Men Are Much Less Likely To Be Victims of Rape
| May 30th, 2006On the Male Privilege Checklist (henceforth “the list,”) I wrote:
7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible.
Karmaq, writing in The Unseen Kid’s comments, responded:
I question some of the stats… For example, the myth that rape only happens to men in prison (or gay men), when the FBI stats (if you want to believe the FBI) are that it happens way more often than we think. No one wants to talk about and even if they do, no one wants to hear about it. But I’ve met enough men (straight, never been in jail) who have talked to me about it (cause people tend to tell me stuff they don’t normally share) that I tend to suspect the FBI’s “1 in 7 men; 1 in 3or4 women” had some validity.
My response to Karmaq:
First, Karmaq is mistaken about what the FBI’s statistics say. The FBI only counts the small proportion of rapes that are reported to police, and they calculate their numbers per year, rather than per lifetime. As a result, the FBI’s numbers are far, far, far lower than the numbers you provide here. Most importantly, because the FBI’s inexcusably sexist definition of rape excludes men (”forcible rape, as defined in the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, is the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will”), the FBI’s numbers are irrelevant to Karmaq’s point.
Second, contrary to Karmaq’s remarks, I never claimed that “rape happens only to men in prison (or gay men).” That would obviously not be true.
What I said is, that for men who aren’t in prison, the chances of being raped are very low, and I stand by that claim.
According to this study by the Centers for Disease Control, 15% of women and 2% of men in the US have ever been raped in their lifetime. That difference alone is enough to justify my statement. (The CDC’s numbers are based on interviews with a representative sample of the US population, not on police reports.)
Although the CDC’s is one of the best rape prevalence studies, I believe their results underestimate the prevalence of rape, especially for women. One particularly striking (but not at all unusual, as these studies go) flaw of the CDC’s survey is that their interview questions didn’t include a specific question asking about rapes that take place while the victims are unconscious or otherwise unable to resist due to drink or drugs - which is to say, a prototypical frat-house rape. Of course, anyone can be raped while passed out, but anecdotally I believe it happens significantly more often to women. (Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any good studies addressing this question, so anecdotal evidence is all I have.)
Readers may be wondering, of that 2% of men who report having been raped, how many were raped in prison? The CDC did not ask if rapes took place while incarcerated, so there’s no way of knowing what portion of the 2% of raped men, were raped in prison. However, it’s at least plausible that a significant portion of that 2% represents prison rape.
According to this Bureau of Justice Statistics report, 5% of US men have been in prison at some point in their lives. If one in ten men are raped while in prison - and some studies suggest prison rape prevalence may be that high or much higher - that would account for a quarter of all the male rape victims in the US. So although this is speculative, it’s plausible that a substantial number of the 2% of American men who have been raped, were raped while in prison.
Does it matter where rape takes place or who the victims are? In every moral sense, it does not matter. No one deserves to be raped. Prison rape is rape, and is totally inexcusable. Rape is rape, evil and wrong no matter where or to whom it happens. Every rape victim deserves sympathy and support.
But one point of the male privilege checklist is to make visible some ways a male-centric society harms women. (I believe that male-centric societies also harm men, but that’s a subject for a different post). Pretending that there’s no statistical difference in the likelihood of being raped goes against that purpose. In that context, that rape in ordinary US society is a crime overwhelmingly committed by men against women is important, and must be acknowledged.
It should be noted that the prison rape epidemic is probably going to get worse. Over the next couple of decades, the proportion of male rape victims may increase, because the proportion of men who have been in prison is projected to skyrocket. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ projections, if our current rate of sending men to prison is maintained, then at some point in the future 15% of American men will have spent time in prison. (6% of white men, 17% of Latinos, and 32% of Black men. For comparison’s sake, the projections for women are 1%, 2% and 6%.)
If those projections are true (or even partly true), and if the prison rape epidemic continues unabated, the overall number of American rape victims will vastly increase over the coming decades. This is true even if rape prevalence outside of prison doesn’t change at all. This is one reason why it’s essential to support strong measures to combat prison rape; unfortunately, all that’s gotten through congress so far are weak half-measures.
* * *Please Note* * *
My posts on “Alas” are sometimes heavily moderated. If you’d like to avoid that, you can instead leave a comment on the identical post at Creative Destruction.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
i can’t believe there’s even an argument about this. i don’t know a single man who ever but ever thinks about being sexually assaulted based on his surroundings, like walking alone somewhere at night, getting into a car in a parking garage, etc. i don’t know a single woman who doesn’t. the only time men insist they’re victims too is when someone tries to force them to acknowledge privelege. the more i see that happen, the more i myself am certain that privelege exists. which in a roundabout way is positive because it makes me reflect on white privelege for myself a little more.
but still. dudes. stfu. how can anyone say this crap–rape is preferable to x, (i.e. rape isn’t so bad), men are equally victimized–with a straight face?
This comment was written by beth.Report this comment to the moderators
May 30th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Besides, claiming men are raped as often as women is barking up the wrong tree. Regardless who’s being raped, the rapist is male except for a few noteworthy instances. Why is it we try to pretend criminals belong to neither sex? Their penis didn’t fall off when they committed rape or another crime, or else we might have less trouble with repeat offenders. Of course, the very fact that men are the ones raping men as well as women does make some room for the non-violent men in question to join women against violence, owning some genuine victimization for themselves: men are more likely to be violently assaulted than women. Again, the perpetrators are also men. Clearly we ought to be on the same side, violent men are a problem to all of us. Stop claiming to be equally objectified or equally raped and start dealing with the real problem. (And for the love of all that’s holy, stop taking every comment directed at rapists as against all men, the feminists that believe all men are rapists are a minority, just as the actually violent men are, hopefully, a minority.)
This comment was written by TheGlimmering.Report this comment to the moderators
May 30th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
I think Karmaq’s still got a point. If a quarter of male rapes are prison rapes, then out-of-prison rapes happen to 1.5% of the male population, or 1 in 67 men. Is this “so low as to be negligible”? I don’t know, it depends upon what “negligible” means to you. But I’d consider phrasing point 7 slightly differently (such as saying the risk of rape is an order of magnitude lower for men).
There’s actually a futher point I want to bring up, based upon the defence of Koss’s survey for rape prevalence you posted a while back. One of the complaints I’ve read about Koss’s methodology is that if you apply the questions to men they report higher rates of ‘rape’ than women do [www.radstats.org.uk/no083/Cowling83.pdf]. I don’t think anyone seriously believes that this is true in reality. But if a survey of that kind can result in a finding that is so obviously nonsense, then I wonder whether there’s any context in which it should be taken seriously.
