Research about male-victim rape had only just begun to appear by 1980, focusing mostly on male children. Eventually, the male victims may be very vague in explaining their injuries when they are seeking medical or mental health services. Most of the time, male victims try to hide and deny their victimization, similar to female victims, unless they have serious physical injuries. They might be afraid that people will doubt their sexual orientation and label them homosexual, especially if raped by a male, or that they may be seen as un-masculine because they were a victim and therefore many statistics underestimate how many males are raped due to their unwillingness to report sexual assault and rape. It may be difficult for male victims to report a sexual assault they experienced, especially in a society with a strong masculine custom. Community and service providers often react differently to male victims based on their sexual orientation and the gender of their perpetrators. Rape of males is still taboo, and has a negative connotation among heterosexual and homosexual men. This belief is still held in some parts of the world, but rape of males is now commonly criminalized and has been subject to more discussion than in the past. Historically, rape was thought to be, and defined as, a crime committed solely against females. A proportion of victims of rape or other sexual violence incidents are male.
