
cannot play the victim because the liberalized perception of rape prevents men from asserting
their plight: Definitions of male sexual aggression now include pressure tactics such as
continual arguments, deception, and use of authority, as well as force tactics of
intimidation physical restraint, harm, threats of harm, and use of alcohol and
drugs to diminish one’s ability to consent…. In contrast…the use of pressure
tactics and even the use of some force tactics may be considered acceptable for
today’s sexually active woman…. Sexual violations by a woman are seen as
romantic and motivated by intimacy, whereas the identical behaviors by men are
viewed as threatening, aggressive, and motivated by power and control…. A
woman who persistently demands sex from a reluctant man is viewed as
“expressing her sexuality”; a woman who persistently kisses, touches, and
removes clothing from a reluctant man is being “seductive”; a woman who uses
physical restraint to sit on a man or lock in a room is being “playful”; and a
woman who initiates sex with a drunken man is “way too horny for her own
good.” Some of these same actions could potentially result in criminal
prosecution. Does our culture therefore enable women to comfortably physically force or mentally manipulate men into having sex? In our twenty-first century mentality, where men and women are supposed to be viewed as equals, is there any justification in letting women rapists free to coerce any man of their choosing into unwanted intercourse? Startlingly enough, it appears as though society is not ready to accept rape as a gender-neutral crime and dismiss their traditional sexual stereotypes. “Acknowledging victimization of men by women violates two of society’s stereotypes:(1) that women are weak and need protection from men and (2) that men are strong and thus it is unmasculine to be abused by a woman.” A man who comes forth as a rape survivor thus violates the comforting gender stereotypes we have attributed to both men and women. Since we, in a neo-feminist age, like to tout the equality of the sexes, we should also acknowledge that women can be equally as sexually aggressive and violative as men. “Even though a man usually does not suffer the same physical intimidation or threats a woman encounters, that does not mean that a man cannot be a victim”of sexual assault. If a man were to come forth, he would most likely be chastised (and called many female sexual euphemisms, for that matter). “Men have been raised to be protectors of women. Male chivalry is the action reflecting the attitude that women need protection from other men.” Men also have intrinsic pressures that lead him to have unwanted sex, such as “the worry that the woman will think either he is gay or that she lacks sex appeal, the fear that he is not a real man because ‘real men’ would never refuse advances from a woman, or his shame at being a virgin. In these situations, the woman may hold some power…[and the man] does not feel he has the choice to avoid the sexual encounter.” Men who are sexually victimized, therefore, are often
unwilling to come forth in an attempt to avoid being considered less than men. “For men to be
victimized themselves, or to be viewed as victims, is to be seen as less masculine by a society that
holds this stereotype. It makes sense that men, because of their socialization, would resist being
viewed as victims, with the helplessness and emasculation connotations that go along with it.”