This comment was written by nik.Report this comment to the moderators
May 30th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Before I respond, I want to be certain that I’ve understood what it is you want me to address. Is it the paragraph beginning “A further worry arises….” near the top of page 5 of that PDF file? Or is there something else there you’re thinking of?
Thanks!
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
May 30th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
05/30Men Are Much Less Likely To Be Victims of Rape
This comment was written by FeministBlogosphere.Report this comment to the moderators
May 31st, 2006 at 3:20 am
Yes, that’s the one. Though I’m just raising the general point, not citing Cowling’s paragraph as authoritative, he admits his article is just a reworking of Johnson and Sigler (1997).
This comment was written by nik.Report this comment to the moderators
May 31st, 2006 at 4:29 am
m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible. Karmaq, writing in The Unseen Kid’s comments, responded: I question some of the stats… For example, the myth that rape only […]Continue reading at Alas, a blog … posted 2:47 pm at Alas, a blog
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May 31st, 2006 at 8:45 am
Nik, you say that “if you apply the questions” - by which you seem to mean Koss’ questions - “to men they report higher rates of ‘rape’ than women do.” This is based on Cowling, who writes:
It appears Cowling has misled you. I don’t have a copy of the Muehlenhard and Cook study, and I can’t find a copy online (it was printed in a journal whose online archives - at least the ones available to me - only go back as far as 1993). But I do have a copy of the Srruckman-Johnson article, and for Cowling to cite that study in support of his statement is an appalling misrepresentation.
Here’s one of the screening questions Koss used to access rape prevalence:
Here’s the only screening question Struckman-Johnson used to access forced sex (her term) prevalence:
The approach used by Struckman-Johnson is not even remotely similar to Koss’; to describe this as “if you apply [Koss'] questions to men they report higher rates of ‘rape’ than women do” is grossly inaccurate. Struckman-Johnson’s approach discourages rape reporting among rape victims (who, research has shown, are more likely to report their experiences in response to specific questions than a general screening question); and it encourages reporting by respondents who felt forced by emotional pressure.
And by the way, Struckman-Johnson’s study did not find that men “suffer unwanted heterosexual intercourse at a higher rate than women.” Struckman-Johnson found that 22% of the women and 16% of the men “reported at least one forced sex episode in their lifetime.” And if we put aside episodes of forced sex that involved psychological coercion, counting only incidents in which unwanted sex happened because of the use of physical force, then the Struckman-Johnson numbers change to 12-16% for women and 1% for men.
(To be fair, there were some questions asked by Koss which were somewhat similar to the Struckman-Johnson question - but those questions were not used by Koss to assess rape prevalence.)
I realize that you’re just going by what Cowling said. But what Cowling said is not true. The questions aren’t “such as Koss’” questions, and S-J didn’t find more male than female victims.
One thing that Struckman-Johnson’s study does show, however, is that if you ask men and women if they’ve been forced to have sex, most men report incidents of feeling emotionally pressured to give in, while most women report incidents of being physically forced. (Other studies have shown the same thing). That men and women interpret the same questions differently isn’t speculation; it’s a definite result.
Ironically, Struckman-Johnson’s results are a major reason I have doubts about even the 2% number found by the CDC. Direct comparisons between the CDC and S-J are impossible because of the vastly different methodologies, but S-J provides reason to doubt that asking men and women the same questions is good methodology, except when the questions are combined with detailed follow-up interviews.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
May 31st, 2006 at 9:50 am
Thanks for giving me a chance to reply. I may add some of this to my own blog, just so I can have it in the future to refine if need be. For now, I don’t want to spend the afternoon on this, so I am going to make this fast and it may be sloppy.
First, let me say, you and I agree that there is a huge problem with the definition of rape, which I have been a part of lobbying against in my own state. But I have read the FBI files which were not based on police records alone, and which support the stats I wrote, so the fact that you found some based on different research that gets different results does not deter me.
I don’t want to harp on every counterpoint, because there is a bigger concern I have.
I apologize for bringing up a cultural rape myth in a way that you felt blamed for it. I do not believe you think rape never happens to men outside prison. I don’t even know you. Nor do I believe, as you say, “that there’s no statistical difference in the likelihood of being raped.” On the contrary, I listed a very specific statistical difference. Though I would like to point out that by implying I believed that, you go people to react to me as though I did, even though it was contrary to my own words. This distinction will be important later.
I’d like to point out, perhaps you will agree, that because of the rape myth I referred to, men spend much less of their lives worrying/thinking about the possibility of such violation, and freedom from the terror of rape (as distinct from the reality of it) is a privilege in itself that I wish everyone could share. The reaction you got from me in that original post was reaction to this: When you call rape against men “negligible,” (And I do take offense to that word, which I realize is a mathematical term, but I still have a personal reaction. I can’t help but look at those men in my mind’s eye and imagine telling them their suffering is “negligible.”) you perpetuate this idea. (I realize I just apologized for blaming you in the previous paragraph, but please take this mental journey with me for a moment in the spirit of dialog.) And you perpetuate it in both directions: Men become surer of their own safety and women become surer of their own vulnerability. In Social Psychology, we talk about an “availability heuristic,” which means that people will estimate the probably of something happening based on how easily it comes to mind. After seeing thousands of women victimized by men in thousands of movies, TV shows, songs, and propaganda, while all the time hearing how men don’t have to worry, we create an availability heuristic that says men hurt women. This certainly happens, but the problem is availability heuristics are not self contained. They affect the whole system. Social Psychologists have also been helpful enough to demonstrate what is known as the “self fulfilling prophecy.” When you see a man in a dark parking lot and your availability heuristic tells you he is going to hurt you, you are more likely to get hurt, so science tells us. It’s important to note it can also go the other way. I heard a story from a woman knows as the Peace Pilgrim, who was hitchhiking. A man picked her up and she fell asleep in his truck. When she awoke, he told her that when he’d picked her up, he had bad intentions for her, but when he saw how trusting she lay down to sleep next to him, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her. My point in all of this is that the more we perpetuate an idea, the more it manifests in the world. I am not saying this to lay blame on the victims, nor on anyone else, but rather to offer each of us a chance to create the world we want by creating our own mental environments. I am not sure that male privileged checklists are at all helpful for what I would like to see in the world. (Which says nothing, my friend, of whether it helps what you are after. That is for you alone to answer.) What I see is a further cementing of the differences between us. And while there will always be differences between sexes, I see a cementing of the very differences we wish to release. Perhaps you and I will part ways on my grounding as a psychologist. Sometimes, social psychology, or what we see when we observe human behavior, differs so greatly from “common sense,” what we expect to see, that people don’t want to accept it. I have offered you no research, though I have mountains, because this is has become long enough and, though I teach a college course on it, I am not going to recount a semester’s worth of material here. You can do your own research and make your own opinion, I am sure.
