LAUSR

Abstract In this paper, I offer a platform in which to theorise sexual violence against men. In doing so, I critically interrogate the ways in which male sexual victimisation is socially and culturally constructed in the public space of compulsory heterosexuality. Drawing on male rape as a case study and focus, I explore how rape against men is constructed and socially defined in public territory where homosexuality is often marginal, excluded, and stigmatised. The interactional, social and cultural contexts wherein rape against men is constructed are considered, with the adoption of the theoretical framework of heteronormativity to make sense of the connection between male rape and ‘heterosexual spaces’. In respect of the binary distinction between the public and private, whereby homosexuality is deemed ‘private’ and heterosexuality ‘public’, and drawing on ideas of male sexual victimisation and victim blameworthy, I provide an improved understanding of the different ways in which rape against men is constructed within a heterosexual landscape that always surrounds us all.