Believe assault survivors: Holding Sienna Mae accountable helps male victims

On Jan. 20, TikTok star Jack Wright accused Sienna Mae Gomez, also a popular TikToker, of sexual assault. The allegations went viral on the application after Wright posted a 17-minute-long YouTube video titled “what Sienna Mae did to me," where he detailed several instances where Gomez had initiated sexual acts without his consent.

Wright and Gomez, both 18 years old, were high school friends, according to Wright. In October 2020, the pair started filming TikToks together where they were hugging and kissing, but neither Gomez nor Wright ever confirmed that they were in a romantic relationship. 

But, the pair slowly stopped posting videos together, and on May 30, 2021, Wright’s friend Mason Rizzo posted a now-deleted notes app statement on Twitter alluding to Wright and Gomez being a part of an allegedly abusive relationship. 

After the allegations, Gomez began to quickly lose hundreds and thousands of followers. She denied the allegations on June 1, 2021, in a now-deleted 8-minute video, where she detailed how her feelings for Wright were not reciprocated and that her devotion to him was being falsely equated to possessiveness. 

The next day, on June 2, 2021, Wright responded with his own notes app statement, saying that Rizzo only wanted to protect him and that he wants his “childhood friend Sienna to get the support and help she needs.” At this point, Wright didn't yet make any allegations of sexual assault.

On June 3, 2021, a TikTok user named Lachlan Hannemann posted a TikTok where he shared a video of Wright and Gomez at a party that Hannemann also attended. Hannemann claimed the video was from Nov. 30, 2020, and it featured a seemingly drunk and incapacitated Wright on a couch, with Gomez on top of him and touching him.

Hannemann claimed the original video was removed by TikTok, but the footage is still available through other TikToks and on YouTube. 

Gomez responded to Hannemann's video on June 4, 2021, claiming that Wright was in fact not unconscious in the video and that he had kissed her back. She then accused Wright and his friends of slander and added that she issued cease-and-desist letters. 

Wright and Gomez were originally set to be two of the biggest stars on Netflix’s “Hype House,” but when the show dropped in early January, neither Gomez or Wright were heavily featured in the show as was originally intended.

On Jan. 11, Wright posted a TikTok of himself lip-syncing to an audio clip that contained lyrics from iDubbbz’s video “Asian Jake Paul,” a diss track about YouTuber RiceGum. Wright specifically lip-synced the lyrics “You’re f***ing delusional/so try your best to remember/You are not a pimp/You’re a borderline sex offender."

On the screen, the text reads “can’t stay quiet anymore especially when other guys in LA told me what she did to them as well. I’m done being gaslighted and silenced. Y’all deserve to know. Please give me a little more time, but please know I have had love and support through this from friends, family and all of you online.” 

Shortly after, on Jan. 20, Wright posted a viral YouTube video confirming the allegations against Gomez. In the video, Wright corroborated Hannemann’s claim that Wright was unconscious in the video where Gomez was seen climbing on top of him. 

Wright also claimed that Gomez would pick the lock of his bathroom when he was showering and enter the shower without his consent. He also claimed that she would break into his house when he was sleeping, and he would wake up with her hand in his pants.

“Looking back, I don’t know why I stayed friends with her, stayed around her,” Wright said in the video. “I truly thought she was going to change.” 

Wright also said Gomez’s denials made him feel gaslighted and invalidated. 

Since Wright posted his video, there has been mass social media discourse with fans of Wright and Gomez showing empathy and support for Wright, anger and outrage toward Gomez or believing Gomez's claims that Wright's allegations are false or exaggerated. 

Some also echo TikTok user brendonqueue’s point of view.

The user, who also goes by “Feminist Dirtbag,” says that Wright chose to handle the situation privately for so long because men who experience sexual assault and harassment are told they should consider themselves "lucky" for any sexual experience and shouldn't complain about unwanted sexual contact. Men are then forced to hide their trauma and are attacked by society for speaking out about their experiences if they choose to. 

Such situations happen time and time again. It happened with the Menendez brothers when they accused their father of sexual abuse and were mocked for it, it happened with actor Terry Crews when he accused a man of groping him, it happened to actor Brendan Fraser when he accused ex-Hollywood Foreign Press Association President Philip Berk of sexually assaulting him in 2003. 

While many people claim to be supportive of all people who experience sexual assault and harassment, many men aren't given the same level of validation from the general public when they come out with their experiences. This is because a toxic, patriarchal and heteronormative society that values hypermasculinity does not allow men to show "weakness" in any form.

As a result, men are mocked for talking about their abuse and often struggle to seek and receive help for the trauma they face.

This doesn't mean female survivors are automatically respected or believed. In internet discourse surrounding male victims, many people begin to take on a misogynist viewpoint that belittles women’s experiences as a misguided response to the cruelty to male survivors. Such perspectives do not serve male survivors, but instead, continue to belittle the trauma of sexual assault in general. 

The conversation shouldn’t surround whose trauma is more valid, but it should surround validating sexual assault survivors of any gender identity and believing them about the trauma that they have faced. 

And similarly to how many male assaulters are called to be held accountable, Gomez should also be held accountable — and no amount of TikTok followers will erase the consequences of her actions.