Again, thank you for inviting me in to the dialog.
This comment was written by Karmaq.Report this comment to the moderators
May 31st, 2006 at 12:29 pm
I’m not going to get involved in this discussion, but I’d like to say that I do. Walking around San Francisco, or Oakland at night, I have a genuine fear. The only real way I could defend myself was if I had a running start, and could either get away, or throw my entire weight into an attacker. Since people don’t normally yell out, “Hey, I’m going to rape you!” from across the block, I become afraid.
Shit happens to everyone. Instead of arguing about who gets the worst of it, let’s all fight it together.
This comment was written by The Unseen Kid.Report this comment to the moderators
May 31st, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Karmaq:
While we can sometimes create a self-fulfilling prophecy, many rape victims like myself had absolute trust in our rapists and were more vulnerable because we didn’t see them as potential rapists. My mental environment was a rape-free zone.
It sounds like you are basing your statements on how strangers interact. That doesn’t apply to my situation since my rapist was my boyfriend who was a friend of my brothers so long that I don’t remember meeting him.
If the increased awareness of rape is a self-fulfilling prophecy, then the incidence of rape should be on an upward trend, but Rape and other sexual violence in the U.S. are declining.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2006 at 8:33 am
“I believe their results underestimate the prevalence of rape, especially for women. One particularly striking (but not at all unusual, as these studies go) flaw of the CDC’s survey is that their interview questions didn’t include a specific question asking about rapes that take place while the victims are unconscious or otherwise unable to resist due to drink or drugs - which is to say, a prototypical frat-house rape.”
I don’t find it surprising that you believe the results underestimate the prevalence of rape. I suspect most surveys do. I do find it surprising that you believe they underestimate the prevalence of rape especially for women. Many efforts have been made over multiple decades to help women feel more ok about reporting rape. The same is not at all true about men. The vast majority of rapes of females are made by men–they don’t invoke the spectre of homosexuality. The same is not at all true about men.
Sexual predators prey on the weak. That can often include other men. I fully believe that men are raped less than women. I don’t belive that the difference is enough to be called negligible.
This comment was written by Sebastian Holsclaw.Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I really - I mean -really- am finding myself disgusted with this continued regurgitation of ‘homosexuality’ concerns with regards to rape. In speaking about rape this way, it repeatedly attempts to frame rape of women as bad sex. As if the woman might get some degree of solace out of it being done by a specific person. It adds an element of willingness that yet again makes the societal statement that women don’t really get raped, they just have bad sex.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 1st, 2006 at 10:56 pm
I think this may be due to the fact that men occasionally frame rape as bad sex. I have a friend who was in a “friends who occasionally have sex” sort of relationship with another male friend, and he pretty much exclusively bottomed. He went to sleep at said friend’s house while they were sprawled on friend’s kingsize bed watching a movie, and woke up the next morning with the guy on top of him going at it. He couldn’t (owing to positioning and inertia and leverage and such) get out from under him, so he pretty much just had to lay there and take it. Now, when something similar happened to a female friend of ours, he had to be restrained from going over and beating up her rapist, but he will not frame what happened to him that day as rape, even though he didn’t consent and wouldn’t have said yes if he’d been asked.
I think that for a lot of people, male or female, the baggage of the word rape is something they don’t want. (It doesn’t change the definition of what happened, of course.) And there’s all kinds of rapes, and while all are bad, some are worse than others. I myself defined my rape as very bad sex for a number of years, and it took a certain degree of allowing myself to admit my vulnerability to be able to name it what I knew in my heart it was.
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June 8th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
I agree woman have to look over their shoulders alot more than most men, except that smart men I know are afraid of being a victim of robbery or murder, generally, they don’t get all panicky if they have to go to their cars in the dark from work.
Most woman are just easier targets overall. Also woman are more likly to be tortured, aka raped repeatedly, or shoved into a horrible place for hours or days on end until they get done with her, then kill her.
Men generally can defend themselves better, considering that most men are stronger than most woman. Even in a gang situation he has a better chance, and it is unlikly that most men are out looking to rape other men, unless they are gay or something. So statistically most woman are more vunerable to rape then a most guys. And it is not always dark alleys but boyfriends and acquaintances that are the problem. Of course I do not allude to children here only adults. That is another story altogether.
RR
This comment was written by roberta robinson.Report this comment to the moderators
June 8th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
I’m more concerned that “men are seldom raped” ignores that boys are often sexually abused. I’ve heard the sexual abuse of a girl toddler called “rape”, but I’ve never heard the sexual abuse of a boy toddler called “rape”.
I say this because thinking about the subject this time, I seem to recall hearing words like “sodomized” or “molested” used to describe what happens to men, but “rape” used to describe what happens to women.
http://www.jimhopper.com/male-ab/
If we take the position that nonconsentual sexual contact is “rape”, 1 in 6 men have been raped in their lifetime.
As best as I understand the subject, males are at greatest risk for being sexually abused (raped) when relatively young and females are at greatest risk for being sexually abused (raped) throughout life.
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/jan20/fleming/fleming.html
Another thing I find offensive about studies of sexual abuse (the other being that there’s this arbitrary distinction of “sexual abuse” versus “rape”), is the age difference issue –
Definition of
childhood
sexual abuseCSA was defined as all experiences of sexual contact occurring before the age of 12 with a person five or more years older, irrespective of consent , and all experiences of sexual contact occurring between age 12 and 16 years with a person five or more years older that were not wanted or were distressing.
I’m unclear as to why sexual abuse by a person closer in age isn’t sexual abuse. In addition to perpetuating the belief that sexual abuse isn’t rape (if “If you don’t sleep with me, I’ll pitch a fit and whine” is rape, why isn’t sexual abuse also rape?), it seems to give a free pass to 14 year olds who sexually abuse (rape) 13 year olds, 12 year olds, … and 10 year old.
Anyway, that was my rant. Sorry to bother anyone who was bothered.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
June 8th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. And violently sodomizing a man as a way to punish, humiliate, shame, whatever a man isn’t about the man/men doing the violence having a good time sexually.
If rape was about sexual gratification stereotypically unattractive women would never be raped and dressing down and not wearing makeup would be a great survival strategy. That doesn’t appear to be the case.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 5:39 am
Okay. However, I certainly wasn’t taking that position in this post, and neither do the studies I’ve cited.
