Toronto police are looking for four female suspects who they say allegedly sexually assaulted a 19-year-old man.
The incident happened during the early morning hours of Sunday, March 31, after the man met the four women at a nightclub near King Street and University Avenue.
The man left the club with the women who offered to drive him home, according to a written statement from Toronto police.
"The complainant was instead driven to a parking lot where he was sexually assaulted by all four suspects," said the statement.
After the suspects let go of the man, they were seen leaving the area in a vehicle that resembled a silver Honda SUV.
Detective Constable Thomas Ueberholz with the Toronto Police Sex Crimes Unit said that his division does get complaints of sexual assaults on males by females.
"Although the majority generally is females that are victims or complainants, it is not completely unusual for a male to be the victim of a sexual assault," he said.
A 2003 report from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics showed that men comprised eight per cent of adult victims of sexual assaults that were reported to police.
Male victims of sexual assault are just as likely as female victims to report the crime to police, according to the report.
Nicole Pietsch, co-ordinator of the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres, said that male victims, like female victims, can encounter stigmas when seeking help.
It is not completely unusual for a male to be the victim of a sexual assault "Other men will say for example, "Oh, he’s so lucky," like that was actually a positive thing when it wasn’t," Ms. Pietsch said.
"I think that that just feeds into the myth that sexual violence is something the victim wants."
