I have been asked before, if a male can orgasm during the act of rape.

The answer is both yes AND no.

YES - a male can become erect during rape (most especially if he is being penetrated anally) because of the pressure and force applied through that.

YES - a male can actually ejaculate during rape, for the reasons stated in the above 'yes' category. (And if you really doubt how easily the male organ can ejaculate, look back at the young teenagers. How many of us have experienced wet dreams as a teenager? how many of us have had sons come asking us what was wrong with them because they're supposedly still wetting the bed and we've had to explain the difference between the fluids?)

But an orgasm? No. Not very likely. How many of us have woken up with morning wood? Guys, be serious here, and be honest. You've never had it just stand up and start marching while you're sitting in a classroom bored out of your wits, or walking down the street headed to the post office or driving through a busy intersection?

That is one part of our bodies that we honestly can NOT control sometimes. Now, just because it stands up and starts marching doesn't mean we're going to drop our pants and go up under someone's skirt. But the fact is, that erection IS the immediate preceeding action to ejaculation, and the actual orgasm doesn't take place until ejaculation has already BEGUN.

In the case of a male on male rape, or even a female on male rape (yes, I am speaking from personal experience here) - the male body will usually come to full mast. And yes, at least in my case, the rapists made damned sure I ejaculated and to shove the fact in my face and tell me how I must have enjoyed it because I did.

The fact of the matter is I didn't feel any pleasure during the act. It hurt. It hurt like hell. I had a three females and four males pinning me down and beating the hell out of me with their fists, their boots, and anything they could find that wasn't nailed down or that could be ripped up off the floor - and I had something shoved in a hole that nothing is intended to go INTO - I went numb.

I actually didn't FEEL a thing in terms of my body, except for pain. I was completely numb except for the physical pain, and eventually that even went numb, too.

When they left, THAT is when I started to feel things. I couldn't even pull my own damned pants back up because they'd shredded everything I'd been wearing into little more than scrap pieces of fabric.

I couldn't stand because I had one leg broken in multiple places. I couldn't hardly breathe because I had a punctured lung due to broken ribs, several of which were broken sharply enough to cause my punctured lung.

I had a broken jaw, I had more cuts and bruises and broken bones than I can honestly remember, I'd have to go back into the medical records for the whole litany. They burned me, they branded me, they dumped my hands into battery acid for chrissakes.

No. I didn't 'feel' a whole lot until afterward. When it was first starting, I fought. I fought as hard as I could - and as a Marine, trust me, I can fight when I want to! - but I lost. When my leg broke, I fell, I hit the ground, and proceeded to get dogpiled.

It was in the middle of that dogpile that I felt one of them - to this day I still don't know which one it was - just rip my pants off and shred my boxers into pieces.

For all my years in the Corp, for all my time in the service, for all the training I had, and all the times I actually have been shot at, or been in the middle of artillery drops... I still froze. I completely froze.

If the assault had just simply continued on as a physical beating, I wouldn't likely have frozen. Physical fights I am very familiar with. But the minute I felt cold air land on skin that is never exposed outside of a shower or in the bedroom with my wife - I froze. I panicked. I didn't know what the hell to do or how to respond.

By the time it was over, I was a mess. I don't remember talking or trying to talk to anyone. I do remember crawling because I couldn't walk, just to try and get away from where it had happened, because all of a sudden my sense of smell had skyrocketed. It seemed like I could smell EVERYTHING. Like I could hear everything.

I couldn't see; my glasses had gotten knocked off my face and I had no idea where they'd wound up by then, but I finally just remember that I simply couldn't move anymore and I collapsed into a puddle of mush. I couldn't see where I was going, and I knew I needed medical help because I was messed up physically. But I couldn't see where I was going and just finally stopped moving.

When I stopped trying to crawl is when I lost it. I distinctly remember trying to pull my arms up over my head and only being able to get one up that high.

And I remember crying so hard my chest hurt, my throat hurt. And I remember hearing a male's voice, and panicking. I bit him, and he was just trying to figure out what was wrong with me and get a look at me. I bit his hand for a thanks.

He yelled at me to let go and that he was just trying to help and it finally sank in that his voice wasn't one of theirs and I let go. I distinctly remember hearing a 'jesus christ', and I vividly remember trying to talk, to tell him what happened.

And I remember thinking I was making perfect sense, that I was getting it all out clear as a bell, and I found out later that not one word I tried to utter came out clearly. He just called out EMS, though I don't remember hearing that phone call either. I think I was passed out by then.

I didn't want to be seen, I certainly didn't want anyone knowing... but I needed medical help for the breaks if nothing else, and I knew that, too.

Rape isn't a sex crime. The only sexual thing about it is the fact that it involves the human genitalia. No. It's not a sex crime.

It's a violent crime aimed at making the victim feel completely powerless and the perpetrator completely in control. The goal of rape boils down to a very simple, "Because I can, and you can't stop me."