I don’t think the distinction between “sexual abuse” - which can include rape, but can also include things like when one of my fellow campers grabbed my dick when I was a kid - and “rape,” meaning non-consensual penetrative sex - is entirely arbitrary.
But that’s not what the quote you’re criticizing said. It seems clear to me that the intent of the distinction, in the quote you provide, is to avoid counting consensual sex or sexplay between two same-age peers as sexual abuse.
I’m unaware of ever having claimed that the sort of situation you describe is rape. Nor, generally speaking, do the posters on this blog seem to me to define rape in the way you describe here.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 5:48 am
Karmaq wrote:
Okay. But you can hardly expect me to trust statistics that you don’t provide a link or citation to. The fact is, I’ve provided sources for my claims and you haven’t (”I have read the FBI files” is not a source).
As for the rest, I think there are areas of agreement between us. And I’m sorry if I implied that you were saying there was no difference in rape prevalence rates by the sex of the victim; I didn’t intent that, but you’re right, what I wrote can be read that way, and I’m sorry about that.
However, I do agree with Marcella’s critique of what you wrote, in comment #9.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 9:57 am
Playing devil’s advocate here but why is everyone trying to dissociate sex or lust from rape?
Isnt a thirsty person more likely to rob a water canteen? An hungry person more likely to steal food? Why do people believe that a sexually excited person is less likely to rape? I think he/she wont beat the person, force them to have sex but certainly is more likely to use forceful coercion tactics to get them to have sex. One thing for sure, a rapist has to have a very low respect for other people, whether it is visible or not in their regular interactions. But that does not mean it has nothing to do with sex.
This comment was written by Curious.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Amp,
It was a rant. That’s all. It’s just based on this observation that there’s a lot of effort put into making sure men are never “raped”. If you read the first link I referenced there is a lot of discussion about that — how men avoid calling what is done to them “rape”. Since we know that the legal code is written primarily by men, and quite often primarily for the benefit of men, I’m suggesting that perhaps there’s also a bias in the legal code to make sure that men are never “raped”.
Here’s the Texas code –
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/PE/content/htm/pe.005.00.000022.00.htm
If the victim is female, well, it’s easy for “foddling” to become “sexual assault” because female genitals are, by their very nature “penetrated”. Penises penetrate vaginas, not the other way around. (And obviously penises can penetrate other things as well, but a vagina has never penetrated anything …) Male genitals can be “fondled” without resulting in “penetration”. If what’s harmful about sexual assault is the psychological trauma it causes (because most of the time the physical injuries will heal themselves), how is “fondling” male genitals less harmful? Yet because it is all about penetration — as you pointed out — males are at a legally codified disadvantage for having anything that’s done to them called “rape” (or in the case of the Texas statutes “sexual assault”). Indeed, if what was done to you (someone grabbing your penis) was done to me (someone grabbing my vagina), what was done to me would be called “sexual assault” and what was done to you wouldn’t under the Texas criminal code.
At any rate, as I said, it was a rant. Perhaps it would be an interesting thread starting topic?
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 11:35 am
Curious writes: Playing devil’s advocate here but why is everyone trying to dissociate sex or lust from rape?
Well, it is complicated, but you should read more about the issue before trying to reason it out on your own. One reason is that the victims of violent rape do not perceive the act as sexual. They are typically concerned primarily for their life. Afterwards, there’s a incongruous response, where the victims are feeling assaulted/violated, but many people around them are focusing much more on the sexual part of the assault. So, there’s a framing issue that requires continuous pushback.
Another reason is that lust is part of the many ways that men are excused from raping women. Most people can relate to overwhelming, unreasoning lust, where they do things they later regret. Seen in this light, rape would be part of the spectrum of sex, just an unpleasant and illegal part of the scale. There are many problems with this framing of the issue: it posits entirely unacceptable behavior as just a little smidge over from acceptable behavior; it entirely overlooks the violent, threatening, and humiliating aspects of the act; and most importantly, it is a key part of the puzzle where rape victims get blamed for the crimes against them.
Although greatly discounted in rape-case defense arguments since the 1970s, it used to be common to interrogate the woman closely about what she was wearing, her actions prior to the rape, and so on. Quite a few rapists were excused because the victim was young, sexy, or sexily dressed. It’s still done today, in and out of legal circles. The change from object to subject is easy to understand if you think about it. It’s common for men to think of the women who are arousing them as responsible for that arousal. After all, it’s women wear the burkhas and chadors; it’s not the men who are required to wear blinders.
A final reason (at least, that I can think of before jetting off on a camping trip) is that many acts of rape aren’t so obviously sexual. Something like 50% of male rapists don’t even ejaculate. Many times the assaults are purely abusive or humiliating, e.g., inserting bottles or branches into the victims. Note also that in men-on-men rape, there’s a very specific pecking-order component to it, both for rapes inside and outside of prisons. For instance, one scenario is that a man will be both robbed and raped, then told, “now go tell the police.” Naturally, in many cases, they do not.
So, if you want to assert that there’s some element of lust or sex in rape, sure, they’re obviously related. Sex is a very, very complicated part of the human condition. But the emphasis should be on pushing sex to the background in rape, since it is not really the foreground issue.
I’ll come back to this thread in a few days in case anyone wants to call me an idiot or anything. I offered no cites here, but I was a rape counselor in NYC for six years, and I read a fair bit about it at the time. I counseled men, but I saw nothing nothing that would contradict what Ampersand was saying.
This comment was written by travis.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Men Are Much Less Likely To Be Victims of Rape
And in other breaking news, the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow.
IMNSHO, some things are just a little too obvious to be worrying about opinions to the contrary.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Has anyone tried using prison rape statistics to get prison classified as “cruel and unusual punishment”?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
I don’t know how that would work (hopefully not at all) since it’s the prisoners generally speaking doing the raping. It would be like saying that being imprisoned is cruel and unusual punishment because every time I’m imprisoned I smash my head into the wall and that hurts me.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
June 9th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Or, rather, that someone else incarcerated in the prison smashes your head into the wall, only not on behalf of management. The fact that prisoners are the ones committing prison rape doesn’t change the fact that you as a prisoner are getting raped.
I have no idea, though. I have trouble thinking of other examples, but admit that I don’t know much about the issue.
…It doesn’t seem like the greatest strategy, although the same thing has brought about some reform in death-penalty application.
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June 9th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Piny beat me to it, but I was going to say the same thing - one prisoner being raped by another prisoner - or by the guards, which happens not-uncommonly to female prisoners - is not in any way equivalent to a prisoner beating his/her own head against the wall.
To answer your question, there was this ruling from Texas a year and a half ago:
Note that the result isn’t finding prisons unconstitutional, but (at best) paying rape victims some damages and ordering prisons to do a better job protecting their wards.
