Baby Reindeer got it right on men – and victimhood

I’m familiar with male survivors of the kind of sexual abuse, rape, and sexual exploitation depicted in drama. I’ve literally been the depiction.

But 10 minutes after watching the last episode of Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer, I was still speechless. I know the story really well! I’ve read the book, seen the play, got the T-shirt – even heard it straight from the reindeer’s mouth.

However, even with that familiarity, I was still left feeling like I’d never seen anything like that, nor had anyone else. This was the actual definition of groundbreaking, showing people the rarely seen, messy reality of male survivors like Donny, like Richard… like me.

As a male survivor of sexual abuse, rape and sexual exploitation, I’ve spent the last 20 years providing specific support for male survivors through the charity I set up nearly 16 years ago, We Are Survivors. I’ve been involved in the development of government policy, strategy and even law. I’ve advised TV dramas on male survivors in storylines. I’ve seen the real impact of telling male survivors’ stories.

When Reynhard Sinaga, who raped over 200 (mostly heterosexual) men, hit the headlines as the most prolific rapist in British legal history, the media noise was deafening. When we delivered the Coronation Street David Platt rape storyline, the helpline saw an eighteenfold increase in calls from men saying #MeToo.

However, all of these crimes are presently classed as “violence against women and girls” (VAWG) and male victims are also grouped into this category – as victims of violence against women and girls. That doesn’t make sense, right? There is no denying, despite the loud angry voices of Men’s Rights Activists (known as MRAs), that women and girls are evidently the majority of victims. The data backs this up. But what about Donny, Richard, David Platt, the 200+ male victims of Reynhard Sinaga, me? What about tackling sexual violence against men and boys?

In asking this question, I’ll bring accusations of “whataboutery” to my door along with a barrage of hate on social media from some men saying I’m not a real man and a disgrace, and some women saying I’m trying to divert the discussion or take the spotlight away from women and girls. I’m used to it.

But to be clear, I’m not asking to talk about male victims “instead of” women and girls. I’m asking how do we see male victims and tackle the crimes against them?

When the annual VAWG report is published, words and images of women and girls are used but the data also shows around 13 per cent of the rape victims and 24 per cent of child abuse victims are male. So in 2024, why do we still use this terminology?

I think the answer is simple – because of the numbers, we remain stuck in a toxic gender-norm default of men as perpetrators and rarely as victims. Yet, we do very little to try to develop a culture to encourage male victims to step forward, and so the cycle continues: few men are seen in the dataset, so we don’t talk about them, but because we don’t talk about them, few men step forward to be counted in the dataset. If we don’t have the data, we’re not part of the discussion or the decisions.

The staggering reaction to Baby Reindeer reminded me that society still struggles to handle the “male victim” (yes, Donny is the victim in case you’d forgotten), especially if the perpetrator is female, or he “goes back” into the space where the very governance of his own body is taken. Whilst the world went Baby Reindeer mad, some people ignored Richard’s own victimhood and survivorship.

But his story did help people, nevertheless. Forty per cent of referrals to We Are Survivors in the first two weeks of the series dropping were from young people (26-35); 53 per cent of all referrals cited Baby Reindeer as the reason they are seeking help; and first-time callers to the service increased by 80 per cent.

If Richard Gadd wasn’t my hero beforehand, he certainly is now. As a male survivor using his story of abuse to create Baby Reindeer, putting himself in front of the camera as Donny and out there in the media circus talking about male survivorship, he has without a doubt changed the world for male survivors. The data proves this. We owe him an apology for ignoring his victimhood, and praise for showing his survivorship.

Now all we have to do is get the non-survivors, the decision-makers and the politicians to change the world for us too.

Duncan Craig is the CEO of We Are Survivors, a charity organisation that supports male survivors of sexual abuse and rape