Male rape remains one of the most silenced and misunderstood forms of sexual trauma. In this powerful episode of The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, Dr Marianne Trent speaks with Connor Whiteley, clinical psychology master’s student and host of The Psychology World Podcast, who courageously shares his lived experience of male sexual violence.

Together, they explore the realities of male rape, the consent myths that keep survivors silent, and why understanding shame and recovery is vital for healing. The conversation tackles misconceptions about erections, freezing during assault, and why men often struggle to seek help or report what has happened.

Connor also shares his recovery journey — from denial and panic attacks to seeking specialist trauma therapy — and offers practical advice for survivors, mental-health professionals, and allies.

This episode sheds light on a taboo topic and invites us to build a culture of compassion, safety, and understanding for all survivors of sexual trauma. Whether you’re a psychologist, therapist, trainee, student, or survivor, this conversation will deepen your insight into consent, trauma, and healing.

Content note: We discuss sexual violence in clear, respectful language. Please take care while listening. If you need support, consider contacting SARSAS, SurvivorsUK, Rape Crisis England & Wales, or your local service.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Introduction: Breaking the silence on male rape
• 01:08 – Safety warning and trigger guidance
• 02:32 – How common is male sexual violence?
• 05:00 – Media representation and harmful myths
• 06:57 – Understanding the freeze response
• 07:44 – Why “enthusiastic consent” matters
• 09:15 – Challenging stereotypes and gender myths
• 11:18 – The truth about erections and consent
• 13:33 – Therapeutic reflections and global examples
• 15:42 – Healing, therapy, and coping strategies
• 19:46 – Integrating trauma into recovery
• 20:47 – Reporting to police and physical aftercare
• 21:45 – De-shaming and self-compassion in recovery
• 24:45 – Final reflections and resources

Links:

📲 www.connorwhiteley.net/podcast

📚Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook by Erika Shershun: https://amzn.to/48DMaxn

📚 Books by Connor Whiteley: https://amzn.to/47f6Zgc

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📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0

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📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent

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Male rape is one of the most stigmatised and silenced traumas in our society. Too many survivors are left believing they're alone, when in fact their pain might be tragically more common than most of us might realise. In this episode, I'm joined by Connor to break that silence together we'll talk about the realities of male rape, why consent and shame matter so deeply, and what we can all do to better support survivors. I'm Dr. Mariana qualified clinical psychologist and if you'd like to understand to support or to heal your in the right place, please like, subscribe, comment, and share so this vital conversation can reach more people. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist and I'm joined here today by a fellow podcaster, actually, Connor Whiteley. Welcome along.

Hi, Marianne and thank you for having me. So I'm a clinical psychology master's student and I'm also the host of the Psychology World podcast, and I'm really looking forward to getting into our conversation today.

Me too. But I think before we do, if we just do a little bit of kind of safety and housekeeping, obviously with the nature of our topic today, if someone is listening or watching and there's young ears around, I think probably now is not the most appropriate time for them to engage with this episode. If you're in a car and you've got kids in the car, I think this is one to come back to. Maybe skip along to the next episode or the previous one, choose this one a little bit later because it is a big topic. It does matter. It's really important. But we do have to do a little bit of a trigger warning that because we're talking about sexual violence, if maybe somebody even is not feeling strong enough to engage with the content themselves right now, we can absolutely give them permission to come back to this later or maybe skip this one altogether, can't we, Connor?

Yeah, definitely they were, because this is a very, really hard topic and at the end of the day, we just want you to be like, okay, and protect your own mental health.

Yeah, absolutely. So can we talk a little bit about male sexual violence and how prevalent that is? Because some people might live in this world where they think that that's not a thing or that that's certainly not happening maybe in the uk. Could you talk to us a little bit about that, Connor?

