"People laugh, don’t believe it": Unveiling Male Rape Myths through a Mixed Methods Exploration of Professionals, Survivors, and Community Insights.

Research shows that misconceptions, or rape myths, about male sexual violence survivors are prevalent in England. These myths lead to adverse outcomes such as obstacles in reporting incidents, secondary victimisation, and hesitation in seeking medical and psychological support. Despite these known effects, studies on male rape myths, especially in England and Wales, are less comprehensive compared to those on female rape myths. Therefore, this doctoral research sought to understand better perceptions surrounding male rape myths (MRMs). The study utilised an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design to comprehensively explore MRMs, combining in-depth qualitative insights with generalisable quantitative factors. In the first phase (Study One), qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 professionals. The data was analysed using Willott and Griffin’s (1997) method for the Foucauldian discourse analysis. Willott and Griffin’s method allowed for identifying power dynamics, subject positions, discursive resources, interpretative repertories, and discursive practices. Study one unearthed three interrelated dominant discourses titled ‘Professionals’ Insights: Societal Myths, Acquaintance Rape Realities, and Legal Obstacles’, ‘Navigating Re-Traumatisation: Unequal Power and Support Challenges’. For mixed methods integration, the preliminary findings from study one informed phase two’s interview schedule, which was piloted with some professionals. The second phase (Study Two) had 9 male survivors; the same analysis from Study One was used to analyse Study Two’s data. Four dominant discourses emerged: ‘Bearing the Unseen Weight’, ‘Barriers: Institutional Power and the Complex Journey of Male Survivors’, ‘A Media Discourse: (in)Authentic Portrayal of Male Rape’, ‘Breaking the Silence: Disclosure and Support for Male Survivors’ and one negative case study. The third phase incorporated the qualitative findings from the first two studies to guide the design of the third quantitative study, specifically in selecting study variables and formulating acquaintance rape scenarios. Study three examined the extent to which rape myth acceptance, myth-consistent information, sexism, and sociodemographic factors predicted blaming attribution in response to acquaintance rape scenarios in a public sample (N=196). Findings suggested that myth-consistent information is a positive predictor of blame attribution, while male rape myth acceptance is a negative predictor of perpetrator blame. The implications, limitations and future recommendations were discussed for the study-level and overarching mixed-method study findings.