Although the above case established the prisoner’s right to sue, in the end the prisoner in question lost his lawsuit. It’s striking to me how much the excuses for not taking a gay man’s claims of being raped seriously resemble the usual misogynistic excuses for not taking female victims seriously - including talking about how tight his pants were.
As this Findlaw article points out, the Supreme Court ruled over a decade ago that prisoners have a Constitutional right to be protected from rape. In practice, however, lower courts haven’t enforced this ruling:
For more information, this article on rape of male prisoners, and this one on rape of female prisoners, both seem pretty good. (Although I’ve only skimmed them, not read them thoroughly.)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2006 at 7:08 am
After seeing thousands of women victimized by men in thousands of movies, TV shows, songs, and propaganda, while all the time hearing how men don’t have to worry, we create an availability heuristic that says men hurt women. This certainly happens, but the problem is availability heuristics are not self contained. They affect the whole system. Social Psychologists have also been helpful enough to demonstrate what is known as the “self fulfilling prophecy.” When you see a man in a dark parking lot and your availability heuristic tells you he is going to hurt you, you are more likely to get hurt, so science tells us.
Gee, talk about blaming everybody BUT the attackers. Men rape women yet we’re so twitchy about acknowledging it that we wind up with every damned excuse under the sun as to why we won’t deal with that directly. Men minimize rape, glamorize it, fetishize it, and try to make it disappear. Now here’s a wonderful excuse; if the culture didn’t reflect this reality, it just wouldn’t happen. It’s the culture, baby, not the men. Fancy words don’t do much to disguise that thestatement ‘if you see a man in a dark parking lot and think he’s going to hurt you, you’re more likely to get hurt” is nothing but victim blaming. Let’s stick to blmaing the rapist, okay? Sorry if makes men uncomfortable.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 12th, 2006 at 7:36 am
It is unfair anatomical advantage conferred upon men that enables them to be incapable of being raped by a woman (or atleast woman without equipments). The only humans that would be able to rape a man are men and inbetween sex people (Since there are a lot of categories, I am using a general term). Though man-on-man rape is not absolutely rare, it is certainly lower than man on woman rape (I think so). Reason I believe that agression against man by man usually is in form of beatings, rather than engaging in rape, which will have connotations of homosexuality of the agressor. The severity of the beatings if used on women would probably cause death, besides it is public knowledge that rape is a much easier and humilating damage you can inflict. Hence a woman is more likely to be raped than beaten to death, even though women are frequently beaten to death.
Since most rapes are committed by individuals close to the victim, it seems more research needs to be conducted on why these rapes occur. What makes these men attack women, women they know. Is it just power, sex or rage or a combination of all of these? Personally speaking, I think it would be easier to hit a person you do not know. Knowing the person simply makes it more painful for you to hit them, unless they have treated you awefully or you are simply one of those that like to hurt people! So why rape women that you know? Just because they are physically (proximitywise) available? Do they think they can get away with it?
This comment was written by Curious.Report this comment to the moderators
June 12th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Karmaq:
Nonsense. If a man in a dark parking lot doesn’t intend to attack anyone, he won’t attack you, no matter how much fear you might feel.
If he does intend to attack someone then whether he does or does not attack you will depend upon your actions, not your feelings.
Ginmar:
What makes men uncomfortable is that you use the word ‘rapist’ and ‘men’ as if they were interchangable.
If a woman sees a man loitering in a car park, and she suspects he might be up to no good, what advice would you give her?
a. Blame the rapist, or
b. Get the hell out of there.
Me, I’d go for b every time. Sorry if you regard that as victim-blaming. I see it more as victim-prevention.
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June 12th, 2006 at 10:07 am
RonF:
Galileo would have disagreed.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
June 12th, 2006 at 10:07 am
To all men who have been forced into sex by women or men, how many of them will be willing to go to the police saying “I have been raped”? You have to be a man to understand, that is the last thing a man (”real man”) will do, inspite of the hurt, humiliation and loss. Over time, they are more likely to believe they wanted it rather than a woman probably can.
I dare men to walk up to friends and tell them you have been raped, watch what the reaction is. Even women will look at you as if you are crazy, if not try telling them it was a woman that raped you. That will work the best.
This comment was written by Curious.Report this comment to the moderators
June 12th, 2006 at 11:41 am
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job. 7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More). 8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces. 9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question. 10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity
This comment was written by Mad Melancholic Feminista.Report this comment to the moderators
June 12th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
There was much talk here some years ago about a gang of girls that raped a man, who were out walking alone at night.
Apparantly the girls, teenagers according to the victim, attacked the man, beat him and raped him with a stick while saying things like “now it’s your turn” et.c. They also seemed intoxicated. The girls all got away and afterwards the police thought that it was a revenge gone awry and hitting the wrong person.
So yes, women can rape men. But in todays society it really is something of an anomaly a la “man bites dog”.
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June 14th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job. 7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More). 8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces. 9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question. 10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity
This comment was written by RudeBarbie.Report this comment to the moderators
June 20th, 2006 at 12:02 am
(twice in one week!) wrote a fantastic male privilege checklist based on Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege checklist. Then she responds to some of the feedback it generated. Good stuff: via Alas, A Blog -Men Are Much Less Likely To Be Victims of Rape via Alas, A Blog - In Defense of Generalizations and “Petty” Complaints via Alas, A Blog - Male Privilege Checklist: Car Sale, Harrassment, House-cleaning, and Weight Posted by Russell at 07:52 AM
This comment was written by The Uncommon Man.Report this comment to the moderators
August 16th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job. 7. If Im a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More). 8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces. 9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question. 10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity
This comment was written by Ann - MySpace Blog.Report this comment to the moderators
August 17th, 2006 at 8:36 am
I totally agree that women are less safe from sexual violence than men, and have good reason to feel more vulnerable walking alone, or being alone, or even being in a vulnerable situation with a boyfriend. Also, I know wives whose husband have refused to take “no” for an answer. You could call the wife frigid, but you must also call the husband violent, even if you don’t call forced sex within marriage “rape.”
But I write from a concern that so much focus on the “women are raped more often than men,” view, has the effect of dismissing/disregarding/diminishing the experience and pain of those men who were raped. When I was a young boy, I was “pantsed” under a bleecher at the local ballpark, but a pair of older boys. It was a humiliating event, although fairly common in those bygone days. I think it was less likely that a girl would be stripped, or made to stip by threats of violence, as a power thing, because everyone knew it was wrong; or they felt it was more wrong.
