I think Ratbastid nailed it on the head.
I feel frusterated talking with women sometimes because I want to offer all of this advice, but I know better that most of them don't want it. They just want to vent and be intimate. Which is fine.
However it still puts me in a feeling of slight helplessness because you can't fix their problem.
Talking to a guy about rape is like talking to a cat about astronaughts. We just aren't going to understand. As a guy, I can assume I know what you went through, but having never felt that level of helplessness or vurnerability I'm going to be like a deer in headlights if the subject is brought up.
It may not be his comfort leverl. Most guys I know don't feel right talking about shit they don't know about. Some really annoying guys do, and will go on and on about bullshit they have no idea about. But those guys with self respect and respect for others won't try and fake it when they just don't have a clue.
It probably isn't that he doesn't want to be invovled in the conversation, but that he is incapable of coming up with anything to say that doesn't make him feel like a jack ass. I think I would feel kinda dumb if a girl I cared about was talking to me about a subject like that and all I could do was nod and say uh-huh.
Another thing is that he might be desperately trying to come up with something "right" to say that he completely zones out on the rest of what you are saying. I've done that before accidently. Sometimes it's hard to come up with the right words when dealing with subjects you just don't understand so you spend more time on that, opposed to the person talking to you.
You may need to accept that this is his way of listening to you.
My advice to you is: Structure the conversation in a manner that he can be invovled in. Instead of explaining past scenarios, try talking in examples about how you feel. Create a metaphor or an alagory for the topic you want to discuss, such as how you feel about your experience, and then relate that to him in question format. That way he can be invovled by answering YOUR questions instead of being blindsided by a topic he can never possibly understand the way you do.
To appeal to the male mind, you want him to know he is helping, that is responsible for "Fixing something" as ratbastid mentioned. Maybe that is him just listening. Maybe that involves more. The onus is on YOU to tell him what YOU want out of those conversations.