Yeah, definitely. So before I was raped in April of 24, I also thought that it doesn't happen that often women are the only people who tend to work as raped and they tend to suffer like sexual violence. But as I was researching it more because my own mental health was starting to deteriorate, I realised this is actually a lot more common. Some of these statistics that I found, especially when comes to university students is about 13% of all university students will egg experience at some form of sexual violence. When we focus on a postgrad student, 2.5% of a male students will egg experience at sexual violence in their time at a university. But if we look at under students, actually increases to at 6.8%. And the reason why this is in important, even though this just sounds like single digit figures, is that if we think about the hundreds of thousands of people that go to university across the western world, this is still tens upon tens of thousands of different students. But this is a massive issue, especially when we start to think about the stark negative mental health implications like the depression and anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder amongst other mental health difficulties.

And it was just the trauma of it. This might involve physical trauma, but certainly the psychological fallout of this as well. And I'm sorry to hear of your experiences and thank you for pitching this episode. To me. It's really important and I hope that it feels okay for you to discuss this. It was a topic I'd first become aware of when I was at university actually. And I was a big fan at the time of a channel four show called Holly Oaks. And at the time there was a character called Luke and he ended up being raped and it was shocking and violent and it really led to that character exploring and experiencing so many different things. He was in a relationship with a female at the time, and it led to him changing in that relationship and changing how outgoing and confident he was and the shame and the blame and the guilt. This really can affect people on all levels, can't it, Connor?

Yeah, definitely. And the thing that I found so surprising was after what happened to me was that there's not a single area of your life that isn't affected. Form egg example, I also used to be really outgoing, confident I could go into any rumour and I'm also all autistic. So yes, I needed to be a bit performative to be extroverted at times, so I could do that. And I was happy after I was raped, my anger, anxiety peaked and I could go out. But at the end of the day, because I was so fearful that I would get vape day again, it would just be real a struggle and I would end up having a panic attacks and just a mental breakdown as soon as I got home. But it's also interesting that you should mention like Holy Oaks, because after you mentioned it in our emails like Google did, and it's absolutely brilliant that it's getting that representation, but it does feed into some quite problematic myths about male with sexual violence.

And to be honest, sexual violence as a whole, because there's this big idea that when you are fighting, you are screaming, you're kicking, you are punching. And this myth goes for females and male with survivors, but in a reality, vast majority of people don't fight to punch and kick their way way out. Some people, and this is not a good way to phrase it, it's simply let it happen. But in reality, it's the FA v sponsor. So you've got the fight flight and the FA where you were just freeze up because yes, and this is what happens to about 90% of as survivors, including myself though. So it's good that we've got this media representation that's raising awareness, but it doesn't actually be reflect about what happens in reality.

I'm with you. Yeah, and thank you for helping make that distinction for us, that actually what we're looking at is it's a lack of consent actually, and it doesn't always mean physical violence or restraint, but I really think that the powerful video by Thames Valley Police, it's called T and consent. And I would urge anybody whatever reason you're watching this podcast for, I would urge anybody to check that out on YouTube. I will link that in the show notes and in the description, it's so important that actually we are really being clear about explicitly about consent. It's so important. And actually even if halfway through whatever's happening, maybe you consented to begin with, but then you change your mind and you don't want to do that anymore, that's you withdrawing consent and that should be honoured and respected. So thank you for making that distinction, Connor.

Yeah, you're welcome. Welcome. But also building upon it, the idea of con ascent. Yes, tea is a really good video, but to what I also learned as I was covering was the idea of in enthusiastic con ascent, because sometimes you might just say, yes, add a fear, and that is not ascent. That is you saying yes because you are scared about what if you say no, will the other person hurt you? What will they do with something even worse? Even worse, their rest. This is where the idea of in enthusiastic sense comes in though. So if you are having sex or if you're doing a sexual act, then it's in appal that when your partner says Yes, they actually really want to do it. They've been eff enthusiastic, they're excited, excited. So that's another in appalling de-extinction,

It really is. And actually, yeah, it kind of enters into kind of coercive control, which is a really, really powerful episode I did with Chrissy Roberts a few months ago. And really we want to make sure that both parties want to be there, are consenting to that and are in control of when it happens and when it doesn't happen. So again, a really important point. And I know in the last few years, baby reindeer was a viral Netflix sensation and that had a storyline around male rape as well, didn't it, Connor?

Yeah, definitely. So I wasn't able to a see of that because this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but after you've been raped, you actually can't watch anything with any alight of references at sex and sexual triggers. But last morning I did do a quick Google and I have heard that it's really good, but the thing that I like about this is that it does show that women can also be sexual predators and perpetrators of a sexual violence because that's another a massive myth in society because whenever we tend to think about victim, which I think is very disempowering negative term for someone who's actually gone through sexual violence. So when we think about victims, we always tend to think of them as women. And the term a victim has some very negative notations. It implies that you are weak, you are broken, you you're messed up, which is not helpful as aspiring site ecologist. And as a part of our job when it comes to supporting those who have been through with sexual trauma is that sense of empowerment again, and that self-confidence, confidence. And then when we think about the term perpetrator, because of the myths in a society, we tend to think of that as exclusively males who reckon be perpetrator. So that's why programmes like Baby Veer are really useful because it helps to fake those stereotypes and those myths.

Yeah, exactly. I think there was a moment where she, I think she groped him, but I think the male sexual violence was actually male to male in that. But I can absolutely understand why that's not something that you're going to seek out. I absolutely understand that. Okay. And I think another myth we want to bust as well is about erections and what that might say or not say about someone, whether they're consenting, whether they're up for it, whether they want it. What would you have to say about that, Connor?

Yeah, so when I would say tea teenager, I remember this conversation with some of my friends. And so what they did basically turn around and to say that, oh, well, I meant that can't be vaped because if they get an EV action then they want it. And at the time I was like, that can't be right. But I didn't challenge it because I was young and they were my friends. But then after what happened to me, because you do get, it's a physiological process, which you can't, it's simply a biological process that will happen whether you are actually sexually or well, it makes you really confused. It makes you question, oh wait, did I enjoy that? Was I asking for that? And it brings up so many of these really distressing questions, which when you combine or with other myths about in a society and the lag of conversation around male sexual violence, it's really difficult and it only compounds your trauma further. To answer your question, I would just say that a eviction and even an ejaculation does not mean that you are in adjoined. It does not mean that your assenting, it's simply a biological process which will happen, whatever the case.

And I think that's a really powerful message to make actually. And I know from my experiences of working clinically that often rape is used against people of every gender in war and as a way of an act of of violence and to kind break people psychologically and break their spirit in war. So I've often worked with people who have been raped as a result of being a political prisoner or just as a part of military coups or whatever. People have come in and the stories come with the men, they came, they came to the village, and then the stories their fault that unfold are horrendous, a real privilege to do that work. But actually when I've worked with men in that situation, they have maybe never told anybody, and they might have had years of mental health work, they might have had lots and lots of work with immigration and kind of seeking asylum and lots of people asking questions but have never felt able to share that.

And then it's only when they're in my therapy room that actually I help them to bridge the gaps and join the dots. And I almost tell them stories actually. Sometimes people who've been through situations like this have had maybe things like this have happened to them and they almost can't go there straight away, but we work and we work and we work, and then they're able to have a really important process of being desham and I'm able to help do that. Psychoeducation exactly like you did really was saying actually sometimes when a penis is touched, it will get harder. And sometimes if it's touched with enough enthusiasm, an orgasm and ejaculation will happen. And sometimes people can have a lot of shame about their body doing that because then it gives them mixed messages of, did I enjoy that? Because that's the ultimate sign of enjoyment. But no, you didn't consent for that to happen. This is just what bodies do. And the same thing happens with females as well. When a clus is touched that can respond and it can feel nice even though it's not something you are consenting to. So I really want to just open up and reinforce and enforce that narrative that someone might even say, well, you enjoyed it, you came, didn't you? That is not consent. That is still something that is not wanted. Really, really important messages.

Yeah, definitely. I thank you for sharing that, Maia, and I'm really sorry that your clients went through that. That is just awful and I understand what they've been, but that's just like having that open space is important. So thank you for providing that with your clients.

Yeah, absolutely. Can we think about what sort of things will help somebody who's been through violence like this? Is it community? Is it friendships, is it family? Is it therapy? What's your idea about the sort of things that can help Connor?

So I would say that there's so many different factors that can help, but I would say that there are a few at different areas which are flat out critical for vape saliva in terms of the person, them myselves though initially there will be a massive denial period though, at least in my egg experience, because after what happened to me happened for the first two days, I was like, Nope, nothing's happened. I'm just overreacting. My body's just betraying me. I dunno why I'm having these panic attacks and I'm trouble sleeping, but you're just in complete denial. And then somebody else that you might act like experience besides the post-traumatic stress disorder, the depression, and the other negative or mental health symptoms is that you don't want to allow yourself to feel with the emotions because let's face it, the emotions and processing what happened to you is awful.

It's really distressing, stressing that way. So that can make it really difficult. So sometimes you in a light ga in strategies to either keep yourself really busy so you don't have to think about the emotions. And that's what I did. You also in a strategies which help blunt the emotions. So I know that some people filled with the need to drink a lot of alcohol or do with drugs, and yes, these are mell adaptive coping mechanisms and we do need to see a port to break these. But the survivor is just a doing effing that they possibly can to survive. To survive though. So knowing that it's fitting appalling that you do seek out mental health and psychological therapy because a therapist will be able to help you work through your trauma and also do with just give you delight of tips and the strategies that you need to be able to improve your life, increase your psychological stress, and integrate the trauma into your life.

Because unfortunately, and if you've experienced sexual trauma, you'll just want it gone. You will never want to have this and you would quite happily just forget it for the rest of your life. But unfortunately that's not how trauma works. And the healthier option and the option that I'm really starting to appreciate more in my life is that you can just integrate it. I can work through it just like it's in the mirror. So it's happened to you, but it's, it's no longer trolling you. And if you've been through a sexual violence, then me just saying that sounds absolutely impossible for the seven months it took me at a hill, I thought that I would never heal. I thought I would never get into a relationship, et cetera. But by working with counsellor who was a vape specialist, then that was really helpful. Also, as an aspiring clinical psych ecologist, I knew that mathmatic work, so working with the body wasn't important.

What example was during anxiety, the psychoeducation between yes, against the fitting of an anxiety and the right sweaty hand and the physical sensations. I knew that was important, but it was only after my trauma work that I realised, oh, my body is the thing that's freaking out. It's the process that's gone a bit a and my nervous system is overreacting to a most stimuli. So that's why it was really useful, whether I learned some self-soothing techniques like boxer breathing. So you breathe in for four, you hold for four, then you breathe out for four form and then you keep at doing that until it activates your parasympathetic nervous system and you feel a calmer karma though. And then there's a lot of other techniques that I really do recommend and there's a brilliant book that's helped me. It's called Healing a Sexual Trauma Workbook by Ever Kurt Sherman. So that's some of the tips and tricks that I would recommend in individual.

Thank you. I'll make sure I link to that in the description and the show notes. And I'm pleased that you've been able to work through that. And I'm pleased that actually you've been able to do that in seven months as well. That is not prescriptive. Everyone else will have a different timeframe and depending on speed of access to services, that will be different. But yeah, please do reach out for mental health support if you feel that would be helpful. And I guess it would be remiss of me to not talk about reporting this as a crime to the police as well. And that actually you can do that at any point. You could be 104 and be like, actually, I would like to talk about this thing that happened to me. And I think often there's been lots of things in the media about kind of people working in, it was choir boys or it was ERs and organised religion and that actually, you might've been younger when this happens as well, but it's not.

It's not okay. It's not okay. It's not okay. So yeah, this can be reported as a crime and actually should be if you feel like you've got the resolve for that at that time. But also you might have been physically injured and so you might need to go to accident and emergency to help them care for any wounds that you might not even be able to see. But actually things might be very painful and we just made to make sure that actually you are all right. And they will of course understand that you are going to be really upset and distressed, but they will try to care for you as sensitively as they can to make sure that your body is receiving the treatment that it needs to heal as well. So I know these are really, really difficult conversations, but I just really want to try and desham this process. It's not your fault that this happened to you, but you do deserve for your body to be healed and ultimately for your mind to be able to be healing again too.