My point is that even is women are more vulnerable, and more likely to experience unwanted and even forced sexual acts, their pain is no greater and not much different from men who experience similar attacks. I think it somewhat more useful to look at why perpetrators feel driven to do such things, what frustrations or backgrounds lead them to force or rape? I think men feel a good deal of frustration of lusting for that which they can’t have, and women showing bellies and cleavage, etc. drive much of that frustration. Porn does also. I suspect some of the rape emotion is anger or rage about the frustration of being unable to satisfy the lustful feelings in more acceptable ways. Everyone says, “Well, just because a woman shows off a little skin, doesn’t mean she wants to be forced sexually” That is right, of course, but why is it so politically incorrect to look hard at the causual stimulii that drive the rape behavior? Is it a hard disciplining mother that frustrates her son so that he wants revenge on womanhood, or hot little Lolita’s who flaunt their beauty, that incite his lust until it explodes in a violent way, or are we to believe that rapists are just born with that proclivity and there aren’t environmental factors?
Given that rape is about power, what are the frustrations of lack of power that drive the rapist?
This comment was written by Dale Kemp.Report this comment to the moderators
August 17th, 2006 at 9:23 am
It’s a little disturbing that both your examples of “environmental factors” blame women.
I don’t know of any evidence that rapists are more likely to rape women who wear revealing clothing; nor any that shows that rapists are more likely to have “hard disciplining” mothers. (There is, however, evidence that rapists are more likely than non-rapists to be members of gangs, teams, or frats.)
There’s actually a lot of serious discussion and work on factors that make some men more likely rapists than others. However, I don’t think either of the factors you bring up count as part of serious discussion, because there isn’t any evidence supporting them.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 12th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
guy couldn’t control his dick so it’s my fault because I was doing X and that just put him out of control. So this is the rape post. Anatomy of a Rape Culture. How Many Men Are Rapist If this is even marginally correct, it’s a whole freaking lot. The Danger to Men vs The Danger to Women
This comment was written by Pictures taken from a speeding car.Report this comment to the moderators
September 16th, 2006 at 3:57 am
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job. 7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More). 8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces. 9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question. 10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity
This comment was written by we can see you.Report this comment to the moderators
September 19th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job. 7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More). 8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces. 9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question. 10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity
This comment was written by Sassy Red Head.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
[...] Si je suis ado ou adulte, et que j’arrive à faire en sorte de ne pas me retrouver en prison, mes chances d’être violé sont relativement basses. (Plus). [...]
This comment was written by grep|grrl » La checklist des privilèges masculins.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2008 at 11:01 am
[...] I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More). Sadly, [...]
This comment was written by Bread and Buttah » Archivio Blog » Male Privilege.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2008 at 6:20 am
[...] 7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More). [...]
This comment was written by Wallpaper :: The Male Privilege Checklist :: April :: 2008.Report this comment to the moderators
March 13th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
[redirecting a thread disrailment here]
Schala,
The only statistic that I have ever seen that is close to the claim that men are raped at roughly half the rate that women are raped is from misreading the Struckman and Johnson (1988) study, which Amp discusses in the comments above. If we count feeling forced to have sex (including by social or emotional pressure) then men are half as likely (or a little more) to be raped as women are. If we count only forced sex by physical force or the threat of physical force, then women are about 7-15 times more likely to be raped. If we count any situation in which someone feels forced to have sex, and then does not have positive feelings about the experience afterwards, then women are 4-7 times more likely to be raped (if I am recalling S-J correctly, only a minority of men who reported feeling forced to have sex considered it to have not been a positive experience). In the context of that misreading of Struckman-Johnson, you are probably right that most forced sex (including social and emotional pressure) of men is done by women the victim knows well. However, according to the CDC study (which has the major flaw that envelopment rape in which a person forces a man to put his penis into the other person’s vagina, anus or mouth is not included in the definition of rape), the overwhelming majority of rapes involving physical force of men are stranger rapes (mostly by men). It would be a mistake to assume that the majority of either perpetrators or victims in male-male rape are gay.
The study of rape of men (outside of prison) is astonishingly limited, so it is hard for anyone to speak authoritatively on the subject, but your claim that men are half as likely or more to be raped as women seems baseless. Can you provide citations to either government white papers, such as the CDC study, or peer-reviewed literature that supports your claims?
This comment was written by Charles S.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 5:02 am
Now you know a single woman who doesn’t think about it. I’ve been bullied severely for years, though at no point required hospitalization for it, nor do I remember it being of sexual nature at any point. It was reoccurring daily. I’d have reason to fear all strangers who are even my size or bigger (roughly all adults).
I don’t, maybe in a naive sense of security, but I don’t believe living in fear would be any good addition to my social anxiety and social awkwardness.
Ironically enough, being trans puts me in one of the most at-risk categories for violent assault, murder, and rape (rape-murder usually). That doesn’t really make me fear beyond normal prudent behavior however.
I’m limited in time this morning, as I’m leaving for work in just a few minutes. I’ll check things out once I’m back. Hopefully I reply tonight.
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Schala, as i pointed out in my other post, you appear to be reaching your conclusion through circular logic.
If you consider gay-on-gay rape, then you are looking at both a limited population of rapists and victims. The same limitations (being gay) apply to both, so that would not in and of itself change the ratios.
Similarly, the other limits you might put (stranger rape vs. acquaintance rape) are also affected by the exact same limits. Are people raped by their partners? Yes. And while 10% of those partner rapists are statistically likely to be gay, 10% of the potential victims are ALSO statistically likely to be gay–unless you assume that gay people don’t have gay partners. So once again, it balances out.
What you seem to be saying is that gay people get raped more because gay people get raped more. Which is circular.
Alternatively, you seem to be saying that gay people get raped more because people are usually raped by non-strangers, and gay people have more likelihood of getting raped by non-strangers.
That would only be trus if gay people had different rates of having non-stranger acquaintances (which they don’t AFAIK) or if gay people were more inclined to rape than hetero people (which they’re not, AFAIK.)