As big as I am - I'm 6ft 8in tall - and as old as I was at the time - I was 39 when it happened, I just turned 45 this month - admitting the loss of control, the loss of choice, and the helplessness were the biggest stumbling blocks I've had. Especially for Marines - we are trained from the minute we get off the bus onto the yellow footprints - not to be weak, not to give up, not to give in. When something like this happens, it just blows you apart.

The age of my attackers didn't really factor in for me, I suppose because they covered a wide range. The youngest one was younger than my oldest child - he was about sixteen. My oldest child is 17 right now. They ranged in age from there up to somewhere around my own age at the time.

I'm still not 'over' it. I'm still not past some other aspects of it. Including the ejaculation, which even though I know it is unavoidable physiologically, given the particular way in which I was raped - there is a HUGE amount of guilt associated with that.

I was almost killed during this, I was absolutely terrified, and the minute the ejaculation happened, it was like taking all my fighting from the start to the finish and throwing it in my face... it literally didn't matter how hard I fought, I still lost.

I'm still angry. I'm still frustrated. I still get times where I want to huddle in a corner that no one can see into and just cry. I don't sleep anymore, I catnap.

To go into deep sleep brings out the nightmares and the thrashing, and I almost hurt my wife once with those nightmares, so I won't do it anymore. I nap for a few minutes at a time, and get by on that.

The other after effects? There's a huge fear of STD's. My wife knows, and has been a huge support. One of my brothers knows because he's the one that my son called when they found me. I've never reported it officially, I've never sought the police out, I've refused to make statements on that account because quite frankly, male rape victims are invisible in this society.

If a female is raped, it's the male's fault, and everyone is by and large, compassionate (with a few noteable exceptions of certain idiotic, pea-brained schmucks who think rape is a joke).

When it happens to a man, he's immediately assumed to have allowed it, or that he's gay, or that he was the aggressor - how can someone as big as me BE overpowered by other, much smaller people - things like this. In addition to all this, when a male is the victim in a female-on-male rape... if he reports it, he is usually the one treated as the aggressor... and if he says anything to his friends or family, she can claim rape herself.

Seriously. Think about this. A 6ft 8in Marine in excellent physical health and a couple of girls no bigger than 5ft 6in or so - who would YOU believe? Who do you think a judge would believe? Especially when combined with multiple other males, though each one is smaller than you - they could easily scream gang rape.

The only reason my wife even knows it happened to me is because of the fact that mine was violent enough to actually put me in the hospital! They got my name off my dogtags, they couldn't get ahold of my wife, they got my son, who called one of my brothers, and it was my brother who finally got ahold of my wife to let her know where I was and what was going on.

The worst thing is that when she first walked into that room and looked at me, I found myself apologizing to HER, as if I'd somehow betrayed her. In my mind at that moment, that's exactly how I felt - I felt as though I'd allowed myself to be weak, and in doing so had betrayed my wife and my family. I was ashamed, I was horrified, I was absolutely humiliated, and felt like I had just been turned into a defenseless little girl.

I didn't want to be seen, and I didn't want to be touched, by anyone or anything, and it took everything I had in me not to scream and run for the corner when she tried to reach for me. I couldn't take a hug; I cracked, I jerked myself free after about a half a second and curled up into a ball yelling at the whole room not to touch me. My brother took her back out again, trying to explain that I didn't really know what I was doing at the moment.

At the time, I thought he was full of shit. A few years later and with a slightly different set of eyes, I know he was right. I did NOT know what I was doing at the time. I was hysterical, I was too mixed up to know what end was up and what end was down at that point, and as much as I love my wife, I just didn't want her seeing me like that.

We're brought up to be strong, to be the protectors for our family and friends. And for Marines, that protection extends out to everyone else as well. We aren't supposed to be victims, we aren't supposed to be capable of being overpowered.

I've spent a while trying to come to grips with all of this. For weeks afterward, I couldn't even sleep in a bed. I always wound up on the floor curled into the corner with the blankets wrapped around me. I used to sleep with just a set of pajama pants on; I can't anymore, now it's a full set of pajamas, plus socks, and I will almost completely cocoon myself in the blankets. I can't stand the smell of jasmine anymore, or baby powder. Two of the females that were in that group were wearing perfume or deoderant, something like that, with those scents on it.

To this day, I still find it shameful; I still find it humiliating. I am still angry, I am still frustrated, and I still have moments where I break down and cry, though I try not to do that in front of people if I can help it. If I have a night where I really NEED the deep sleep and the catnapping isn't enough anymore, my wife will actually leave the bed and curl up in the recliner. She says she does it so that I don't worry about hurting her.

I don't know if it will ever truly heal. I'm trying to move on; I still have a family that I love, and I'm trying not to let what happened get in the way of that. Maybe someday it'll stop haunting my sleep, maybe someday I'll be able to get the words out of my mouth. To this day I still haven't been able to actually speak the words. I can't do it; I just get all choked up and wind up running from the room. Until I can actually say it, therapy is kind of pointless. I shut down during that, and believe me, I've tried it.

But above all; I hope this helps someone out there.

Added Nov 2011