Yeah, definitely. One of my favourite quotes from the book was something along the lines of, it's not your fault because you couldn't have prevented it. When I read that, I was like, oh, wow, that's really true. That's really a powerful, yeah, powerful though. And also building a, upon the idea of V reporting, it was that thankfully there were lots more people coming forward to report their sexual violence. And on the news we tend to see lots of cases of which are thankfully have been found guilty, guilty. And as a survivor, I love seeing that. I'm really happy for, those are people. It shows that all of us, the divers are really empowered, strong, and we're all just incredible. But during the worst of my mental health, those news reports also make me cry and a bit destressed because I didn't decide to report my assault and my rape to the police.

And I know that the vast majority of people don't either. And I think that it's also good to have a conversation about that because as a survivor you can also feel really guilty about not the supporting it, but it's understandable and it's so okay because also as aspiring psychologist to hear about secondary traumatization as this is when the courts, the police and the whole criminal justice system as a whole can actually be a traumatise you. So that was one of the reasons why I didn't want to press that charges and I didn't want to go to the police, but also the masculinity point of it, because I didn't want to go to the police, I was also really scared of being laughed at because of the massive societal myths so that men don't get raped. They were like, they can't be our survivors, and nothing could ever happen to them.

So that's something that I was quite scared about. And also because of the situation and because of the exact nature of what happened to me, there was no physical evidence evidence though, which is something that's quite appalling in our prosecutions. So there's lot of different factors, but ultimately it's your choice. You are the only person who actually has the right to decide if you want to press the charges or not. And if you do, then you are amazing more power to you. I wish you the best of luck, but equally, if you don't, then that's okay. You are still amazing. You're still stronger because you survived.

Thank you, Connor. That was really sensitively handled. And of course I will make sure that the relevant helplines and bits and pieces are on screen and in the show notes as well. Thank you for bringing this issue to me in the podcast and for allowing us to talk about this. It's a really important narrative. I would really love it if people are watching on YouTube, if they can, if they can comment, if they can show some support to this really important topic. And similarly, if you are on Spotify, you can actually drop in comments and questions and answers there as well. Thank you again so much for your time, Connor. It's a really valuable conversation.

Yeah, thank you, Ian. Have me. It's been like a really fun, I love your podcast. It's a brilliant, thank you for sharing it.

Oh, thank you. And if people want to learn more about you and your podcast, how can they do that Connor,

Then? Thank you. So what my podcast is the psychology wide podcast available on all major podcast apps and a YouTube. And every Monday we cover a brand new site ecology topic, topic, whether it's clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, or ma whole other area. And if you want to check out my books, then they're also available on all major retailers and we can also order them from your local IB and Amazon. And my sexual violence focus books are in including Breaking the Silence. So this is more in affirmation and did filter very nicely on today's podcast episode. If you want to hear more about my personal journey and the stuff that I egg experience. Then there's a book coming out called I Am a Survivor, not a Victim. And then the last one is Healing as a Survivor, which I focuses specifically on my accounting and sessions and effing that I went through as I healed from a sexual violence, very personal books, but I love them.

Okay, good. And I will make sure that there's links to those in the description and show notes as well. Great. So people can check out the Psychology World podcast wherever they get there, podcast. And I believe you're on YouTube as well, aren't you, Connor? Yes. Perfect. Thank you for your time and wishing you the best with everything in future.

Thank you, Maria. Bye everyone.

Thank you so much to my guest, Connor for speaking with us about this really important sensitive topic. I hope you found it helpful. Whether you are watching or listening, you can show your support to the podcast and to this episode. If you are listening on Apple Podcasts, you can rate and review the show. If you are on Spotify, you can actually drop comments or questions about the specific episode and I'll always reply. The same goes for YouTube. I respond to all of my comments. Please do show your support by dropping comments, supporting, liking, sharing, doing all of those good things, which really helps this channel to grow, helps us to attract audiences, helps people to know that this is a safe place to learn and to be heard.

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