There are a variety of ways to prove this, but you haven’t addressed any of them yet.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Sailorman, I think Schala’s faulty assumption here is that people only or largely rape the gender(s) to which they are sexually attracted, ergo we can assume that most male/male rapes involve a gay perpetrator. (Schala, please correct me if I’ve misread you.) I see absolutely no reason to assume this. Schala’s evidence for the claim:
If we believe that 5-10% of men are gay (or bisexual, or pansexual). That male victims of rape are overwhelmingly raped by men, and that rapes in general occur more with intimates/friends than with strangers, then it would mean an incredibly high rate of rape amongst gay (and bisexual, pansexual) men, wouldn’t it? (comment #33 in the “Colonized Mind” thread)
In addition to everything you (SM) have pointed out, there are many unsupported assumptions here: a) that rapists only rape within their sexual orientation — which further assumes that rape is about sex and sexual attraction, instead of power, violence and hatred, b) that people only have friends of the same sexual orientation? obviously male/male rapes between couples have a gay or bi perpetrator, but a male/male rape between friends or acquaintances neither implies nor requires that either man be gay, unless you believe people only rape the gender they’re attracted to (a claim for which we have no evidence), and c) that male/male rape has the same dynamics as male/female rape — I don’t actually know what the dynamics of male/male rape outside of prison are; is it true that, as in male/female rape, the person most likely to perpetrate is a partner? It may be true, but I’ve never seen any study suggesting that and Schala has offered no evidence to support the claim.
This comment was written by Daisy Bond.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
The 93% of women sounds realistic enough, it leaves room for female-female rape.
The 86% of men sounds less realistic. Though I haven’t read the actual study, nor can I really analyze it, the fact that it only collects data from women is telling (and demographic information from men).
This is from a site which I’ll add after editing so this post doesn’t go in the spam filter. Here is the source: http://www.tcadsv.org/Websites/vcscc/malerapevictims.htm
One in fourteen is about 7% (a bit more).
Okay, so let’s see, 25% of women, 7% of men. 3.5x more women than men.
Regardless of the perpetrator’s orientation, gay men are said to be the majority of victims. So say 5% of the 7% are gay. Women represent 100% of the female population, or 50% of the whole population. Their ratio of victim is thus 25% of females and 12.5% of the whole population.
So I resume:
Women victims (all orientations) = 12.5% of the whole population (78%)
Gay men victims = 2.5% of the whole population (15%)
Straight men victims = 1% of the whole population (6%)
Total of the population in % of victims: 16%
Sounds okay so far?
Gay men represent 5% of the population, but 15% of rape victims. Straight men represent 45% of the population, but 6% of rape victims. All women represent 50% of the population, but 78% of rape victims.
If we take 10% of all women (or 5% of the population) to have a common denominator, we’re comparing 7.8% of all victims. (Divide the ratio by 10)
Ergo gay men are raped at a rate about 2x more than women proportionally speaking. (15/7.8)
This means about 50% of gay men would be raped in their life. But only 2% of straight men would be. 25 for 1 sounds a bit farfetched to me.
The perpetrator here is not analyzed. Reports say 98-99% of perpetrators are male.
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Actually, they surveyed both men and women.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Schala,
Your source for 1 in 14 isn’t a peer reviewed paper or a government white paper. That site does have a reference list at the bottom of the page, but of the sources listed there that I have checked support the claim of 1 in 14.
“gay men are said to be the majority of victims.” are said to be isn’t a source at all.
Even ignoring that your sourcing is dubious at best, if we adjust majority to mean 50% instead of more than 2/3, then we would estimate that 1/3 instead of 1/2 of gay men would be victims of rape.
In the end, you seem to be arguing that your own eyeballed handling of these statistics leads to conclusions that seem unlikely (the rate of rape among gay men is twice the rate of rape among women), but I’m not sure what conclusions you are trying to draw from that fact.
Unsourced statistics are dubious at best, but trying to combined multiple unsourced statistics is pointless.
This comment was written by Charles S.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I thought the conclusion Schala was trying to draw in the other thread was that women must rape men more often than we think because it is improbable that the rate of rape is that high among gay men or that such a high percentage of gay men are rapists.
Daisy pretty much hit all the ways I think Schala’s assumptions are off, so I won’t belabor it.
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March 14th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Well, I actually meant it for gays as victims, not as rapists.
Even if my numbers were off somehow and that gay men only made 1/2 of that amount, it would still be overrepresented amongst men, by a very high factor.
50% of male victims represent 10% of the male population.
50% of male victims represent 90% of the male population.
If 50% was say 100.
100 /10% = 1000
100/90% = 111.1
1000/111.1 = exactly 9x
So gay men would be 9 times more victims of rape than straight men, in their lifetime. Does this sound reasonable? It’s lower than 25 times, but it would point to an almost exclusive focus on gay men as opposed to straight men, in something you described to be exclusively about power and control (which isn’t unique of straight men).
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Schala,
Your numbers still assume that 1 in 14 is correct. If your numbers lead you to wrong conclusions, maybe you should look at that assumption, not the assumption that men are mostly raped by men. The only source I can see for 1 in 14 is possibly misreading Schuckman and Johnson, in which case rape includes felt social or emotionally forced to have sex and, yes, it mostly happens to heterosexual men (because most men are heterosexual). The sources that claim that men are overwhelmingly raped by other men restrict rape to forced penetration, find the rate of rape as way lower than 1 in 14, and find that most men are raped by men. I don’t know what your source is for claiming that most men who are raped are gay. Previously, you claimed that it followed from most rapes being non-stranger rapes, a claim which a) doesn’t make any sense and b) obviously comes from rape statistics in which rape of women dominates.
There is another bizarre flaw to your reasoning: Your argument is that most men can’t be raped by other men, because most men who are raped are gay, and if most men who are raped are gay, then the rape rate among gay men is much much higher than the rape rate among straight men, so lots of men must be raped by women. But, whether or not most men are raped by women, if the majority of men who are raped are gay then the rape rate among gay men must be much higher than the rape rate among straight men, no matter who the rapists are. So you are arguing that A must be false because B is true, and if B is true then C is true, and C is non-creditable. This is not logic of any sort whatsoever.
Even in your claim that there is no reason why the rate of rape of gay men would be much higher than the rate of rape of straight men, your argument doesn’t make much sense. Certainly, a rape rate of 50% for gay men seems highly unlikely to me as well, but that the rate of rape of gay men is much higher than the rate of rape of straight men seems pretty unsurprising. One of the functions of rape is a method of the enforcement of gender hierarchy, and gay men are considered traitors to the gender hierarchy by men who support the rape culture, so rape is not that uncommon as a component of hate crimes against gay men. That means that rape will be much more commonly committed against men who are perceived to be gay (who will mostly be gay men). Additionally, rape is a means of abuse within sexual relationships, of revenge at the end of a sexual relationship, or as revenge for a sexual relationship denied, or as a means of getting sex from an objectified unwilling partner (the number of men who self report using physical force to restrain an unwilling sexual partner is much higher than the number of men who self report as committing rape). If we accept that men are the ones trained to use rape for all of these purposes, rape is overwhelmingly committed by men, so men who have sexual relationships with other men, or are perceived as being open to sexual relationships with other men, are much more likely to be raped than heterosexual men.
