It is important to understand sexual and gender based violence (GBV)
in South Africa which has one of the world’s highest rates of sexual and GBV. In
this paper, I focus and interrogate sexual assault and rape of men by other men. I
consider harm done by boys/men not one dimensionally (i.e. boys/men harming
women), but through the violence and aggression boys/men inflict on other men/
boys. Through the qualitative research method, autoethnography, I look at the
ways in which men harm other men through the prism of male rape. I demonstrate
how autoethnography, grounded in personal experience, hindsight and reflexive
writing is of great usefulness in exploring sensitive, traumatic and sensitive events.
Through my own narrative, I show autoethnography is important in the analysis of
individual experience to make sense of social phenomena. I contend male rape is
used as a stopping device for men and boys who do not fit the hegemonic moulds
of idealised masculinity, boyhood and manhood. I call for greater attention to the
sexual violence of boys and men by other men, which albeit promising international
work and scholarship, still remains scant and ignored in current South African
literature outside of institutionalised settings like prison and military.