Please, if you care about the women, the children, the men in your life, your family, your friends, your co-workers, anyone other than yourself, I would ask that you read this post unless you yourself are already a rape survivor. And if you are this may make it clear just how not alone you are (but it's potentially triggering, so your call).
http://www.barcc.org/blog/disclosures-and-silencing/#When:15:01:22ZThen, if you can, whatever you can, do something to help change things. Rape culture is sooo prevalent, and we are not doing enough. Volunteer (no, you do not have to be a counselor to volunteer), give money, educate others, make sure there is no place that is safe for a rapist. If my words didn't get through to you, I suspect this will.
And if it doesn't, you're not someone I need in my life. This is too important to our future as humans.
In this case, because it's one man talking about his personal experiences with his friends, he may not have had any male friends discuss themselves being raped with him. Which I can understand, and from the studies I've seen disclosing to another man is much harder than woman to woman or woman to man due in part to how men react. Basically it's a whole separate topic, which I'll try to find more links on to rebroadcast.
This is written by a different staff member (the blog has 3 regular writers plus guest posts), but talks quite frankly about male and trans-gender prison rape. As I find more links that talk about male rape I'll try to make it a point to post them as well.
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I dated a girl who tells me that she has been raped, and introduces me to two other friends of hers who have, as well. (All these were victims of "acquaintance rape" or "date rape")...and of course this is completely earth-shattering to me since I have never known anyone to whom this has happened...never know anyone who would dream of, let alone be capable of "date rape."
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I used to date a girl who was a true psycho. She constantly tried to convince me to indulge her rape fantasies, and she constantly fantasized about being raped. She once tried to convince me to break into a neighbors' house and rape this neighbor!!! I could never indulge even her mildest fantasies, however, because I abhor the entire idea. But the whole thing just disturbed me and certainly was a huge reason that relationship was not successful...
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my ramblings have no point. I'm just...typing.
I can pretty much guarantee you're wrong on not knowing anyone who's ever committed rape. A classmate, a coworker, a fellow club kid, the guy who chats with you at the coffee shop, someone you are acquainted with is one of the people who's taken advantage of a partner who's too young, too drunk, too wasted to consent. But they don't call it rape, and if it's reported the police and the media don't call it rape. Hell, they're still refusing to call it rape when it's a 10 year old girl who's stepfather forced himself on her in one case that's currently being discussed; but rape it is. A 10 year old cannot consent, no matter what. That's why I said the culture is so prevalent, along with many other studies and tons of statistical analysis. As to whether or not those rapes are all reported (many of them are not), they're real, and both women and men suffer as a result. We also have a very inaccurate picture of how many men are raped; they are much less likely to report a rape because it doesn't fit the picture of masculinity.
I want it to stop, for everyone's sake, and for that to happen we need to change the way we view consent; the way we call girls/women who are sexual as sluts and men as studs; the way our society views sex as taboo. Not addressing these very real issues is a big part of the problem, and allows the serial rapists described in the Lesnack/Miller papers to continue to rape without consequence.
And yes, there are people who fantasize about rape. The fact that you had no interest in acting on your girlfriend's fantasies is yet another page of the book that tells me you are a good guy. And while I'm not sure the fantasies themselves are indicative of a mental health problem, they'd certainly raise red flags for me.