In Debate Over Military Sexual Assault, Men Are Overlooked Victims

[unhappycamper]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/us/in-debate-over-military-sexual-assault-men-are-overlooked-victims.html?_r=0



In Debate Over Military Sexual Assault, Men Are Overlooked Victims
By JAMES DAO
Published: June 23, 2013

Sexual assault has emerged as one of the defining issues for the military this year. Reports of assaults are up, as are questions about whether commanders have taken the problem seriously. Bills to toughen penalties and prosecution have been introduced in Congress.

But in a debate that has focused largely on women, this fact is often overlooked: the majority of service members who are sexually assaulted each year are men.

In its latest report on sexual assault, the Pentagon estimated that 26,000 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, up from 19,000 in 2010. Of those cases, the Pentagon says, 53 percent involved attacks on men, mostly by other men.

“It’s easy for some people to single out women and say: ‘There’s a small percentage of the force having this problem,’ ” said First Lt. Adam Cohen, who said he was raped by a superior officer. “No one wants to admit this problem affects everyone. Both genders, of all ranks. It’s a cultural problem.”

[MADem]

1. This was Rhonda Cornum's response to the right-wing screeching after she was returned from POW

status, that rape happens to men, too.

This whole article is REALLY worth a (re)- read. Note the DATE!! We've been talking about this shit for decades--you'd think we'd get a little attitudinal consensus eventually....!

But other experts on P.O.W.'s and on military personnel say the disclosure illustrates much larger issues: that rape and sexual abuse are two of the many forms of mistreatment suffered by prisoners of war, and that men as well as women are at risk. There is a need to raise the consciousness of American troops of both sexes about sexual abuse in the military in general, the experts say, not just in the extremely unlikely case that they are taken prisoner.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/29/us/female-pow-is-abused-kindling-debate.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm