Much has been said about how r@pe has become a devastating aspect of prison life, but did you know that there is a r@pe epidemic in the U.S. military as well?
Now that legislators are discussing ways to ameliorate the U.S. military’s s*xual assault crisis, male assault survivors are coming forward to tell their stories. The truth is that more men are targeted for s*xual assault than women in the military.
From NBC News:
The Pentagon estimates that last year 13,900 of the 1.2 million men on active duty endured s*xual assault while 12,100 of the 203,000 women in uniform experienced the same crime — or 38 men per day versus 33 women per day. Yet the Defense Department also acknowledges “male survivors report at much lower rates than female survivors.”
Male s-x assault survivors believe it’s time to move past the idea that s-xual assault is a female trauma.
“As a culture, we’ve somewhat moved past the idea that a female wanted this trauma to occur, but we haven’t moved past that for male survivors,” said Brian Lewis, a r*pe survivor who served in the Navy. “In a lot of areas of the military, men are still viewed as having wanted it or of being homos-xual. That’s not correct at all. It’s a crime of power and control.”
He goes on to discuss how military culture prevents men from coming clean about their assault.
“But also, you’re instantly viewed as a liar and a troublemaker (when a man reports a sex crime), and there’s the notion that you have abandoned your shipmates, that you took a crap all over your shipmates, that you misconstrued their horseplay,” he said.
Lewis was attacked by a male superior. He supports legislation that will strip s-x assault oversight from the military chain of command.
This is absolutely disgusting. And the real problem is with the sergent’s, Captains, and anyone in charge who tries to hide it. I saw this on 60 minutes, & the women who were on there said when they reported it, they were threatened.