A much higher rate of rape of gay men than for straight men is only unexpected if we assume either that rape of men occurs at random (say, as a means of humiliating an enemy or a victim in a robbery), or that rape in a sexual context is as likely to be committed by women as by men.
So yes, your rough statistical argument does lead to the conclusion that there is something wrong with your statistics, but it is the 1 in 14 and the > 50% of rapes of men are of gay men that are incompatible, not the claim that men are overwhelmingly raped by other men. Men as the main rapists of other men is compatible with both a 1 in 14 rape rate and with the majority of men who are raped being gay men, while the 1 in 14 claim and the >50% fraction are incompatible (or at least highly suspect). Since you introduced both of those specific claims, I’ll leave it up to you which of them your prefer to stop believing in.
The 1 in 14 claim does run against all the legitimate evidence I’ve seen, while I am ignorant of the legitimate evidence on the >50% claim, so I know which one I don’t believe.
This comment was written by Charles S.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
I didn’t mean my argument to come off as saying men couldn’t be raped by men because most victims were gay. I just found it highly suspect that an order of magnitude would separate a group when its apparently not proven to be within intimacy/couple (as someone else said) and that hatred of gays is not so extreme that you’d expect such a stark difference.
From: http://www.yarrowplace.sa.gov.au/booklet_statistics.html
Even if I was to take the lower end of the spectrum (of rape) here, 5.3% and 12.6%, it can’t be said that the difference is so incredible as to render the former negligible. Sexual orientation here is not mentioned. This counts university students, so there may be sampling bias. There is a high probability however, that more than half of male victims cited above are straight, since otherwise it runs in the “more than 50% of gay men” problem.
The situation may be different at a later age (university students are typically in early 20s), but 5% is already higher than the FBI’s estimated 3% of all men. Of course, the vast majority of those are not reported. It’s cited on the same page:
This isn’t the statistic about rape, its the more global statistic about unwanted sexual experience. The vast majority still didn’t report it.
It’s widely acknowledged in any place that actually even speaks of male victims that they are less likely to come forward about having been raped, for a variety of reason; including being laughed at outright, the lack of services for male victims that weren’t victimized as children (or any services for male victims at all), not being taken seriously, being blamed for it, being told you should have fended off the rapist - even worst if the rapist is female (and women also have problems here regarding this - if their rapist is female, it’s harder for authorities to blame the rapist due to the societal resistance to the idea that women are all but harmless).
I went to an article that spoke of a guy who got beaten up badly by his girlfriend who happens to be a model. He went to the police, with a bloody cheek. The comments on that article? 90% victim-blaming, saying the guy isn’t a real man, a woman who said she had violent tendencies said that “real men” knew how to stop her outbursts by holding her down etc and that this guy was just a pussy for not doing so, others saying they would have liked to get beaten up by her, or would have beaten her back. Not a progressive readership, I take, but it gives an idea of societal tendencies if “the average joe” thinks DV female on male is nothing.
Getting to the point, female on male rape is considered even more shaming than female on male DV. It’s considered severely more underreported by male than by female victims because of gender role reasons, basically. Not simply because it happens that much less.
I think the 98-99% ratio of male perpetrators is going with reported rapes, as well. I doubt women make up a very significant portion of perpetrators. I’d be surprised if they were even close to 20%, but they’re definitely higher than 1 or 2%.
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
March 14th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I’m not sure where you are getting the 1-2% number you object to. The CDC study referenced in the OP of this thread reports that 70% of rapes of men were perpetrated by men and 36% by women, since some men were raped more than once or by more than one person), and that is using a definition of rape in which the only way a woman can rape a man is anal rape.
I’ve never seen the Yarrow Place study. I’m interested to look up the specific questions. I’m interested to see the wording of the questions that are described as eliciting the number of “unwanted [sexual] experience[s]” to see if they are similar to the Schuckman and Johnson questions. The numbers for both men and women in the Yarrow Place study seem unusually high compared to most other studies I’ve seen, although I guess that could also simply reflect different conditions in Australia.
This comment was written by Charles S.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2009 at 6:37 am
This on a site trying to break the myths of male rape.
Source: http://www.aest.org.uk/survivors/male/myths_about_male_rape.htm
It’s the reported rate that is 99%.
Source: http://www2.ucsc.edu/rape-prevention/statistics.html
and from wikipedia:
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2009 at 7:46 am
This is the crux of your argument. But you are presenting no data for it.
It’s one thing to make an assumption as part of your argument (everyone does it), but it doesn’t work when the assumption affects the entire validity of your point.
It is correct that if your assumptions are true about both male rape frequency and gay male victims, then you are right. And hopefully you can see that if your assumptions are wrong, so is the rest of the point.
So let’s stop talking about whether that would be correctif</i. your assumptions were right. instead, let’s see some proof of those assertions.
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March 15th, 2009 at 9:06 am
I could quote many feminist organizations for the prevention of rape that would say things like “95% of all rape victims are female and the majority of male victims are gay”.
I’ll try to find some.
Oops, I retract this, this is how DV is viewed, not rape. Still, I’ll try to find support for the notion of gay as majority victims.
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Emphasis mine.
If gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual men represent 60% of rape victims, their rape ratio is incredibly high compared to straight men. Or maybe gay victims report it a LOT more often, which means the 3% number is wrong, too.
Source: http://www.aest.org.uk/survivors/male/myths_about_male_rape.htm?
I copied it from somewhere else, but they essentially also copied it from that, this is the original source.
This probably relies on a number higher than 3% though.
Source: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/malemyths.html
I can’t say what statistics they use, its not unlikely that they also rely on the FBI’s 3% and 40%.
Source: http://after-words.org/malerapevictims.txt
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
March 15th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Schala,
There are a few different claims which you appear to be making:
1) You appear to be making a “gay male/straight male” comparison, in which you allege that gay males are at higher risk of rape–a relative term–than are heterosexual males.
2) You may also be alleging that gay male rape is more common when measured in absolute terms; i.e. not only that gay men are more likely to be raped than are straight men (relative), but that there are numerically more rapes committed against gay men than there are rapes committed against straight men (absolute._
3) You appear to be alleging that male rape is more common than anyone believes. You have not made clear how common you think it is, and/or whether you think the ratio between actual and reported rapes is different for women, men, and/or gay women and men.
4) Finally, you appear to be alleging that gay men are, relatively speaking, raped more often than are heterosexual women.
In all honesty, none of this is especially clear from your posts. i’m trying to summarize it as best as I can. I am not interested in having more general discussions. If you want to continue this discussion, i would ask that you try to state your positions clearly and that you make it clear what information you feel affects which position, how, and why.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators