[Trigger Warning for rape.]
One in six.
According to the website 1in6.org, one in every six men has had an abusive or unwanted sexual experience before the age of sixteen.
After I discovered this statistic, I’ve been doing the math. Statistically, one of the men I’ve slept with has been abused. Three of my male coworkers. Fifty men in my high school graduating class; 66 men in my college. Two men running for the Republican presidential nomination. A dozen men I encounter on the bus or while walking down the street.
One in six men at a higher risk for PTSD, depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide– and I had no idea.
I mean, I’m not exactly in the low-knowledge group about rape. I’ve put up posters on my campus for the local rape and abuse shelter (it is, of course, women-only); I’ve participated in events to raise awareness of rape and marched to raise money; I’ve been that asshole who corrected people every time they referred to a rape survivor as “she”; I’m a fucking sex-positive feminist blogger.
And yet… I had no fucking idea.
Our culture all too often presents rape as a thing men do to women. In fact, only 16% of men with histories of sexual abuse documented by social service agencies consider themselves to be abused. I myself can recall abstinence-only sex education classes in which I was taught how to say “no” to pressure from a boy to have sex that, it was presumed, I did not want; the boys were told not to ask for sex, with no idea that they might be pressured themselves. “Comedy” films regularly depict rape of men as far less serious than rape of women. In the most egregious cases, abused boys as young as twelve years old may be said to have “gotten lucky,” for being players and real men.
Hello, rape culture. It’s nice to see you there.
Every time we characterize a rape survivor as “she” and a rapist as “he”– every time we say a man is a pig who always wants it– every time we congratulate a survivor on his rape– every time we laugh at a joke whose premise is that men can never be raped– we betray those one in six men. We ignore their suffering and their pain; we erase their experience; we contribute to even more men suffering the pain they did.
One in six men have suffered an unwanted or abusive sexual experience.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
Hershele Ostropoler
Cheradenine
jlandrith
kaija24
2020
noahbrand
Cliff Pervocracy
ozymandias
Shora
sirgabe
figleaf
John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
Never have I more deeply wished women and men were not, in fact, equal.
Post in my head coming up about the more personal side of sexual assault against men.
I’d wish, rather, for women, men, and all other folks to be equal in not experiencing sexual assault at all.
Good post, and don’t forget what the ghetto-ization of the word rape where only “sub”-categories of rape are reserverd men: prison-rape and male rape. When there is talk about rape it is almost always without any male victims in mind – we are the exceptions, the anamolies which will not be allowed under the rape category. Also try to imagine what the feminist analysis that all men benefit from rape feels like for any of these 1 in 6.
I would say something meaningful, but I honestly feel like I’m going to cry.
Even more so there was a study where they asked 7,667 university students on 38 sites about their vitimizations with their current or most recent partner.
The results, surprising:
Linkage here -> http://feck-blog.blogspot.com/2011/05/predictors-of-sexual-coercion-against.html
((hugs)) At least now that we know about the problem, we can help. Right?
And the worst part is that when I first read your figures, my instinctive reaction was “that can’t be right.” Knowing about the prevalance of rape of women has been part of my life for so long that it doesn’t really register anymore. The rape of men… is new to me. And every time I read about it I just want to cry.
Or at least in having their sexual assaults recognized as real and being supported throughout the recovery process.
Instead we have them equal in not being supported, but in different ways for each gender.
Of course. The thing is, I was sexually abused at twelve and amongst other… hard life lessons, my abuser asked me if I had male friends he could have as well. I was so scared that I spent months alone because I didn’t want them to get hurt. It might not sound like much, but that’s a difficult thing to find out when you’re so young – that your guy friends weren’t half as safe as you thought. And hearing one in six? Oh God.
I honestly want to say something comforting and helpful but I have no idea what to say. I’m so sorry.
It’s okay. The fact that you made this place exist and that it isn’t a blog where I feel completely suffocated for once actually does help. Thank you. *hug*
I am still surprised when people involved in victim advocacy say they never heard of the 1 in 6 number. I know sexual violence against males remains largely concealed, but this particular number has been around since the late 1990s. It just goes to show the detrimental impact of framing sexual violence as something that only happens to women.
I think the worst impact is not making male victims feel that they do not matter, but teaching boys and men to write off their abuse as normal. That not only skews our ability to learn the rate of abuse against males, but it also prevents victims from recognizing the impact of what happened. Do not get me wrong, I do not want to make anyone who does not feel victimized feel victimized. That is abusive in and of itself. However, we do need people to at least recognize the problems boys and men actually face. No one should be forced to consider abuse normal, excusable, or desirable even if they can cope with it on their own.
I think there’s likely to be a tremendous problem with male survivors feeling shame: “it wasn’t like I was raped, so why am I an alcoholic/suicidal/suffering PTSD symptoms?” Without the ability to conceptualize what they went through, healing can be a very difficult process.
And I think saying I was involved in “victim advocacy” is a bit much. 🙂 More like I was/am a member of every feminist group on campus and easily roped into doing shitwork.
I have to say here that all my instincts are telling me not to trust that study.
For one that table seems vaguely defined. Nowhere in the study does it define specifically what “insisted on” means. Does “insisted on having sex w/o a condom” mean that they insisted on having the sex they were going to have anyway without a condom, or does it mean they insisted on having sex, and that it must be without a condom? And so on; not having the method used to get them is probably my biggest source for doubt about those numbers.
After some dicking around on the internet to figure out what the method is, I found it, but I also found a comment by Amp criticizing that exact study. So as I’m a lazy arguer I think I’m just going to link it: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2010/12/28/top-wisconsin-court-oks-putting-non-sex-offenders-on-sex-offender-registry/#comment-196528
Grr, should’ve been a reply to Feckless instead of top-level.
You’re the farthest thing from suffocated here. This is a safe space for you.
feminist critics have debunked amp’s criticism of the study
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2010/12/30/ampersands-criticism-of-the-idvs-findings-on-sexual-violence-part-1-rp/
Me too. But what I meant there was…if women truly *did* experience sexual assault more than men, then that would mean there were fewer sexual assaults around. And that would be good.
I think a huge part of the problem is that we don’t teach men to recognize what happens to them as coercive and abusive, that we don’t teach them that that’s *possible*. Because then, when someone calls you up or sends a survey and asks you “have you ever been raped or sexually assaulted?” you check “no”, even though there was that one time [insert obvious description of assault here].
I assume “insisted on sex without a condom” => pressured into having sex (that they would have had anyways) without a condom, which is no less coercive than anything else.
How far does the idea of “sexual assault” reach? Is something sexual assault if it doesn’t actually lead to sexual contact? I’m just thinking out loud here.
Ozymandias said:
Here are some studies supporting this conclusion. Little quibbles are possible with them, but the findings still seem to be in the right ballpark. This page by Jim Hopper is a great discussion of research on sexual abuse of males, and some of the methodological issues. Different methodologies find widely different results.
The sort of study that feminists often cite in the defense of their belief that women are overwhelming the victims of sexual violence is the NVAWS study by Tjaden and Thoennes. Ampersand cited it a while ago concluding that men are “much less likely to be victims of rape.” Unfortunately, Amp got duped by the study, and failed to catch its biased methodology. The study’s definition of rape leaves out non-penetrative rape (i.e. envelopment) and intoxication-based assault.
The Dube et. al study found that 16% of men and 25% of women had experienced a form of childhood sexual abuse involving physical contact. Their methodology:
A potential criticism of their study is that relations between 16-17 year-olds and 22-23 year-olds might not deserve to be categorized as sexual abuse, given that such conduct is legal in many states other than California, where the study was conducted. Unfortunately, the study didn’t ask about their age of the survivor and perpetrator when the sexual contact occurred. On the other hand, Dube et. al make other arguments that underreporting was occurring (e.g. the average age in the study was 57, and might have memory issues about childhood abuse).
The advantage of the Dube study’s methodology is that it didn’t rely on people conceptualizing their experience as “abuse” or “force,” which can be tough concepts for people to apply to their experiences, especially males (per Hopper). Even if it does overreport the actual rate of abuse, there is no reason to belief that it overreports more for males than for females.
A study from Germany (hat tip Feckless) found:
This study finds a rate of coercion towards men that is similar to what other studies on women have found. Note that this study is only on men’s nonconsensual experiences with women; if it included nonconsensual experiences with men, the rate would be even higher.
The one potential criticism is that the definition of verbal pressure is too broad: “Has a woman ever made (or tried to make) you have sexual contact with her against your will by putting verbal pressure on you (e.g., by threatening to end the relationship or calling you a failure). Sex under conditions of this sort of pressure may well be nonconsensual, but it’s not clear that it always is, as opposed to being unwanted consensual sex.
For example, a friend of mine was hanging out with an ex-girlfriend of his. She wanted to have sex. He didn’t. She started insulting him and calling him “gay.” He had sex with her. I was horrified by this story, but he seemed to feel that it was his choice, and he didn’t seem traumatized in any way.
It may be possible for people to consensually submit to entitled demands for sex from their partners, even when their partners are being assholes (of course, it’s also quite possible that submitting to such demands is nonconsensual, particularly in cases where the pressured partner is dependent on the pressuring partner). This sort of pressure seems like a very different sort of pressure from blackmail, or threats of harm to people, property, or reputation. I wish researchers would break down “pressure” into more precisely-defined categories.
Unfortunately, we can’t just subtract out the rate of verbal coercion, because categories aren’t mutually exclusive (some of the men experiencing verbal pressure also experienced other sorts of coercion, so we can’t just subtract them). Still, verbal coercion was the smallest category. The study found that 7.7% experienced forced sexual contact, and 16% (1 in 6!) were taken advantage of while intoxicated. 7% had intercourse forced on them exploiting their inability to resist, demonstrating why the NVAWS lack of intoxication questions was such a flaw.
Despite some questions about these studies, 1 in 6 still seems to be in the right ballpark for sexual abuse of males.
Part 2 of Daran’s post.
Oh, of course it’s coercive, but it’s not rape. So lumping it in with “threatening people into sex” is dishonest.
Ozymandias said:
As you’ve realized, you were miseducated. As Toysoldier pointed out, studies finding high rates of sexual abuse towards men have existed since that 90’s. That’s over a decade ago. The Dube HMO study finding a 16% rate of childhood sexual abuse towards boys was published in 2005. It’s now 2011, and despite all your anti-rape education from feminism, you are only just now making a shocking discovery.
What went wrong? Did feminists just not know? Did they just uncritically accept the results of studies like the NVAWS I mentioned in my other big comment, that didn’t measure envelopment and intoxication/incapacitation? Did feminists insisting that women were the overwhelming victims never bother to do a few journal searches? Did some feminists find out, and think “this can’t be right,” and fail to spread the news to other feminists?
Feminists weren’t trying to deliberately lie or hide anything, so we are looking at some sort of case of systematic bias. While some feminists ignore or deny sexual abuse towards men, it’s simultaneously the case that some of the women most sympathetic to male survivors are also feminists… yet still feminists tend to not be up-to-date. What does that say?
Another example of the obnoxious gendering of sexual violence education occurred during my freshman orientation in college. They acted out two scenes, one of sexual coercion, and one of supposedly appropriate sexual initiation (which involved asking not once, but twice). In both cases, the initiator was male.
As you’ve started to realize, lots of things that feminists and anti-violence educators say about the subject of sexual violence are heavily gendered to a degree that would only make sense if women were 10-100x more likely to be victimized. For example, having a term like “male entitlement” towards sexuality, but not using the term “female entitlement,” would only make sense with a vast difference in victimization and perpetration rates. Yet that’s not true; the Dube study found that 40% of the cases of male child sexual abuse had a female perpetrator.
I have mixed feelings about using the term “rape culture,” because I think it risks erasing (a) ways in which rape is condemned in our culture, and (b) anti-consent attitudes and practices short of actual rape. Still, noting a high rate of sexual violence and coercion towards men, not just women, is one of the best arguments in favor of that term that I’ve encountered.
On another subject, these findings of high rates of sexual abuse towards men are a good reason to consider studies plausible finding high rates of rape and abuse towards women, which are controversial to many non-feminists (like the Koss study, which is flawed, but supports at least a 10% rate of rape). I once went on the Spearhead and argued this notion… yeah… lots of downvotes.
Hugh, you sure managed to mention the name ‘feminism’ a lot. I have a different theory for you. Anti-feminists (who’re far more of a monolith than feminism ever was) have done a good job souring everyone who actually deals with these things to the idea of male victimhood, due to a number of crappy studies designed to show that whatever bad thing happens to women, it always happens more to men, and always because of feminism.
I’ve seen the claims of domestic violence against men, which equates the stuff my male friends do to each other (and have no issue with) to what my then-violent boyfriend did to me, which included death threats, controlling my movements, constantly convincing himself that I didn’t show him the proper ‘respect’, and all sorts of things which are far worse than the mild blows those studies equate with abuse.
Furthermore, even with no proof of any connection between violence and feminism in women, people like you make sure feminism is always made to pay the price for everything bad that happens to men, even if the attitudes and reasons behind it are centuries old. Why should feminists be the first to accept male victimisation and spread the word about it, when all their experience tells them that it will only be used to justify violence against women and discredit feminism, rather than helping the victims, and that that information is furthermore extremely unreliable? It would be expecting a level of generosity from them which they have never been shown themselves.
AB
Can you link me to thses “crappy studies designed to show that whatever bad thing happens to women, it always happens more to men, and always because of feminism.”
Because from what I’ve seen mra’s and anti feminists cite credible research from the most credible of researcher and feminists cite advocacy research which is designed to cover up the truth about domestic violence and rape.
You attitude is exactly the sort of uninformed bigotry that keeps male victims in the closet. Domestic violence studies, especially those up to the standards of Strauss and Gelles do not measure battery against a slap. That’s just an absurd story designed to cover up the truth that has been circulated by the feminist lobby.
I find it hard sometimes to call my experience ‘abuse’ when at the time fear was not part of it. I remember some type of shame but no fear. Its strange to try and put words to certain experiences. I see the 1 in 6 numbers for sexual assault/abuse and I keep thinking what are the numbers for those of us who got the beat down regularly before the age of 18? Would the numbers switch and boys/men now would become the 1 in 3 stat and women the 1 in 6?
Coercion is considered rape under most state laws.
A more accurate and less hurtful message would be that the legitimization of rape against females by males is, by patriarchal standards, beneficial to men.
Rape against men, particularly by women, is not so much legitimized as made invisible.
Surveys about sexual assault, if they’re any good, don’t simply ask “Were you raped?” but (for example) “Have you ever had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because the other person was using physical force, like holding you down or twisting your arm?” You get much more ‘yes’ responses to the latter than the former, sadly.
Quite often they do not make that connection. In the book Betrayed as Boys, Dr. Richard Gartner gave two examples of this. One was a man in his 20s and a man in his 80s. The young man had his first sexual experience with woman when he was a small child. He never considered the act abuse, and never made the connection that act and his relationship issues. The older man was gay, as a teen his parents allowed him to live with an openly gay man. This happened in the early 20th century, so it was quite odd. However, because this 80-something man was gay, he never considered his childhood experiences was abuse. He actively fought against calling it that, leading to some conflict between him and Dr. Gartner.
The conflict is not just people teaching boys and men that they cannot be raped, but also that because of people’s own feelings they might not view an act as abusive at all.
This. It in no way excuses anyone who excuses or minimizes sexual abuse of men and boys, feminist or otherwise. But sometimes, for crissakes, it feels like when your SO is sitting with their feet up on the couch playing video games and you’re running around vacuuming, dusting and doing all the work they aren’t doing, and they lean over to say “Hey, lazybones, you missed a spot.”
There are any number of anti-feminists who are less interested in the situation of male survivors than they are in using those victims as a rhetorical club.
These numbers surprise me not at all.
I assume you’re talking about CTS? Yeah, I have a number of issues with it. My violent ex wouldn’t report half the stuff he did because the definitions don’t account for it, but he would have reported me as violent (he openly told me so), even though I was mainly participating in the sort of semi-rough play that went on between him and our male friends too, that he did not at any point feel threatened, and that it never occurred to him to tell me to stop even though he felt completely justified in doing so. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have reported it (him and my male friends did the exact same things to me) because I understood the distinction.
Furthermore, it’s self-report, and the numbers don’t add up. Many of the studies done also don’t measure anything except what happens in relationships, and most of the severe violence happens after the relationship. The worst for me, however, was when the linked study showed that women were more often raped, severely injured, and afraid of their partners (all, and especially the latter, much more indicative of an abusive relationship than “My partner hit me once”), and the anti-feminists justified it by basically saying that women were sissies who just reacted stronger.
AB
You personal anecdotes aren’t really relevant because not all men are you ex and not all women are you, vague stories about “the anti-feminists” or unfounded criticisms about the CTS aren’t either.
I asked you to show me “crappy studies designed to show that whatever bad thing happens to women, it always happens more to men, and always because of feminism”, can you do that?
Also, its best if you allow this rare discussion on male victims to go ahead without derailing it or using it as an opportunity to bash political opponents, there are plenty of other feminist spaces that wont allow these discussions to take place, this one is supposed to be different.
Why should feminists be the first to accept male victimisation and spread the word about it, when all their experience tells them that it will only be used to justify violence against women and discredit feminism, rather than helping the victims, and that that information is furthermore extremely unreliable? It would be expecting a level of generosity from them which they have never been shown themselves.
For me (and I’ll bet for a lot a people) its a matter of feminists frequently claiming to be “the ones” that are raising awareness on such violence and are working towards equality while at the same time doing and saying things that go against that (which was brought up in some of the opening posts of this blog). Its not so much as why should feminists be the first to accept it but rather they practice what they preach. For me that is.
Its a hard time believing the sincerity of feminists on violence against men when its okay to just write it all off as self defence, or not happening, or its all lies made up by MRAs. No all feminists don’t do that but the ones that do seem to get a free pass on their claims.
There’s a serious lack of generosity going on alright, and its happening on all sides.
Mythago
there cannot be a discussion about hidden male abuse victims without bringing up the fact that feminism has lied to the public about abuse being gendered. Let the discussion take place, its important.
And using abuse victims as political and rhetorical capital is behavior inherent in feminism, the movement relies heavily on it, so people in glass houses and all that.
the ones that were made up on the spot that support your beliefs?
I hear you….what makes me kind of sad is that most often they don’t even ask men about their experience. Good Post btw. Keep on going!
Feministcritics ftw!
But it does. The argument is essentially that because of who presents the statistics, the numbers must be wrong or unreliable because it is impossible for that many men to be victims of abuse. That minimizes sexual violence against boys and men, and frankly there is no reason to do this. Acknowledging the rate that boys and men are assaulted in no way changes the rate of sexual violence against women and girls.
In this specific situation — helping male victims of rape — I wish there was not this tit-for-tat play. Real people are affected by this game. It literally results in communities, states, and countries failing to help these boys and men. There is no reason why anyone should read articles about a shelter or center just now — in 2011– opening their services to male victims. It is pathetic that we play gender politics with this issue because every single time we do it, we fail to help some boy who will now kill himself because he cannot take the pain or some man who will now drown himself in alcohol or some teen who will now pretend that his teacher molesting him is cool or some man who will now deny it was rape or abuse at all.
Real people are hurt by this game playing. Real people. Actual, physical human beings. Despite my pessimism and cynicism, I still think people are capable of being better than this.
Jess, that is unfair. Mythago has not said anything doubting the studies of the number of men who have been raped. Try to assume people have been commenting in good faith.
I have to say that I agree that the people who use male rape survivors as a tool to argue against feminism are often… frustrating… especially given that feminist spaces are often, ime, some of the more welcoming for male rape survivors. Which is not to say that feminism doesn’t have its problems with dealing with rape of men. But when the critique is coming from a guy who concludes that it’s proof that feminists hate men, it’s understandable (if wrong) when feminists discount it.
Yes I saw that, I’m sorry about it.
Mythago I saw you spreading misinformation about MRAs in a post above and jumped the gun with you.
Anecdotally, Dubes would probably be more likely to overreport for females than males… I know some women who were in consensual, non-abusive relationships with adult men when they were under 18, but no men.
I agree that we need a simple word for “unwanted but consensual sex” that makes it clear that it’s rape-spectrum and definitely not okay behavior, but not rape itself. In fact, I think it’s part of rape culture that we have two, binary options– consensual and non-consensual– and everything you could possibly do, as long as you have the “yes,” is A-OK.
Ozy
I think that’s unfair Feminism has been using rape and domestic violence as a shaming and rhetorical tactic for decades now. When people from the MRM approach feminists with the real information, its either genuine advocacy its in response to the feminist (over) use and abuse of female rape and abuse victims of male criminals as rhetorical tricks…. and were it not for the male abuse victims and their advocates in the mrm promoting the facts and making lots of angry noise. We wouldn’t be posting together like this here to today.
And I have to question the hyperbolic use of the term “rape survivor”, thats a rhetorical trick that has been popularized by feminism but upgrading rape and sexual assault to that status of life threatening, is likely damaging to victims.
I always knew the RAINN number– one in 33 men is a rape survivor– which is not necessarily contradictory to the 1 in 6 number (1in6 seems to include fondling, coercion and attempted nonconsensual sexual experiences as well, which RAINN didn’t seem to have counted). I think a lot of it is simple ignorance.
Sexual violence education is often obnoxious… although at least the one at my college, iirc, presented the idea that women can initiate sex the man doesn’t want and she has to respect his “no.”
I tend to use rape culture as a shorthand for “all the ways our culture is fucked up about consent,” which there are quite a lot of.
I use “rape survivor” because it is the term most people who have been raped, in my experience, found most respectful of their experiences, and people have the right to define their own identities.
I was not informed of the 1 in 6 statistic by the men’s rights movement; I was informed of it by 1in6, an affiliate of RAINN, a feminist organization. Which is not to say that other people haven’t been informed of it by the men’s rights movement; there are almost certainly multiple organizations trying to raise awareness of this issue.
Many of us (rape survivors) use the terminology to signify our internal transition from victim to survivor. The term survivor does not solely refer to nearly being killed. Who made that rule?
She drugged, raped and blackmailed me. She victimized me. The aftermath of that set off a chain of dangerous and unhealthy counter-responses in response that likely would have culminated in an early death from addiction, unprotected sex, a jealous husband or suicide. Many victims of sexual violence, like many veterans of combat, die years later of PTSD related symptoms directly attributable to their prior experience.
It took nearly 20 years to transition myself from victim to survivor. I lived it and the word has a very deep meaning for me.
Ozy
The feminist movement created the term “rape survivor”, and introduced it to its members who now all use it generally without understanding the reason behind the change of language, its hyperbole, a rhetorical trick and I would wager that it damages victims – using language to elevate the seriousness of rape. In reality, rape isn’t life threatening and most rape victims don’t have PTSD, but some would have us believe other wise.
I wasn’t suggesting that you got the 1 in 6 male csa figure directly from the men’s movement, I’m saying that the reason for this blog, and the realization that what we have been told about gendered abuse is really a just political platform, and there is no such thing as gendered abuse, is the noise that has being coming from the men’s movement.
Plus, I wouldn’t be looking to Rainn as a reliable source for stats. 1 in 33 verses 1 in 6, feminist organisations generally don’t tell the truth about abuse.
Danny, for me it’s not about ignoring proof, it’s more a matter of having absolutely no reason to believe anything these people say. When you’ve heard that women were only denied the vote because of their privileged position in society, that women owe it to men to obey them as payment for all the wars men have fought with other men, that it is justifiable for men to take sex forcefully if women don’t want to give it, that no man would want a fat women or a woman over 30 but women are wrong for having their own tastes (and that those tastes are to blame for female sexual scarcity), that women are inherently submissive and yet in control of (and responsible for) everything in the whole world, and that you’re an American feminist who’ve taken gender studies courses and have been indoctrinated with a set of principles you have not even heard of, why should the claim that there are 3 billion male rape victims (all of which are conspicuously absent in the threads the claim is presented in) be any different?
Not to mention that most of the time, I don’t think feminists are told about those studies, because anti-feminists are more interested in defending rape of women than trying to extend sympathy to male victims. Even in a blog like this one, which is supposedly not hostile to feminism, and the topic itself is about male rape victims, Hugh and others use it to take cheap shots at feminism anyway. When there’s more freedom to define the topic and even more leeway to be anti-feminists, the claim is rarely just that a study finds that more men are raped than previously believed, but rather that women are violent psychos who deliberately torture men in secret.
A third of rape survivors have PTSD; as a comparison, one eighth of soldiers in combat troops in Iraq have PTSD. That’s right; rape survivors have more than twice the rate of PTSD of active-duty combat troops. Rape is an extremely serious crime. Saying so is not a “political platform”; it’s a fact.
Abuse itself may or may not be gendered; however, the reactions of survivors and bystanders to abuse are clearly gendered. And, as the woman whose piece started this whole blog, the only influence the men’s movement had on the creation of this blog was my frustration with it.
I agree with what you say, although I have to point out that Hugh’s original critique of feminism seemed fairly even-handed to me and I certainly don’t believe he’s a supporter of the rape of women.
And using abuse victims as political and rhetorical capital is behavior inherent in feminism
In other words, you and I have nothing to discuss, because as far as you are concerned, as a feminist my only concern for abuse survivors is as political capital.
The argument is essentially that because of who presents the statistics, the numbers must be wrong or unreliable because it is impossible for that many men to be victims of abuse.
Whose argument is this? Has anyone really said “it is impossible for that many men to be victims of abuse”? Which feminists has pulled a Katie Roiphe and said “I went around and asked my guy friends, and I couldn’t find more than a couple who were abused so 1 and 6 is just MRA propaganda and isn’t true”?
Even in a blog like this one, which is supposedly not hostile to feminism, and the topic itself is about male rape victims, Hugh and others use it to take cheap shots at feminism anyway.
Despite there being truth to some of the other things you say in your post what exactly was “cheap” about what Hugh and the others have said?
Coercing people into sex is rape.
Insisting on a different type of sex than the one that you had originally planned to have is definitely not rape. Which is why it shouldn’t be lumped in with insisting that someone has sex with you in the first place, because that (often) is rape.
No they didn’t; they said only that his criticism of the CTS wasn’t relevant to this study. They didn’t say anything about his other criticisms that he made specifically in that post.
The definition you quote seems as good as a definition as any. Threatening to end the relationship for sex is pretty clearly coercive rape.
What your friend went through is rape even if he doesn’t want to think of it that way. Great for him that it didn’t affect him much, but that’s still pretty clearly rape.
I believe the word you want is “rapey”.
Exactly what percentage of people are raped depends on how you define “rape”.
Though I’m not sure, I’m guessing the 1 in 33 number is “unconsentual penetrative sex of a man by a woman”, while the 1 in 6 number is “sexual abuse of a man”.
Actually, I’m gonna go find out exactly what the numbers mean. One second.
OK, the RAINN number is from this study, which defined rape as “an event that occurred without the victim’s consent, that involved the use or threat of force to penetrate the victim’s vagina or anus by penis, tongue, fingers, or object, or the victim’s mouth by penis.” So, in simpler terms “physically forced unconsentual penetrative sex”, or about the strictest possible definition of rape you can get (to be fair to RAINN, their numbers for rape of women also come from that same study).
The 1in6 number is from many different studies, but according their page on it , they define sexual abuse as “experiences in which children are subjected to unwanted sexual contact involving force, threats, or a large age difference between the child and the other person.” So it includes non-penetrative sexual acts and sex that isn’t physically forced but it’s limited to children only.
Which suggests that the rate of rape of men is far higher than suggested in the study… and also (one assumes) the rate of rape of women.
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2004/06/26/on-husband-battering-are-men-equal-victims/
Hate to just drop a link in here, but this covers the subject pretty well.
As criticisms go, Hugh’s wasn’t bad, but I’m tired of how feminism is always made the crux of everything. It’s even worse to know that many of the people who engage in that sort of criticism (including Hugh) seem to mostly do it because feminism has a name. That’s basically what it boils down to, feminism being a visible (and accepted) target and therefore easier to criticise.
In the vast majority of cases I’ve experienced or heard about where feminists have dealt with the subject of male rape victims, and where the subject was not presented as an attack, have been positive. Many people, perhaps most, don’t even deal well with that subject when presented in a non-aggressive and non-accusatory way, and yet it’s somehow important to highlight that feminists sometimes let their anger and frustration get the better of them, or that they’re not always 10,000 times better informed than the rest of the population. That seems cheap to me.
I have used “rapey” sometimes, but I feel it’s not… intuitively understandable… enough for use as a general term for consensual but unwanted sex.
Just want to point out here that, like I’ve said in my post above, that 1 in 33 number is not dishonest in any way. It’s from a study that used a very strict definition of rape, but RAINN also uses that same study with that same definition as the source for their claim that 1 in 6 women is raped.
The reason RAINN is using that study is because it’s reliable (done by the government), not because the numbers are small. The numbers were small across the board in that study; they obviously have no interest in underestimating the number of female rape victims.
Hmm… if one person consents to oral and zir partner pressures zem into vaginal sex, I’d call that rapey at the very least.
I agree with Ozy. If consent is the issue, then no amount of consent to one kind of sex can make up for a lack of consent to other kinds of sex.
A third of rape survivors have PTSD; as a comparison, one eighth of soldiers in combat troops in Iraq have PTSD. That’s right; rape survivors have more than twice the rate of PTSD of active-duty combat troops. Rape is an extremely serious crime. Saying so is not a “political platform”; it’s a fact. (Ozy)
I wonder if this could possibly be do to the fact that most men wont talk about their war ‘experiences’ . I have a sneaky suspicion the numbers are probably much higher. In truth how can you even put numbers to how many of either have PTSD? You can only put numbers on the ones who talk about it, that leaves a lot left out.
…yet it’s somehow important to highlight that feminists sometimes let their anger and frustration get the better of them, or that they’re not always 10,000 times better informed than the rest of the population. That seems cheap to me.
Well maybe if they didn’t act like they were “10,000 times better informed that the rest of the population”. Do feminists get unfairly generalized and held to high standards? Yes. But there’s no point in acting like feminists are perfect little angels that have never done anything mean and any aggression towards them is entirely fictional.
Yes, it is. Consent is highly specific, and if what was given was “Yes, I’d love to have sex with you if you use a condom”, condomless sex with that person is nonconsensual without further free negotiation. Free negotiation looks like “Hm, I’d really rather not — how about pulling out?” “No, sorry.” “Damn. Okay then. Oral?”. It does not look like pestering, emotional manipulation/blackmail, or just getting on/sticking it in.
The NVWS study actually does not include unconsentual penetrative sex of a man by a woman. The study was originally only for studying domestic and sexual violence among women. At the last minute the researchers decided to include men, but they failed to adapt their questions to cover the types of assaults male victims face. The study only asked five questions, and only counts one type of sexual violence against males: penetrative acts. And even then it is very specific, failing to include acts in which males are forced to penetrate, i.e. cases in which women commit rape, even though those acts legally count as rape against the male and female victims. That is why you see the severe discrepancy with the stats for male victims (even with in the inclusion of non-forced acts), but not for female victims.
Coincidentally, RAINN only lists the 1 in 33 statistic. It does not list the 1 in 6 statistic or any statistic that shows a comparable rate of sexual violence against males and females. RAINN also specifically states on the link to 1in6.org that the rate only refers to sexual violence against boys. Both seem rather odd, and it is understandable that some people might conclude RAINN deliberately marginalized male victims because RAINN is a feminist-run organization.
Whose argument is this? Has anyone really said “it is impossible for that many men to be victims of abuse”?
That appeared to AB’s conclusion, at least to the extent that he/she considers the studies cited by “antifeminists” to be “crappy studies”. Likewise, AB does contend that the statistics are propaganda used to “justify violence against women and discredit feminism”.
If you want explicit examples of feminists dismissing the 1 in 6 statistic, I have not seen that. However, the implication that males are not abused that frequently is unfortunately a rather common refrain. Instead of directly stating the stat is false, one might hear that the stat only pertains to boys and not men, as if that changes that 1 in 6 men report having experienced sexual violence as children.
Yeah TS, the “1in6 only applies to boys” argument shows basic comprehension problems and deliberate minimization on the part of those employing such responses. If 1 in 6 boys are victimized before the age of 16, then what happens when those 1 in 6 become men. Guess what, they have still been raped, sexually assaulted or whatever label is preferred by the individual survivor. They don’t disappear or suddenly become erased except by those who willfully minimize and attempt to erase their existence. Then, some males who were not victimized as children are raped as adults, making the number of male survivors even larger.
Since when did sexual victimization magically disappear when a person turns the age of majority? Who made that illogical, callous and arbitrary rule????
This is a truly disgusting argument for anyone to make and quite inexcusable as it is willful rape denial.
Jess, I very much agree with most of your posts in this thread, but “survivor” is pretty standard terminology used by both males and females, feminists and non-feminists.
In my experience, that is not always the case. Male survivors usually have to couch their experiences in very specific ways or they risk getting attacked. If one must dance around certain issues or experiences that does not sound very welcoming.
While it is understandable that feminists would get defensive, it is not understandable for them to discount the statistics. There is also a difference: feminists positioned themselves as authorities on sexual violence. The absence of information about male victimization and the negative reaction to it being mentioned unfortunately looks intentional, and some construe that as driven by misandry.
I think that because this issue does not fit their narrative, many feminists dismiss male victimization, and because of their unwillingness to acknowledge that they failed to address this issue or that their framing hurts male victims, those feminists construe the criticism as an attack.
ToySoldier: On the link which I found to 1in6.org, the closest that RAINN came to saying that 1in6.org is about “just boys” was saying that they “provide information and resources to adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse,” which is simply factual.
Also, I don’t think that the 1 in 6 statistic necessarily shows parity between men and women in rates of sexual assault. At least one of the studies Hugh cited above (Dube) seems to show that women have had CSA more than men. I’m not saying that the NCVS doesn’t have problems (after all, defining rape as “penetrative sex” gets rid of the most obvious way men can be raped) or that there isn’t a vast underestimation in the amount of men who have been sexually assaulted, simply that I have not been convinced it’s equal.
At any rate, this seems to be rather quibbling. On the important stuff– providing support to rape survivors of all genders– RAINN is on our side.
Really? To be honest, everything I’ve personally seen or heard from male survivors implies that feminist spaces, in general, tend to be a “safe space.” Admittedly, my lack of knowledge on this point might be a reflection of my privilege, but would you mind elaborating more?
I think you’re probably right about that; some feminists, unfortunately, are not as accepting of the existence of male rape as they should be (although most feminists that I’ve met do not dismiss it). Part of it, I think, is probably a historical accident; for instance, consciousness-raising groups of women raised awareness about the prevalance of rape of women, but no such groups existed for men. And then once the narrative of “men are far less likely to be raped” is established, it’s hard to defeat, especially given how well it plays into sexist ideas about men and women.
Jess, if you don’t like it, don’t read it.
Feminists aren’t singled out for criticism. They’re simply not given a free pass. That’s called equality.
Right: Because men are supposed to be stoic, strong, unfeeling, and unemotional, no matter what.
ozymandias said:
The Dube study doesn’t contradict the RAINN number from the NVAWS study, but some of the other studies I cited shed major doubt on it. Maybe it got lost in the wall of text in my other post, but the NVAWS definition of rape is fundamentally flawed:
Conspicuously missing from this definition are two things:
– Rape via incapacitation. Yes, we all consider that “force,” but there is no guarantee that the respondents did. Modern sexual violence surveys typically ask questions about intoxication/drug-based rape; the NVAWS is out of date.
– Rape via envelopment. This study only counts rape where the victim was penetrated anally or vaginally. A perpetrator penetrating a man is counted by the NVAWS, but a perpetrator forcing a man to penetrate him or her, and/or forcing her vagina or anus around his penis (“envelopment”), is not counted by the NVAWS… yet I think we all agree that those scenarios are still rape.
The NVAWS definition of rape is fundamentally flawed, and undercounts male victims (and possibly female rape victims, too, in the case where they were raped while incapacitated but somehow didn’t report it as “force”).The A study from Germany I cited earlier found that 7% of men (1 in 14) had experienced women exploiting their incapacitated state to make them have sexual intercourse “against their will”. That is over double the rate the NVAWS found, merely in the category of incapacitation-based rape.
Can everyone now see why the NVAWS is not an authoritative source on the rate of rape towards men?
A blogger citing it could be excusable, but if RAINN is citing it, that means that either they deny that rape via envelopment is rape, or they didn’t read the study very carefully, or they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. It’s hard to excuse those sorts of errors in an anti-rape organization.
Jess, have you actually spoken to anyone who has been abused about the terminology they prefer? Or are you now going to say that if someone who was raped says that they prefer “survivor” rather than “victim” that they’re simply brainwashed by the Feminist Conspiracy?
And really, can you get much more dismissive and snotty about sexual assault than by blowing it off with “rape isn’t life-threatening”. Tell that to someone who was threatened with death if they didn’t comply, or if they told anyone. Tell that to someone who was abused by an adult like a parent who, from a child’s perspective, has the power of life and death over them. Tell that to a survivor with PTSD and other psychological damage who thinks that suicide would be a way to end the pain.
I agree with you that the NVAWS study seems fatally flawed. I have sent an email to RAINN asking them for clarification of their use of the NVAWS study, and hopefully they’ll get back to me soon about why they used this study instead of a more gender-balanced one.
Be very curious to hear the result. That would make an excellent blog post, actually.
As a member of their Speakers’ Bureau I am concerned about this as well. I am interested in seeing their response too.
Feminists aren’t singled out for criticism. They’re simply not given a free pass.
@doctormindbeam: I’ve been struggling with a constructive response. I guess the best I can do is to say that as a feminist, man, I *wish* that were true. I wish that, as in the Jack and Jill post you linked to, a nonfeminist who had a problem with something in feminism would simply explain it calmly and rationally (which as we all know, always results in the other person carefully listening). I wish that every ‘feminist critic’ was motivated by masculism and a genuine desire for true equality. And God knows that feminism is not the one movement ever that is free of morons. But seriously? if you really believe that the type of guy who has a problem with the chicks forgetting their place does not ‘single out’ feminism for criticism, deserving or no, I wanna move to your parallel Earth. I’d love to be a feminist in a place where the only criticism was honest and sensible.
Sorry, I think you misunderstood me. Yes, I fully agree: Feminists are frequently targeted, by MRA blogs and others. Much the same way that “feminists” (here I’ll use the word in quotes, as I’m all into reclaiming the title of “feminist” for myself and not associating with hypocritical fucks) often target other groups for attack, as well.
What I meant was, in this blog, we’re not targeting feminists. Christ, most if not all of us consider ourself feminist as well. But as honest critical thinkers — versus blind ideological zealots — we reserve the right to criticize feminism as well when it could do something differently or better.
Really, isn’t that what you want? (Rhetorically, not “you” you.)
Yup. Where I think more strongly feminist-identified people like myself are getting are hackles up is not simply being told ‘ here is a problem’ or ‘this could be done better’, but when it seems to come from a place of ‘you missed a spot’. I’m glad to hear that’s absolutely not something that’s going to be part of the blog (and yes, I did notice that a lot of the knee-jerkers got booted quickly).
Really? To be honest, everything I’ve personally seen or heard from male survivors implies that feminist spaces, in general, tend to be a “safe space.”
Male survivors I run into tend to say that feminist spaces are typically not safe for them. Of course, I think we both have different selection biases.
Ah, but was this really an accident? Why did feminist groups raise consciousness about sexual violence towards women first? Why didn’t any groups (feminist or otherwise) raise consciousness about sexual violence towards men around the same time? Why did feminists even decide to restrict their consciousness raising by gender?
Attention to sexual violence towards women and erasure of sexual violence towards men is a historical consequence of sexist notions of chivalry, women’s honor, men’s honor, and male disposability. See the historical analysis in Adam Jones’s frightening essay on male sexual abuse in war.
Historically, societies have cared about sexual violence towards women at least in limited ways, and at least if the woman was considered an appropriate victim. Rape of women received attention, though often it was used to motivated men towards war against other groups of supposedly rapacious men (e.g. tribal violence, colonialism), in order to defend “women’s honor.” In contrast, Jones argue that sexual abuse towards men has been a long tradition throughout history, but has been swept under the carpet:
If Jones’s view is correct, then sexual abuse towards men has been practically erased and hidden throughout history. In contrast, sexual abuse towards women has at least sometimes been acknowledged, even if only in limited ways. Feminists broadened the acknowledgment of sexual violence towards women (e.g. spousal rape, withdrawal of consent during sex), yet just like everyone else, they inherited ancient biases erasing male victims.
Some feminists have overcome those biases; actually, feminist women have probably overcome them at a greater rate than non-feminists women. Other feminists haven’t. I suspect that traditional biases are a big part of why people’s consciousness about sexual violence towards women got raised first, and why you are only just finding out about high rates of sexual abuse towards men despite a lot of feminist anti-rape education.
This is certainly historical, but it’s no accident.
I didn’t say that either. All I’ve ever promised is that we’re not going out of our way to target feminism.
This all comes back to “what feminism is.” If you’re like me, and you see it as a complementary movement with masculism, then it needn’t ever be said that “you missed a spot.” But if we’re writing about feminism in its self-proclaimed sense of “The One And Only True Movement?” You can be pretty damn sure I’m gonna say, “Oh really? Well why didn’t you do this, then?”
In other words, I don’t see it as the single movement for gender equality in large part because it has done such a shitty job addressing things for men. But when people want to portray it that way, I’m going to criticize that. You may have noticed that’s one of my MOs: Attacking hypocrisy where I see it. Because no one should be a blind ideologue.
Nice work. One thing I should add to my post is that the results of the NVAWS aren’t conclusively wrong, it’s just highly likely that they are, so the NVAWS should be considered outdated.
To add another note to my previous comment, the German Krahe study found that 2.8% of men in the sample were forced into intercourse by women. That’s already as high as the NVAWS without even taking into account male-on-male victimization (and we know that 60% of child molesters are male from the Dube study), or alcohol.
Of course, Germany might be different from the US. For studies in the US, it’s really hard to find good ones estimating the prevalence of rape towards men. Anyone else know of some? Right now, I’m looking at this small study from an Ohio college:
Females: 5.1%. Males: 3.1%.
Females: 12.3%. Males: 10.9%.
This study had a small sample size (which is probably why 0% of men reported being forced into sex), but it makes the 3% figure from the NVAWS look more and more like undercounting.
mythago said:
Does missing male victims of sexual violence really seem like missing a spot on a rug? I can understand this reaction, but I think that you and other feminists should try to question it.
To me, it seems like feminists declared themselves the authorities on cleanliness, and then missed several entire rooms. Neither of those things were the fault of you, or the fault of the majority of individual feminists, but someone has to point out that those rooms never got vacuumed, and someone has to vacuum them.
As a minor point, I don’t agree that feminists has “lied” to the public. Lying implies that feminists knew the truth, and intended to hide it. What we are seeing is not a case of lies, but a case of bias, which is far more pernicious.
Right, many groups have been using victims (either male or female) as political capital. This doesn’t mean that their concern isn’t sincere, of course. I agree with you that for a feminist to make the accusation of using male survivors in politically motivated ways seems like the pot calling the kettle black. Actually, this practice started long before feminism, with chivalrous uses of “women’s honor” to send men to territorial and colonialistic wars.
1 in 33 may not be consciously dishonest, but it’s both biased and wrong as an estimate of male rape, as I just explained in a followup comment. As I’ve already explained, the NVAWS leaves out rape where the victim is forced to penetrate the perpetrator, and/or enveloped by the perpetrator.
Leaving out envelopment isn’t “strict,” it’s just plain incorrect. And it’s quite possible the study also underreports female victims, due to failing to have questions about intoxication and incapacitation. I think there is also a good argument to be made that women can rape other women with genital-on-genital contact, without penetration, which is also left out of this study.
AB said:
That’s true, but it is on topic. Ozymandias lamented failing to know about high rates of sexual abuse towards men, despite having a background in anti-rape activism and involvement with shelters and marches. To me, it seems relevant to wonder how this educational failure occurred, and what it might have to do with feminism, since the people in charge of her anti-violence education were feminists. I tossed out a few ideas.
If you think I’m taking cheap shots at feminism, then perhaps you are holding feminists to a higher standard than me, or perhaps you simply disagree with me that Ozymandias being misinformed about male sexual abuse prevalence represents some sort of failure by her feminist educators. That doesn’t make them horrible people, it makes them typical biased and/or ignorant human beings, just like we see in any other political movement.
Or maybe you disagree with me that the way many feminists and anti-violence educators talk about sexual violence only makes sense if women are victimized at a rate of 10-100x that of men (e.g. doing demos where the initiator is always male), which doesn’t appear to be true.
Interesting hypothesis. I can relate to it, feminist anti-rape education soured me to claims of female victimization for a long time, since the experience was like something from A Clockwork Orange even though I’d committed no crime. It’s only been in the last view years that I’ve been able to consider consider studies finding high rates of male-on-female rape rationally. I used to take the MRA, Hoff-Sommers, Roiphe party line that studies finding high rates of male-on-female rape are completely flawed and biased. Nowadays, I’ve started to come to believe that there is a high rate of sexual violence towards both genders; I never thought I’d be defending the Koss study on an MRA blog.
Other feminist-identified folks, how much do you agree with AB’s hypothesis that many feminists have been soured towards claims of male victimization by untrustworthy “antifeminist” rhetoric? Or do you find other hypotheses more plausible for explaining why so many feminists’ consciousnesses aren’t raised on the subject of sexual violence towards men?
If this is true, then all I have to do is go persuade MRAs to advocate the opposite of my views, which will then make feminists believe my real views out of reverse psychology!
As I said to mythago, I understand this souring and the bias it creates, but some issues are important enough to mandate rising above that bias. People criticizing feminism can be right, sometimes, at least about some feminists, or some ideas in feminism. Don’t let MRAs and other critics of feminism bias you such that you are prevented from finding the truth. Read the research yourself. Make up your own mind.
And also, on important issues, feminists can always do some research themselves. For instance, RAINN (among others) could have actually done its due diligence and read the NVAWS before citing it as showing a 1 in 33 rate of rape of men. I know reading studies isn’t fun for everyone, but am I really asking too much?
Btw, I agree with you that MRAs and other critics of feminism often cite studies that are flawed, or make extrapolations from good studies that are not supported. Studies on domestic violence and false rape statistics are examples, but unless it’s related to sexual abuse of men, MRA abuse of statistics seems like a topic for another thread.
People “like me?” And who would those be? Let’s just say that I don’t think this is a fair characterization of my views.
I don’t want to make feminists pay a price. I just want them to admit cases where feminists were wrong (which might be all feminists, most feminists, merely some feminists, certain feminists, etc…), attempt to fix the problem, and move on. For instance, Ozymandias says “some feminists, unfortunately, are not as accepting of the existence of male rape as they should be”. See? It’s not that hard. She emailed RAINN, too. Crap, too much more of this and I’m going to have to start a new blog.
AB said:
I never said feminists should be “first,” but I did suggest that they spread word, and that feminists doing anti-rape work should educate themselves about the prevalence of rape towards men before making claims about the size of the gender gap in prevalence. Why?
Because feminists dominate the institutionalized discourse about sexual violence in government, the workplace, and education while receiving federal and private funding? Because they don’t want to give the impression that sexual abuse towards women vastly outstrips sexual abuse towards men in prevalence?
Because feminists don’t want to lie by omission? People are going to think that if the rates of male sexual abuse were high, feminists would be mentioning them… so if feminists aren’t mentioning male victimization, that means that those rates mustn’t be very high.
Because feminists themselves deserve an accurate education from their own leaders about sexual violence towards men? Because acknowledging victimization of men can help convince people that victimization of women exists?
Wait, could you explain how feminists raising consciousness about male sexual victimization will only be used to (a) justify violence against women, and (b) attack feminism? Am I understanding you? This view seems very zero-sum. Can some other feminists here give me a reality check on AB’s claim? If true, then this very thread could be used to justify violence against women and attack feminism!
I have never seen sexual violence against men used as a justification for violence against women. As for (b), yes, as long as many feminists talk as if sexual abuse of women vastly outnumbers sexual abuse of men, and ignore or deny plausible rates of sexual abuse towards men, or try to excuse this behavior by other feminists, then those particular sorts of feminists will be open to criticism. Of course, feminists who don’t do those things won’t deserve criticism (though yes, they will get it unfairly in some cases).
Yes, if feminists like Ozymandias criticize other feminists for lacking consciousness around rape of men, then some people will say, “this proves that feminists deny abuse towards men! see? even a feminist admits it!” Other people will say “hmmm, looks like all feminists don’t actually deny abuse towards men.” And a few people will say “wow, if sexual abuse towards men is this high, then maybe feminists aren’t wrong that there is a high rate of sexual abuse towards women.”
When feminists admit that some feminists messed up, it does open up potential criticism of feminism, but it always creates new ways to defend feminism. In this case, it’s the right move ethically, and the right move for public relations, too. I admire feminists who realize that being on the right side of certain issues is more important than defending or excusing the errors of other feminists.
Once enough feminists stop being defensive and acknowledge that high rates of sexual abuse towards men are plausible, and this change in views is reflected in feminist policies and initiatives in government and education… then people will no longer be able to criticize feminism for ignoring or denying sexual abuse towards men.
@TS:
Something more about the NVWS:
Straus said the following about the NVWS
“(1) It has been presented to the public as refuting the idea of neady equal rates of domestic partner assaults by men and women. (2) It is not ostensibly a crime study. (3) It is a large and well-designed study. (4) It carries the imprimatur of spnsorship by two respected Federal agancies. (5) Perhabs the most important reason is that it provides an example of how an cumulation of small details affecting respondent perception of the study and its prupose can add up to a large difference in findings.” (Straus – The controversy Over Domestic Violence by Women – 1999)
Among several points by Straus the following surprised me the most. This was the second question asked by the researchers
“Do you think violent crime is more or less of a problem for men today than previously?”
Two “hot-button” words in one sentence at the beginning of our survey. That, plus the usage of “personal safety” and the low yearly rates (among some other things) is the reason Straus considers the NVWS as a crime survey.
But what do the researchers themselves say about the discrepancy of their study and the CTS?
“… it is likely that the manner in which screening questions are introduced and framed has more effect on intimate partner victimization rates than does the overall context in which the survey is administered”
Might be useful….
Hi Brian
Amptoons isn’t a reliable source, he has an extreme bias and is hostile to male victims having access to support services.
And research by Strauss and Gelles given that they are the at the top of the domestic violence research game doesn’t qualify as ” “crappy studies designed to show that whatever bad thing happens to women, it always happens more to men, and always because of feminism”,
You can see Strauss commentating on the methods to mislead that Julian is using here –
Click to access V75-Straus-09.pdf
You can see David Futrelle, a feminists in the same vein as Julian Real, caughts using the same methods to mislead here – http://linearthinker.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/weighing-in-on-the-domestic-violence-debate-a-response-to-david-manboobz-futrelle/
So you can see the vast difference between what you are beling lead to believe about the sources that mra’s cite. This is what one looks like.
DOMINANCE AND SYMMETRY IN PARTNER VIOLENCE
BY MALE AND FEMALE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
IN 32 NATIONS1
Murray A. Straus
Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH 03824 603-862-2594 murray.straus@unh.edu
Website: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2
Click to access ID41E2.pdf
DrMindbeam
I never said I didn’t like it, I like it and am enjoying the learning curve that the blog is on. Cherry picking the good from the men’s rights movement and the good from feminism is the way forward, IMO.
Mythago
I’m not being dismissive or snotty about sexual assault and and rape when I say its not life threatening, I’m simply stating a fact. The elevation of rape and sexual assault to something that is life threatening through abuse of language, is a rhetorical trick used to increase the impact of the political advocacy and rhetoric. Average feminism generally aren’t aware of this.
If I were to use the same argument back at you, I could say that you are being dismissive and snotty to cancer survivors and my argument would be more accurate.
RE – PTSD for troops and PTSD for rape and sexual assault victims, I wouldnt trust the US military OR the dominant rape advocacy political group to tell the truth.
@Hugh: Is that study known?
Sorenson et al (1992) forced sex: 13.5% of women / 6.8% of men
(As cited by Schwithal “Weibliche Gewalt in Parnterschaften” p.137)
Doctormindbeam, this is going to be hard to explain because I come from a very different background (I stumbled into spaces like these mostly by accident), but what it comes down to for me is that the vast majority of claims about feminists are not based (in anything but the loosest sense) on actual feminists, but instead on repeated claims by anti-feminists. The stuff I was told about American feminism has always been completely at odds with what I have experienced from American feminists, save for a tiny group of radicals who mostly stick to themselves.
At the same time I was told about how feminists were über PC and always expected other people to constantly adjust their language in the most ridiculous way, I was also chided for my failure to incorporate sufficient consideration for the existence of Andrea Dworkin into my conversations with guys, because “Everybody knows about Andrea Dworkin”. Of course, I didn’t know, not because of ignorance but because I’m neither feminist or American, but it was still treated roughly on par with discussing Judaism with no consideration for the Holocaust.
I was even more surprised when I learned that feminists weren’t the least bit prone to bringing up Dworkin, and at best, they treated her a bit like psychologists treat Freud, acknowledging that she was a pioneer in her field, but treating her work as deeply ignorant and flawed. American men might still be constantly confronted with her (or rather, out-of-context sentences truly or falsely attributed to her), but not thanks to feminists.
That’s pretty much been my experience with feminism all over the internet, and in American mass media. A lot of talk about feminism, a lot of accusations about what feminists are and do, and precious little input from actual feminists that doesn’t include them answering accusations against feminism.
Sometimes when a feminist writes about men in a positive way, they’re flooded with comments about how ‘brave’ they are, and how they’re not like ‘those other feminists’, and how they must have placed themselves at odds with every other feminist in existence. Ironically, these ‘good’ feminists actually tend to receive less resistance from other feminists than from MRAs and anti-feminists, and yet the official story is always that they’re somehow working against feminism, and that it is the fault of feminism that so few of these people express themselves.
In connection with the post about the little boy with the nail-polish, I looked up the story on youtube, and while I found a lot of comments both supporting and condemning it, one thing stood out: There were several comments using the story as an attack on feminism, but little to no actual feminist commenting. There were people claiming it to be the work of feminazis, a ‘feminised society’, and other anti-feminist/MRA buzzwords, but no one talked about how it was because of the patriarchy or anything else I would expect from feminists who were out of the closet about their ideological orientation. The same goes for real-life statements, like the ‘expert’ on FOX who called the pink nail polish ‘an attack on masculinity’.
And yet, whenever people explain why they focus most of their energy attacking or critiquing feminism (even when they openly acknowledge that feminists are nowhere near the worst), they tend to say that feminism is the most prolific. But in my experience, feminism is prolific (or rather, highly visible) mainly because it is the subject of claims and criticism from non-feminists. There are plenty of MRA/anti-feminist concepts which have made their way into mainstream and plenty of statements from anti-feminist/MRAs, but somehow they just don’t count when deciding what’s prolific.
I don’t know if feminists really consider themselves The One And Only True Movement (though imo, pointing out that plenty of the complaints by men are actually addressed by feminism doesn’t count), but I do know that plenty of non-feminists believe it, and I can’t help figuring that this probably had a bigger impact on the way feminism is perceived and criticised than anything else.
It’s not just that I think individual feminists can’t be held responsible for the whole movement (though the existence of arguments going “You are a feminist (according to me), feminists are like this (according to me), therefore you are like this, therefore you wrong” certainly make it a relevant point to make), but also that it has been my impression that even collectively, feminists have very little influence on what actually constitutes feminism in people’s minds.
Hugh:
I just wanted to take a moment to say that I’m glad you found your way through this; because while not all the arguments you make are ones I agree with, I very much appreciate the way they are made. Your evenhandedness, introspection, and lack of antagonism do you credit, and I believe you bring something valuable to our comments section.
AB:
AB, I think you’re projecting, quite a lot. I understand that you went through a traumatic experience and I sympathise, I truly do. Your experiences are not everyone’s experiences, though, and I know of plenty of men who have been domestically abused by women, in a very real and concrete way. Much is made of the relative bodyweights of males and females, but humans are a tool-using species and most of the accounts I hear reflect this: heavy objects thrown or just swung and smashed over men’s heads or spines, for example. This isn’t “rough-housing” and seeking to minimise it because it doesn’t match what you’ve seen or encountered just isn’t right.
So if you want to know why feminism is frequently a target of criticism in discussions of the abuse of males, it’s simply because feminism has often been dismissive of abuse against males, especially by females. Is that fair, to tar the whole movement that way? No, I don’t think it is, but it’s not a straw argument either — it’s what, for example, Brian is doing, when channelling Barry via links to arguments from a decade ago (thus ignoring all the research that’s been carried out since) trying to dismiss IPV against males with such reasoned arguments as “well my girlfriend hit me once and it didn’t really hurt so guys should just be able to shrug these things off”. Gah.
And could you imagine if a masculist organisation that was very well known, very well-respected, widely quoted as a source of statistics, that spoke of reaching “120 million americans a year”, that was in its own words “the organisation Congress turns to every day for input on sexual violence policy” and had the support and sponsorship of major media conglomerates, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defence… (all these things apply to RAINN, according to their press kit)… could you imagine how you would respond if that politically-powerful masculist organisation’s big, banner statistic on rape of females was for a definition that excluded PiV?!
Don’t you think that might make you angry? Don’t you think you might decide they were misogynistic or not really “on your side”, even if they offered support services for female survivors? I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s understandable. In the same way that I don’t think you’re right, but I understand.
Because, you’re doing exactly the same thing yourself in this very thread — when you say, “oh, well, all that stuff comes from MRAs who are all crazy woman-haters” you’re both denying the scale of abuse of males *and* engaging in the exact same kind of tarring-with-the-same-brush.
For example, when you say:
Do you really think Hugh, or we the contributors to this blog, believe those things? Or are you unfairly tarring everybody with the brush of some fringe crazies, exactly the same thing you’re complaining about? While simultaneously seeking to minimise statistics of female-on-male abuse? Like when you say:
…I completely understand that, but at the same time, why do you think a female abuser would not also lie, and so balance out the statistics? Why is it only men who you think are the lying liars who lie on surveys, while the women are angels who report honestly and fairly? Don’t you think that comes across as misandric, to project the (appalling, horrible) behaviour of one man, onto all men? To simultaneously dismiss male victims while making sexist accusations?
Don’t you think that it is exactly this kind of rhetoric that causes the anti-feminist responses?
This kind of thing goes for the MRAs too. It’s painfully obvious, reading some of them, that something horrible has happened to them, at the hands of women. And I feel that pain. It completely doesn’t justify their misogyny or the fuelling of the gender war, though. I try and separate these things, and feel compassion for what they’ve gone through, and understanding for the anger they feel, while condemning the misogyny, or behaviours such as aiming that anger at all women (or all feminists). Otherwise it just becomes a blood feud, with people attacking each other in endless reprisals for previous attacks.
It’s hard, sometimes, to take that step back and separate your (appropriate!) feelings towards an attacker, from how you feel about innocent people who happen to share a handful of characteristics with them. Believe me, I know; I’ve been ambulanced to hospital after being attacked, and later felt the surge of fear and anger and confusion and so on, when encountering someone — someone completely irrelevant, but sharing some characteristics.
Humans — all animals — are wired to make those sorts of fierce, emotional connections. They are ancient parts of our DNA. But it’s important for all our sakes — for our own peace of mind, as well as the wider goals of equality — to look inside ourselves and see those things. To work through that.
Ozymansdias
Male victim of child, sexual and domestic abuse at the hands of females here. In my experience feminist spaces, the feminist controlled victim support services and feminist controlled information (stats/studies) are generally not safe places for male victims or discussion on the reliable research and facts on abuse. Discussion of using the courts and children are weapons also tends to be verboten in feminist spaces.
Hugh, I’m still only about a third of the way through it, but that Adam Jones link is very, very thought-provoking.
@ozymandias42: RAINN lists 1in6 with the parenthetical “men sexually abused as children”. No other organization has its focus listed next to it like that, and it is unclear why RAINN would do it.
As for the rate parity, the accepted rate of sexual violence against girls is 1 in 4. The 1 in 6 statistic for boys is based on males who view their experiences as abuse. This means that there are more males who were abused who do not count those experiences as abuse, meaning the 1 in 6 is a low estimate. In other words, the rate of sexual violence against boys is likely higher and therefore closer to or on par with sexual violence against girls.
Regarding feminist spaces being safe spaces for male survivors, it is tenuous. For example, Alas a Blog featured a thread in which the author of the thread wanted male survivors to first atone for sexual violence against women before feminists would acknowledge male survivors’ abuse. This was on a thread meant for male survivors to share their experiences. That sort of thing may make the average male survivor may feel unwelcome.
I do not think the lack of acceptance was an accident so much as a result of feminists focusing only on women’s experiences. That kind of focus can lead to the presumption that men are less likely to be raped, especially if few men come forward. Once people believe the latter is the case, they do not bother looking for evidence to the contrary, and when evidence gets presented it is difficult to accept. That is also what I meant by feminists dismissing male victimization.
Hugh, the most recent example of this attitude (talking about men’s issues=justifying attacks on feminism) which springs to mind is Clarisse’s creep article http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/02/men-dont-deserve-the-word-creep/#comment-54679 I personally think she goes a little too far in being angry with herself, because I found the article excellent, but I understand the frustration of always having to be on your guard, always having to make it clear that you’re not condoning anti-feminism while at the same time distancing yourself to a lot of (mainly fictional) feminists.
Also, I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding between the feminists who say that patriarchy hurts men too/that the solution to a lot anti-feminist complaints is more feminism, and the people who blame feminists for not taking up men’s issues. The way I read those feminists was “The main principle of (a lot of) feminism, namely the idea that people are grouped and given different status based on their sex and that this typically casts men in a more powerful/privileged but also restricted role, can be used to address a lot of male issues too”.
Whereas the way it seems to be perceived by the complainers is “Feminists have magical powers of mind-reading, capable of discovering every bit of male hurt, and feminists are currently busy addressing this specific issue”. So when the mainly female feminists (predictably) don’t take initiative to address a whole lot of male concerns, the complainers start attacking them for it. But whenever I’ve seen a guy actually takes the initiative to do what feminists suggested, using a feminist framework to address issues concerning men, especially if he makes it its own conversation, feminists tend to react pretty positively, in a way they don’t when the concern is framed as an attack on them instead.
There’s also the rather important aspect that a lot of men disagree with what the people who complain about feminism consider abuse. In fact, I haven’t met anyone outside feminist or anti-feminist spaces who actually share the view that women initiating intercourse without permission constitute rape (and I’m not even sure about the anti-feminists). That doesn’t mean this is how it should be, but what we need are more men coming forward saying that they actually feel violated when it happens, and the job of female feminists should be to stand behind those men, not taking the forefront.
Hugh, the most recent example of this attitude (talking about men’s rights=justifying attacks on feminism) which springs to mind is Clarisse’s creep article http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/02/men-dont-deserve-the-word-creep/#comment-54679 I personally think she goes a little too far in being angry with herself, because I found the article excellent, but I understand the frustration of always having to be on your guard, always have to make it clear that you’re not condoning anti-feminism while at the same time distancing yourself to a lot of (mainly fictional) feminists.
Also, I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding between the feminists who say that patriarchy hurts men too/that the solution to a lot anti-feminist complaints is more feminism, and the people who blame feminists for not taking up men’s issues. The way I read the feminists was “The main principle of (a lot of) feminism, namely the idea that people are grouped and given different status based on their sex and that this typically casts men in a more powerful/privileged but also restricted role, can be used to address a lot of male issues too”.
Whereas the way it seems to be perceived by the complainers is “Feminists have magical powers of mind-reading, capable of discovering every bit of male hurt, and feminists are currently busy addressing this specific issue”. So when the mainly female feminists (predictably) don’t take initiative to address a whole lot of male concerns, the complainers start attacking them for it. But whenever I’ve seen a guy actually take the initiative to do what feminists suggested, using the feminist framework to address issues concerning men, especially if he makes it its own conversation, feminists tend to react pretty positively, in a way they don’t when the concern is framed as an attack on them instead.
There’s also the rather important aspect that a lot of men disagree with what the people who complain about feminism consider abuse. In fact, I haven’t met anyone outside feminist or anti-feminist spaces who actually share the view that women initiating intercourse without permission constitutes rape (and I’m not even sure about the anti-feminists). That doesn’t mean this is how it should be, but what we need are more men coming forward saying that they actually feel violated when it happens, and the job of female feminists should be to stand behind those men, not taking the forefront.
“Anti-feminist are more interested in defending the rape of women”
Citation?
Way to drag the debate down to level of the worst of MGTOW and Manboobz, where people freely engage in conspiracy theories, out rights lies and hatred unquestioned.
I have to say that its very encouraging to see feminists talking rationally and respectfully about male victims and feminist stat. manipulation. I’ll be watching to see the response from RAINN. I have emailed various organisations about publishing misleading information on abuse before. I’m of the opinion that a lot of their income and support depends on adhering to the ideological feminist view on abuse and that they would experience a backlash from their supporters were they to be telling truth.
Op you said – “One in six men have suffered an unwanted or abusive sexual experience.” That figure is for child sex abuse, the figure for adult rape of males by women seems to be 1 in 4, and there is male of male rape to be considered too. So the number is in excess of 1 in 6.
I honestly wouldn’t count on men being the only ones under-reporting.
“the figure for adult rape of males by women seems to be 1 in 4”
Do you have a source for that?
“AB, I think you’re projecting, quite a lot. I understand that you went through a traumatic experience and I sympathise, I truly do. Your experiences are not everyone’s experiences, though, and I know of plenty of men who have been domestically abused by women, in a very real and concrete way. Much is made of the relative bodyweights of males and females, but humans are a tool-using species and most of the accounts I hear reflect this: heavy objects thrown or just swung and smashed over men’s heads or spines, for example. This isn’t “rough-housing” and seeking to minimise it because it doesn’t match what you’ve seen or encountered just isn’t right.”
The reason I use this as an example (apart from being the closest one I have access to), is that it is a typical case of context (and bodyweight) making a difference. When my violent ex first accused me of being violent against him too, I took it very seriously, and immediately agreed, since I had technically hit him. I didn’t know he even minded, but I didn’t see it as an excuse.
But as I started thinking more about it, certain things just didn’t add up. What exactly had he perceived as violence? It couldn’t be the playful slaps, because he engaged in that sort of thing voluntarily with his friends. It couldn’t be the tickling/wrestling, because I only struggled to get loose while he held me down. I concluded that it must have either been when I didn’t want to be touched and pushed him away more forcefully than usual, or when we argued and I punched his upper chest with deliberately limp fists in frustration.
But even in the latter case, he always either ended up laughing, asking me “Do you really think that hurts?” (which I knew it didn’t), or grabbing my arms and holding me tight until we both calmed down. We did stuff like that when we argued, sure, but it never seemed to bother him (and incidentally, when he held like that I didn’t consider it violence either), and it was actually the times when I just laid down and told him to please stop because I didn’t want to argue any more which ended up being the most violent. I had anger issues for years afterwards because I had learned to respond angrily (while at the same time talking him down) rather than robbing him of the confrontation he sought.
Perhaps he was afraid of me and therefore didn’t dare to tell me to stop, but considering that his treatment of me included statements like “Don’t you dare take that tone with me!” or “Get out of my sight, now!”, I hardly think that was it. Perhaps he was embarrassed because (unlike his violent behaviour) it would come across as unmasculine, but then again, he also openly cried in front of me and told his friends about how whipped he was and how dominating I was at home (men do this a lot I’ve noticed). Perhaps he didn’t want to defend himself because guys weren’t supposed to hit girls, and it was definitely true that he always abstained from hitting. Of course, he didn’t abstain from grabbing, pushing, chocking, and slamming his fist so hard against the door that he left a hole in it right next to my head, so that didn’t fit either.
Eventually, I just asked him straight up “All the times you said I was violent against you, were you ever afraid?”. He looked at me like I was an idiot. To me, the fear had been the all-consuming factor in the relationship, causing me to constantly pay attention to his moods and drinking habits in order to forestall violent confrontation, while at the same time gathering the courage to take the confrontation head-on to not be a victim. I could deal with the physical pain, it was never knowing when it would happen, not having an immediate way of stopping it, and never knowing if this would be the time he would go too far. But for him, nothing.
Further details revealed that he had been psychically hurt, never doubted his ability to stop it, and actually hadn’t minded. Because I stuck to strength-based tactics (where he was always superior) and didn’t go for any vulnerable spots, it was nothing to him. But despite having never even bothered to tell me to stop, he had still felt justified using it against me later. Interestingly, after we became friends, he started to initiate much of the same physical roughness he’d complained about before, but at that time, I’d had enough of it.
I experience this quite a lot, trying to live up to the pretty words about violence being violence and inexcusable, but it alienates me from my male friends and my boyfriend when I do so. Besides, I don’t mind when my male friends playfully slap me either, and whenever I imagine one of the shortest girls in my surroundings slapping me on the cheek because I offended her, all I can think of is that it’s rude, not that it’s threatening. I can hardly blame the guys for feeling the same way.
I read somewhere that women should refrain from the traditional female slaps, because it would make men think it was OK to beat them up. That just blows my mind. If they feel really threatened by it, that is its own issue, fully on par with other types of violence, and if they feel it’s merely offensive, then that’s still an issue well worth addressing. But if the only reasoning behind it is “It doesn’t matter how men feel about it, it’ll give them an excuse to beat up women” then that’s just fucked up.
It’s like those stories where a guy will triumphantly tell about how a girl slapped him on the cheek, and he responded by punching her to the floor. It doesn’t tell me “guys are more hurt and threatened by what women often consider harmless displays of anger than people realise”, it tells me “Guys can be mildly annoyed over women slapping them, and will immediately use it as an excuse to break their noses”. And I feel a little betrayed by how no guy I have met (even guys who have no problem standing up to women) has ever even bothered to tell me if he finds it problematic, and has gleefully engaged in much the same thing with his male friends, and me on occasion, giving me no reason to think it wasn’t OK, and then suddenly having it used as a weapon against me.
Once he was sober, my ex apologised and say he was just looking for ways to make me feel guilty, and given that he was stalking me at the time, talking trash about all my friends (especially potential boyfriends) and calling me at night telling me that if I flirted with another guy he would ram the leg of a chair through my head, I should have known better than taking him seriously.
“trying to dismiss IPV against males with such reasoned arguments as “well my girlfriend hit me once and it didn’t really hurt so guys should just be able to shrug these things off”. Gah.”
I’m fine with it being OK for guys to not be fine with this. But I’m not fine with the idea that this sort of slapping is proof of an epidemic of violence even when the guy is perfectly OK with it. When it comes to “rough-housing”, size and strength does make a difference. Something which is threatening and hurtful to me when my boyfriend does it to me is not necessarily threatening and hurtful when I do it to him. We both know that. That’s why I never go for vulnerable areas on his body and never use a weapon more dangerous than a pillow. After my ex’s accusation I’ve taken to asking first, but if my boyfriend doesn’t feel threatened or pressured to put up with it, I wouldn’t call it violence but I know the CTS does.
“And could you imagine if a masculist organisation that was very well known, very well-respected, widely quoted as a source of statistics, that spoke of reaching “120 million americans a year”, that was in its own words “the organisation Congress turns to every day for input on sexual violence policy” and had the support and sponsorship of major media conglomerates, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defence… (all these things apply to RAINN, according to their press kit)… could you imagine how you would respond if that politically-powerful masculist organisation’s big, banner statistic on rape of females was for a definition that excluded PiV?!
Don’t you think that might make you angry? Don’t you think you might decide they were misogynistic or not really “on your side”, even if they offered support services for female survivors? I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s understandable. In the same way that I don’t think you’re right, but I understand.”
Considering that the CTS originally didn’t include sexual violence or violence which took place after the relationship was over (which is most), and still doesn’t include context, threat-level, and all the stuff I know to be crucial, I know how that feels. And the CTS is the primary source used pretty much everywhere I’ve seen.
“Do you really think Hugh, or we the contributors to this blog, believe those things? Or are you unfairly tarring everybody with the brush of some fringe crazies, exactly the same thing you’re complaining about?”
I don’t recall saying that anyone here believed this, merely that when statistics like this are presented by the same people who say men have always been the servants of women, that all oppression of women is imaginary, and that giving women the vote was a bad thing, I think it’s understandable if people distrust them.
“…I completely understand that, but at the same time, why do you think a female abuser would not also lie, and so balance out the statistics? Why is it only men who you think are the lying liars who lie on surveys, while the women are angels who report honestly and fairly? Don’t you think that comes across as misandric, to project the (appalling, horrible) behaviour of one man, onto all men? To simultaneously dismiss male victims while making sexist accusations?”
I don’t think a situation like my ex and me would ever occur with the sexes reversed, unless the woman was unusually large and the man unusually small or disabled in some way. We’re talking about gentle slapping vs. being held against a wall and told you were going to get killed if you didn’t shut up, listened, and showed your partner the proper respect. This sort of thing happens mainly because of size differences. I considered opposing my boyfriend, but all I could think of which would give me physical control were things like striking him in the crotch or cutting him with a knife, and I was not prepared to engage in that kind of violence. For him, all he needed was to hold me and use pure strength.
It’s not about lying, it’s about technicalities. For instance, my ex made a big deal out of how he’d never slapped or punched me (at that point he must have conveniently forgotten that he’d recently included playful and non-threatening slaps in his definition of violence when I did it), even though it made no difference to me. It was a line he wouldn’t cross, but it was arbitrary in terms of actual damage. Once, I told a friend that in the fight which had caused the breakup, he had grabbed my hair. He went ballistic, because he hadn’t. He had grabbed my shoulders as he pressed me against a wall, and he’d gotten a fistful of a my hair in the process without knowing. I remembered the painful pull of my hair, but he hadn’t noticed, and somehow, it was an extremely important distinction for him.
Going through the CTS, there are a lot of loopholes. For instance, he once strangled me and threatened to kill me if I didn’t have sex with him, but I called his bluff by agreeing, after which he decided to not go through with it because now I’d shown that I really loved him (he was such a romantic). Knowing him at the time, he would probably not consider it a death threat (since he gave me a choice), and he wouldn’t consider it an instance of forced sex either (since he hadn’t actually raped me), but anything else on the list is too mild for what really happened. Likewise, I’m also not sure his displays of physical strength and anger (such as breaking stuff in front of me) would register as a threat to him, since he hadn’t technically told me “do this or else…”. And forget about the stalking, because standing in front of my house at night screaming what I bitch I was doesn’t count as either violence or a threat either.
And as he already demonstrated, he would have been perfectly willing to report me as violent even though he had always felt completely safe and capable of stopping it (and had been getting a harsher treatment from several of his), because the survey doesn’t ask about context. The the time I kicked out while he held me against my will (while I was repeatedly telling him to let go) would probably go on that survey too. Ironically, I would never have reported him as violent when he did similar things to me (e.g. grabbed me firmly but non-threateningly when I was upset to calm me down, making it clear that I had the option to break loose (this time)), because to me, it wasn’t violence. If that kind of grabbing had been the only grabbing, I would probably not have reported it because it wouldn’t count.
And if I’d actually fought back on an even level (i.e. exerting the same amount of physical force over him and being as high a level of threat), I would have registered as the most violent of us by far, because I’d have to use weapons as a threat, or hurt him so bad he’d be physically unable to retaliate. Since he could achieve the same result by physical strength alone, he’d never need to go that far, which is the primary reason he almost never officially went into the territory of ‘severe violence’. The single act of choking is actually the only reason we wouldn’t have come up as pretty much equally violent on the CTS. If he hadn’t made that one mistake, he’d have been technically, and officially, right when he called the violence equal. Thank god for heroin.
And even if we decided to believe in the CTS, there’d still be the issue of more women reporting fear, which (and I’m talking mainly by personal experience here, though I have met few victims of domestic violence who didn’t feel the same way) tend to be better indication of abuse than the physical acts. But of course, that’s just women’s feelings, and they don’t count.
Yes there are several that are already posted on the thread, Ill post them again.
Predictors of Sexual Coercion Against Women and Men:
A Multilevel, Multinational Study of University Students
Denise A. Hines
Click to access ID45-PR45.pdf
quick bread down of the results here http://feck-blog.blogspot.com/2011/05/predictors-of-sexual-coercion-against.html
Men’s Reports of Nonconsensual Sexual Interactions with Women: Prevalence and Impact
Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t88035m5295g6751/
Hmm… you’re right. The sexual violence survivors who found my blog circles uncongenial are unlikely to stick around. 🙂
Your information is fascinating and is actually what I meant by “historical accident”– i.e. it’s not that feminists who ignore male rape are (usually) evil, it’s that they’re biased. 🙂 Various sexist cultural narratives– the disposability of men, the control of women’s sexuality, etc.– combined with the feminist movement’s tendency to focus on women made male survivors invisible. This is, of course, completely wrong on so many levels and must be fought.
EDIT – those figures (in moderation) are just for men raped by women.Male on male and inside and outside prison are not included.
Jess, have you honestly never heard of a person being raped and murdered?
All right, then. Let’s take Vietnam veterans– it’s been long enough ago that the Veterans’ Administration has really no reason to lie about the rate of PTSD. 30% of Vietnam veterans have had some symptoms of PTSD, roughly the same as the number of rape survivors who have PTSD.
The human brain is remarkably resilient and can sometimes endure incredible trauma without breaking down. This doesn’t mean that the trauma is somehow less awful; it simply means that, sometimes, humans are kind of amazing.
What Cheradenine said.
That still sounds pretty hurtful.
Saying to a survivor of rape that they benefit from the rape of another group of people has got to be hugely triggering.
I did a 3-part series to debunk this very post….only did 2 parts though (really have to finish that one)
http://feck-blog.blogspot.com/2009/08/re-are-men-equal-victims-part-1_26.html
AB, please, I don’t think you’re reading what I’m writing. I feel like you’re having an argument with your ex, not with me. I am not your ex, and I never accused you of violence towards your ex, and you don’t need to defend yourself to me about that. It’s okay, truly. For your own health as much as anything else, you need to get out of the loop of going over those old fights.
Please re-read my earlier comment and this time, try and think about other couples.
When you say, “But I’m not fine with the idea that this sort of slapping is proof of an epidemic of violence even when the guy is perfectly OK with it” please try and understand many men are experiencing things that are not “this sort of slapping”. I know you “don’t think a situation like my ex and me would ever occur with the sexes reversed”, but sadly this isn’t the case.
It happens. Not just due to size difference, either; it happens due to many factors, including temperament, circumstance and opportunity.
No amount of “size difference” protects you when you’re sleeping, even if you assume males always have the size advantage (which isn’t true of many couples I know).
When you write:
I’m glad to hear that, but there are women who do use weapons, women who cause grievous bodily harm to their partners:
Regarding statistics, the first thing I want to make clear is that, just like many US surveys, the British Crime Survey shows high levels of female-on-male violence, yet it uses a different system from the CTS and is designed to include the things you say the CTS excludes. Stalking, threats of violence as well as violence, danger from previous (not current) partners, and so on, are all covered by the BCS (and are broken down in the figures). You can read pages and pages and pages of notes on the development of the IPV questions in the technical report, including things like the steps they take to ensure that a person in a potentially hostile situation can still answer honestly without reprisal.
You say “statistics like this are presented by the same people who say men have always been the servants of women”, but they are not. These statistics are presented by academic researchers and by government departments, and by teams with women on them (3 out of 4 of the authors of that technical report are women, for example). The fact that they may later get reprinted on an MRA website doesn’t magically taint them with madness and misogyny.
Perhaps that response will help.
I took a look at Amp’s post. I can identify several main criticisms.
1. “Studies that include acquaintances, past relationships, hook-ups, etc., tend to find a lot more sexual abuse of women (relative to men).”
This is uncited so it’s hard to respond to. How current relationships could have more sexual abuse then past relationships for men is odd; but this study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100525090554.htm
may offer a clue why. People tend to ‘scrub’ women’s violence from their memories.
As for the rest, how much ‘date rape’ is captured by ‘rape in romantic relationships’ is in question. No answer yet, but it seems rather counter-intuitive that women would be raping men preferentially in romantic relationships but not in hook ups or as acquaintances.
“There was no question about rape while drugged or drunk unconscious; there were very few questions about rape at all (most experts believe that multiple, very specific questions get more accurate answers), in fact.”
I would imagine that female rapists are even more likely to exploit drugged or unconscious men as these are factors that neutralize men’s greater strength.
“Finally, like too many studies, they didn’t attempt to account for the fact that (on average) men and women don’t interpret being “forced to have sex” the same way. ”
Thankfully the actual survey *did* distinguish between verbal and physical coercion so this criticism is not only moot but seems to actively misrepresent the survey.
As a final point, all of his criticisms of the IDVS are even more pertinent to the NVAWS.
Cheradenine, I’m not arguing that I wasn’t violent, or that my ex was. I’m arguing that according to the CTS, both of us were violent, and baring a single episode involving him chocking me, our violence was of equal severity. That tells me quite clearly that the CTS is a crappy tool for measuring abuse. Possibly the best there is, but crappy nonetheless.
And since my case relied heavily on the physical differences (as I said, I would have had to resort to more serious violence to get the desired result if I’d been the abusive one, which your examples indicate is also the case for other women), I naturally find it problematic when this is ignored. Not to mention that whatever you say about seriously violent women, most people I’ve seen discuss it have focussed on things like scenes in movies where a woman will slap a guy who cheated on her and everybody will act like he deserved it.
One of the clearest examples I recall a debate about a German poster warning that women will defend themselves and that unwanted touching could get you slapped, and the responses were immediately about how it excused violence against men (first link I found dealing with it, I do not take responsibility for any viewpoints in the post http://nocookiesforme.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-being-victim.html).
Furthermore, when CTS studies show that women appear more affected by the violence than men (more likely to be seriously hurt, sexually molested, stalked, feeling threatened, whatever), which I’ve seen several of them do, and this is ignored because it’s not considered as reliable as the parts about who hits who, or excused by women being pussies, the whole point of the studies is moot. The funny thing is that I used to be one of the biggest advocates for doing something about domestic violence against men, but after hearing complaint after complaint about slapstick comedy being part of misandrist conspiracy justifying violence against men, I’ve started to wonder how many of those anti-violence advocates actually care.
The 1 in 33 comes from the NVAWS.
It explicitly excludes almost every category of rape (of men) perpetrated by women. In fact the only types of female-on-male sexual assault it would have captured would have been women penetrating men anally or orally with foreign objects and forcing them to receive rim jobs. The most common form of female-on-male rape, forced vaginal envelopment, would have not been captured, for example.
The 1 in 33 number thus captures mostly male-on-male sexual assault with a small amount of female-on-male sexual assault. Saying this represents the full spectrum of male victims of sexual assault is dishonest.
Interestingly enough, the NVAWS captures a disproportionate amount of attempted rape of men (the proportion of men who said they had been victims of attempted rape was higher then the relative proportion of women who did.) This may be because their question on attempted rape, rather bizarrely, captures more of the spectrum of female-on-male sexual violence.
oops, this was already pointed out!
I actually was told this by a feminist blogger commenting over at Womanist Musings (it was NOT Renee). One of her commenters felt compelled to smash me over the head with it – on a thread that Renee had created after reading my own rape account which had moved her to examine her own preconceptions regarding rape and gender. Renee treated my experience with respect and we had an affirming and nice email exchange.
What her feminist blogger commenter said, however, was thoroughly minimizing, ugly and malicious. The person making those ugly and off-topic comments has no idea of the damage they did when I was quite vulnerable and seeking support. It was almost predatory in the manner which she employed it. I don’t see myself capable of forgiving her for turning my own personal experience (as covered by Renee) into an excuse to engage in HATEFUL, calculated secondary wounding that served no purpose in that discussion.
Anytime I see someone through the “men benefit from rape” meme in the face of male rape survivors I tend to get either naseous or extremely angry. It is minimizing and I cannot fathom how someone would find it proper to wound a survivor by telling they benefit from rapes committed by others.
Where is my rape benefit when I’m up all night again for the third night in a row or when I’m crawling out of my skin or can’t decide whether to put my fist through the wall or scream my lungs out? It is not necessary to this to rape survivors, no matter how much some people clearly enjoy it.
For me, that phrase, no matter how matter-of-factly worded translates to: “sorry about that whole getting raped thing, but hey – you can console yourself with the fact that more women are raped then men so shut your precious privileged ass up.”
Sorry, but it is an outright ugly thing to do to a rape survivor regardless of how softly you deal the blow.
Having given this some time to percolate…. I’m going to respond again.
>A more accurate and less hurtful message would be that the legitimization of rape against females by males is, by patriarchal standards, beneficial to men.
I really don’t see how the rape of women is beneficial to my father, my brother, my husband. In fact I find this presumption disturbing hate-speech.
Just so you know, in the past I have also argued against the idea that the lenient way we treat female sexual abuse is somehow beneficial to women.
It’s not. It’s only ‘beneficial’ to the minority of women who rape (and even that’s arguable since living with untreated, unacknowledged psychosis is its own kind of prison. And that’s not to minimize the agency of female rapists, I’d say the same about male rapists.)
It’s actively hurtful to the majority of women who don’t rape because not only do they see their husbands and sons and fathers and brothers not get justice when they are sexually victimized, but the underlying dynamic is complicit in removing women’s agency overall.
Dynamics that remove women’s agency (and people who want to try to give women ‘selective’ agency–ie. if they do good then it can be acknowledged, but if they do bad, sweep it under the rug–are actually force multipliers in this) are absolutely toxic to women.
You want to know why a budding girl mathematician encounters calculus and gives up and goes into biology instead? Because Mary Kay Letourneau ‘seduced’ her victim and didn’t rape him. Because female-on-male rape isn’t real rape. Because female-on-male DV isn’t real DV. Because female criminals aren’t as criminal as male criminals. Because women don’t have the same consequences to their actions thus don’t see their actions as having the same potency in their lives as men’s actions. Budding girl mathematician thinks she can’t do calculus because she can’t make the connection between her actions(practice calculus) and her outcomes(knowing calculus) and gives up if something doesn’t come to her easily. Every day, in small and subtle ways, we remove women’s agency and set them up for failure.
I’m honestly tired of oppression olympics and discussion on ‘who has it worse’ because as I’ve evolved in my thinking I’ve realized that men and women are both loosing out in this system in completely different but utterly complimentary ways.
Here’s a question.
How does acknowledging men as equal victims of rape and DV affect female victims of rape and DV in any way?
Aside from removing toxic female victimhood from the discourse and actually respecting women’s agency?
AB
You seem to be determined to make this thread about yourself and your ex’s violent relationship, unfounded criticism of the cts and misrepresenting mra’s and anti-feminists. The point of this thread is to provide a feminist space where male victims can share without abuse of males being it being deliberately derailed and minimized by feminists.
Though I criticized the Denise Hines study above, now I’ve read the IDVS questionnaire I’d like to abandon that (the questions are phrased such that all rape questions do in fact ask for rape and not merely skeevyness) and pick up on a probably more crucial target of criticism:
None of the verbal coercion questions says or implies that the rape actually happened. “252. I insisted on sex when my partner did not want to (but did not use physical force)” does not imply “and we had sex because I insisted on it”. And all the other “insisted on sex” questions are phrased similarly.
Bit odd, because all the other rape questions are phrased “…to make my partner have sex with me” or some equivalent. Funny for such an otherwise well designed study to leave such an obvious hole in their wording.
Because it might not be true?
We’re not denying the moon here; there have been a lot of studies on this and they say things all over the map. You can’t assume you’re right because a few studies say you’re right; we also have a few studies that say we’re right.
Which is what you just said…
when there was no injury, or when it wasn’t in the severe violence category, yes it will end up being rated at equal severity.
I read through your other long post and must admit I am kind of dumbfounded and am not sure what you try to argue here. Tell me where I get you wrong. You are fed up with the CTS because it finds too many male victims The CTS has loopholes because it does not ask for enough details and doesn’t rate violence on a 100 point scale but only has categories for severe and injury? You are totally fighting for male DV victims, men just shouldn’t take being slapped by their girlfriends seriously?
Women tend to use more weapons as an equalizer. Sometimes they even use other man/police sth. which the CTS btw also does not measure. In the end, between 33-38% of injured victims are male. What you also seem to ignore is psychical damage and guys who just won’t hit or intimate girls because they have been raised that way. Not everyone acts violent against their so.
Well yeah, which it somehow does….
And this is a problem. As violence begets further violence it would be really nice if we could agree that violence should never be used against your so and that excusing such violence is wrong. It doesn’t help here, it makes it worse.
When studies bring this up (injury is usually brought up) it means they ignore this? What? As far as I recall most researchers as well as people like Glenn Sacks mention the difference in injury.
I don’t even….assume there were slapstick comedies with mostly wifes being hit by their husbands, imagine what the feminist reaction would be and tell us what you would think about them. Also, do you think those would help fight violence against women?
I don’t assume I’m right. But I do know that the few studies that find otherwise have serious methodological flaws in terms of capturing female-on-male sexual abuse.
And I’m not wedded to the idea that women are victims; in fact, quite the opposite, I think the mythology surrounding woman-as-victim is actively harmful to women and should be avoided at all costs.
In other words if there is a suspicion that women are not victimized by X at greater rates then men, we should endeavor to at least call the situation ‘unknown’ not perpetuate toxic and potentially false female victimhood.
Depends on what is said and what is asked most studies point in one directions.
Partner physical agressiveness mostly equal. Injury rate not equal.
By far the majority of DV research point in this direction. There isn’t that much studies done on male rape sadly.
Brian.
When you say “You can’t assume you’re right because a few studies say you’re right; we also have a few studies that say we’re right” do you realize that you are comparing genuine independent research with advocacy research?
The advocacy figures from Rainn which seem to be the most often quoted figures by feminists (1 in 33 for men, 1 in 6 for women) have already been debunked by a number of people on the thread. You seem to have something of a bias here..
Brian, who is this “we” you represent?
Just wondering, since they seem to have their own research team. I’d like to discuss their studies and the built-in bias.
Thanks.
Can you provide a link to this, please?
Of course they’d react positively. That doesn’t mean that he did anything right necessarily. Capitulating and pandering to someone else is ass-kissing, not intellectual honesty de facto.
Well that’s pretty fucking disgusting. If you don’t innately know that rape is rape, you have no moral compass. It’s no one’s job to convince morally bankrupt feminists that they’re hypocrites in that aspect.
Repeat after me: Violence is always violence. I don’t care if you used pillows, I don’t care if you didn’t aim for vulnerable spots, I don’t care if you’re small, I don’t care if you’re joking, I don’t care if you think it doesn’t matter, I don’t care if he does it with his friends. Violence is inexcusable and indefensible. Period. Over.
I think you missed the point: Abuse isn’t a zero sum game. Admitting that men are hurt a lot doesn’t mean that women aren’t.
Sounds like we are on the same page here.
Cheradenine said:
Thanks. I do my best.
In case anyone is curious, I once told the story at Clarisse Thorn’s blog about why I felt harmed by the feminist anti-violence education I received. (Example: at a mandatory assembly when I was around 15, the anti-rape speaker broke down in tears describing her rape, but said that she “didn’t know” how men should go about initiating in a positive way. For some time after that, even thinking about sexuality would trigger me into flashbacks of the horror story she told.)
Once I ran into pickup and men’s rights, I realized the role of feminist messages in damaging my development, I was very angry, and it was very tough for me to contemplate sexual violence towards women, because I associated the subject with anxiety, guilt, and misandry. Luckily, when I’ve told this story to feminists, several have been supportive of me and told me that they aren’t cool with the style of “education” I received, which has helped me heal.
In short it rules out me for one, just mentioning it in case someone are harbouring the idea that rape by enveloping is not possible/does not exist.
Doctormindbeam, I’m not sure you read what I said. Or perhaps you did, but drew a completely different conclusion. I wouldn’t call a man using a feminist framework to address his issues ‘capitulating’ if it works for him.
And frankly, I have yet to see a single case of someone saying “I don’t mind a feminist framework, I think there’s a definite value to it, and I recognise the positive contributions feminism has made, but that particular framework doesn’t work for me, and doesn’t address my situation”, rather than something along the lines of “Feminists have utterly failed because they haven’t addressed my particular issues all by themselves” or simply “Feminists are bunch of ugly lesbians/dumb whores”.
Considering that people here talk so much about understanding those who are bitter at feminism, I see surprisingly little empathy for the sheer amount of harassment many feminists are subjected to. While I’m not sure about what you mean by morally bankrupt feminists, I do think that if you believe it is the job of of feminists to calmly and politely reason with and enlighten people who routinely compare them to Nazis and accuse them of causing everything from divorce to global warming, the least you could do was setting an example by calmly and politely reasoning with these alleged morally bankrupt feminists, whoever they are.
Nobody is counting on that. Can you stop trying to derail the thread,
Brian.
You have been citing advocacy research that has been debunked – RAINN and a few posts by Julian Real and yet you are looking to discredit genuine independent research thats far above and beyond feminist sources in terms of credibility, so Its my impression that you are a feminist with an agenda to marginalize male victims.
Of course, let me correct it: I wouldn’t count on female under-reporting automatically being significantly rarer than male under-reporting. Better?
If you want to tabulate that. Look at research and measure that against the reporting rates and you will see which group is under-reporting. Stop trying to derail the discussion with nonsense.
Jess, feminists do not generally have an agenda to marginalize male survivors. (They may marginalize male survivors, but it is almost always more out of ignorance and bias than malice and intention.) Also, many feminists, including myself and nearly all of the other contributors, have accepted the results of this research.
From From Tamen:It also irks me when someone always feel the need to point out that although men can be raped it is also men who most often are the rapist. That anomalise my experience and I can’t even imagine how it must feel for a male victim of a male rapist to hear this – his experience in essence dismissed since the perpetrator was male.
ozymandias42:
Jess, feminists do not generally have an agenda to marginalize male survivors. (They may marginalize male survivors, but it is almost always more out of ignorance and bias than malice and intention.) Also, many feminists, including myself and nearly all of the other contributors, have accepted the results of this research.
What I quoted above from Tame is why I have a hard time believing the “ignorance and bias than malice and intention” reason for marginalizing male survivors (and I again point to those among feminists who straight up declare that men cannot be marginalized, oppressed, etc…as men). You would think that as people who are part of a movement who rose up partly because of the marginalization of women would at least put some effort into not doing the same to other people. I’m not saying they should have a spotless record in which they are always mindful, I’m thinking it just wouldn’t happen so often and it be so widely accepted.
Nobody,
Like Brian write, the Hines study doesn’t specifically ask whether any sexual act resulted from coercion. Forced and coerced vaginal sex and oral/anal sex were all reported at about 2% of the population surveyed for men and women.
I only read the abstract of the Kraye et al. paper. It groups kissing and petting in with intercourse and oral sex, with kissing/petting being the most prevalent. I don’t think that kissing/petting is considered rape, so the prevalence of rape would be somewhat lower.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that one in four have been raped by women from those studies.
Perhaps it’s a language thing since English is not a first language for me, but for me the use of the word “insisted” does at least strongly imply that what was insisted upon actually occured. Wouldn’t one use terms like “I tried to insist…” in those cases where the insisting was unsuccesful? Part of the definition of insist in Merriam-Webster is to not accept refusal.
I think Jess’s comments about an agenda were directed towards Brian, not towards feminists in general.
I don’t agree with Jess’s assessment of Brian’s agenda, but I do find it disappointing that Brian was defending the NVAWS and hasn’t acknowledged its flaws even though several people went to a lot of effort to point them out. I think Brian’s skepticism towards some of these studies is valuable; I just wish he was applying it evenly. I could see how this might look like an agenda.
Machina
This is women self reporting.
“Women’s Sexual Aggression Against Men: Prevalence and Predictors
Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Germany – 2003
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4038x61400l8273/?p=f4627938f6ee449bad67bc5f803aebf8
The moral superiourity of women is just a belief, religious and feminist mythology aside, men and women are equally capable of bad behaviour. Kraye et al – you are correct, it finds that 1 in 4 men have been raped or sexually assaulted by women. As for Hines, verbal coercion excluded, men experience forced rape by women more often than visa versa.
I think is funny that people will except the figures on women, from dubious feminist sources so readily, and then go through much more credible research looking for flaws when they don’t conform to certain inaccurate gender stereotypes and political belief systems.
@Ozymandias
“Jess, feminists do not generally have an agenda to marginalize male survivors. (They may marginalize male survivors, but it is almost always more out of ignorance and bias than malice and intention.) Also, many feminists, including myself and nearly all of the other contributors, have accepted the results of this research.”
Hi Ozy, feminism has a clear track record of an agenda to marginalize male victims.
Click to access Politics%20of%20research.pdf
Click to access V74-gender-symmetry-with-gramham-Kevan-Method%208-.pdf
That’s not to say that ALL followers of feminism have that agenda, but I think that its fair to say that most will not allow real discussion of male victims to take place. That’s why this blog is unique in feminist circles.
You may find this post and the first half-dozen comments helpful in understanding some of the problems that male survivors have with feminism and in feminist-controlled spaces.
For some reason the comment timestamped 11:42 AM 2006 appears further down the thread than it should. It should be in second place. Please bear this in mind as otherwise the thread could be a bit confusing.
[TW sexual assault and violence] I don’t know about legally, but personally I believe that if there is violence occuring with the intent to have sex with someone unwilling, even if they don’t succeed in making sexual contact, that is still, to me, a sexual assault (if the survivor wants to classify it that way). I have a friend who recently told me a story of a man trying to drag her into an alleyway. She managed to escape without her breasts or genitals being touched, but with scratched arms and bruises. The mental impact of this was clearly altered because of the man’s easily apparent desire to rape her. I imagine she would have been just as affected by someone assaulting her to steal things or just to randomly beat the crap out of her, but it would have been in different way, I think.
To any survivors, I am not trying to tell you how to define your experiences. It is totally your right to define them for yourselves.
Skeevy, then?
I find that a combination of the two covers everything I need to say.
I want to point out here that patching together data from a bunch of sources is not reliable.
A study about a college in Ohio does not say anything about rates of rape in downtown Los Angeles. It certainly doesn’t say anything about rape rates outside of the US.
You seem to be missing the point of the analogy.
The idea is that “men are raped often” is used less to say “and therefore we should help them” and more to say “and therefore feminism is wrong neener neener”.
Not that that’s justification for ignoring them outright, of course, but it does make you suspicious of people who wander into your thread and yell “but men can be raped too!”
I must say I mental blocked that the definition didn’t cover rape by women. So you’re right; though I still don’t think it’s dishonest to use that study, it is at least lazy.
All danger is life-threatening. EVERYTHING is life-threatening. If you say “rape is not life-threatening” you vastly overestimate how sturdy your body is.
For fuck’s sake, people have died during REGULAR sex before.
@Jess: One, you haven’t responded to my argument, two you’re assuming bad faith. So I’m ignoring you from now on.
@Tamen: I insist you delete that post! There, I’ve just insisted that you deleted that post. But your post is still there, so it can’t mean that you’ve actually deleted the post.
@Hugh: I have acknowledged the flaws of the NVAWS. If you’d like me to repeat myself, (and I AM repeating myself), it’s overly strict towards all rape and it doesn’t cover some kinds of rape that can only be committed towards men.
That would be the point if the post said “ackowledging men as victims of rape and domestic violence”. But it actually said “ackowledging men as equal victims of rape and domestic violence”.
The reason I’m not acknowledging men as equal victims of rape is that from the evidence I’ve seen I don’t think they are equal victims of rape.
My side of the argument, of course.
Now, are you going to post something serious, or are you going to continue to make fun of me?
Of course I have a bias. Everyone has a bias.
By calling the (many and varied) studies that say men are raped less than women “advocacy research” and the (many and varied) studies that say men are raped as much as women “genuine independent research” you reveal you also have a bias; it’s just opposite mine.
Jess, I’ve noticed through your posts you almost always assume bad faith.
Are you familiar with Hanlon’s Razor? It’s a good rule; most people are not evil and painting them as evil just makes you look silly.
Because it isn’t? Or at least, not compared to mainstream society.
Feminism, I agree, doesn’t talk enough about male rape victims enough. But the rest of society doesn’t talk about male rape victims at all. I know the situation is really pathetic, but just by acknowledging that men can be raped feminists are way ahead of everyone else.
Please read the Strauss pdf:
Sadly, most studies do not look at the rate men are raped or like in the case of the NVAWS exclude female on male rape. I doubt there are really that much studies out there about male rape victims, or do you have an impressive bibliography at hand?
Brian
So far you have have been quoting advocacy research as if it were genuine research and I’m not sure that there are many and varied studies that measure male non consensual sex. Also, “insisted” implies completion in the past tense, it doesn’t imply failure.
What evidence have you seen Brian?
Brian,
The mens movement have been talking about raped and abused males and citing the research for a long time now.
Brian
I was responding to the assertion that feminism doesn’t consciously marginalize male victims.
I posted two papers by respected researchers about the methods that academic feminism has been using to create the illusion that domestic violence is gendered and another piece in which a feminist (David Futrelle) recently tried to minimise male victims using some of the methods brought up by Straus and Gelles. Its common for followers of feminism to be either unaware of the academic fraud surrounding female victimhood and repeat what they have been told believing it to be true or to consciously participate in the deception. When I’m pointing this out, I’m not acting in bad faith.
Post something serious? As a male survivor of rape I take this topic more seriously than you can possibly comprehend. As someone who has found both support and vicious secondary wounding at the hands of some feminists, I take it very seriously when someone invokes the officious imperial we with regard to discussions on male sexual victimization. No socio-political movement is a monolith and feminists are not excluded from this reality, except by those lacking the ability to see the fractures, conflicting viewpoints and clashing factions and subfactions. When speaking on behalf of “we” with regard to diverse and global movement, a person should rightfully expect to be met with skepticism
As someone who both deals with the after-effects of sexual violence on a personal and daily level AND who combats such as an speaker off the internet, I’m quite serious and my prior postings here have made that abundantly clear.
Another interesting finding.
The incidence of sexual contact with boys by women was found more prevalent than had been contended in the clinical literature. Male penitentiary inmates reported higher heterosexual contact as children than did college men. The effects upon the boy and his later adult sex life were generally reported as not traumatic, although coercion by the woman tended to be associated with a bad feeling about the experience at the time and a negative effect upon adult sex life. The majority of women were friends, neighbors, baby sitters, and strangers to the boy. Intercourse and genital touching were the predominant forms of sexual activity…..”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j15w567kr77k2807/
Feckless: “Which is what you just said…”
No, not unless you’re also willing to define S&M as violence. What I did was always consensual. Non-negotiated, but consensual. If I’d misjudged and he’d actually been hurt, scared, or simply wanted me very much to stop but not felt capable of telling me, it would have been violence. And if I’d wanted to use it for threat, hurt, or physical dominion, it would have been violence too.
But just because the Cosmo-style of (non)communication leaves a lot of opportunity for hidden abuse doesn’t make every single instance of it abusive. If people didn’t have right to not categorise something as violence every time it could conceivably be, I’d have been a victim of considerably more violence than I really have (just the times guys have slapped my butt, not to mention the tickling….).
“when there was no injury, or when it wasn’t in the severe violence category, yes it will end up being rated at equal severity.”
I never used physical force as a threat, ever. I never used force to inflict physical hurt, ever. I never used force to restrict or control his movements, ever. I never failed to respect “No”, “Stop”, “Get away from me” or any other indication of distress, ever. He did all of that to me, but the CTS does not see fit to make that distinction. Those are some pretty major differences, more so than several of the distinctions the CTS otherwise makes.
“You are fed up with the CTS because it finds too many male victims”
No. I’m fed up with the CTS because it is so often presented as measuring violence but doesn’t.
“The CTS has loopholes because it does not ask for enough details and doesn’t rate violence on a 100 point scale but only has categories for severe and injury?”
The CTS has loopholes because it often doesn’t measure threat, intent, severity, or illegality.
“You are totally fighting for male DV victims, men just shouldn’t take being slapped by their girlfriends seriously?”
I’m fully behind male DV victims, and fully in favour of everyone being allowed to set their own boundaries, even when it comes to otherwise friendly instances of physical contact such as hugs, but I refuse to believe that all the guys who say, and show, that they do not find gentle slaps any more aggravating or traumatising than harsh words, and who otherwise have no problem standing up to girls even in areas where their manhood could questioned, are all unreliable and scared into silence by some secret misandrist conspiracy.
And I find it problematic that women are rarely exposed to men voicing displeasure (let alone hurt) over things like female slapping, despite many men making loud complaints over practically every other female behaviour in existence, but rather than address this problem, people act like it’s all about society hating men.
You know what changed between the time when I was allegedly (according to the CTS and you) a violent girlfriend and now when I’m not? Nothing. Nothing that would register on the CTS or anywhere else. I’ve started seeking more explicit consent, but that’s no different than someone starting to seek more explicit consent to sex than before. It’s safer, but it doesn’t mean they used to be a rapist.
“Women tend to use more weapons as an equalizer.”
But it also means that that their violence will be rated more serious even when used no differently. Having seen a fist break wood and knowing it can do the same to your face can be a big enough threat all on its own, but it mainly works for people who can actually punch a door out of its hinges, and it wont be considered as serious. Thinking about it, I believe Danish law equates martial arts practice (and dogs) with weapons in some instances, so technically my boyfriend did threaten me with a weapon (and possibly used one against me), but again, it wouldn’t show up on the CTS unless I decided to use the legal definition (and I don’t know anyone who would).
“In the end, between 33-38% of injured victims are male.”
About a third, and taking into account that women generally need harsher methods to achieve the same result (I’m pretty pissed that what separates my ex (apart from that one time choking) from people who commit ‘severe’ violence, is nothing but the presence of larger muscles and fighting training). And again, the things I experienced, and hear about, and read about, as absolutely dominating in abusive relationships, are all but absent on the CTS.
“What you also seem to ignore is psychical damage and guys who just won’t hit or intimate girls because they have been raised that way. Not everyone acts violent against their so.”
I specifically included physical damage. In fact, I said it was a better indication of abuse than the mere presence of slaps. And I don’t quite know where you’re going with guys not hitting back. Of course it’s a problem, but it’s not some extra problem adding to the problems recorded by the CTS, it’s one of the reasons it happens, just like there are reasons it happens to women.
If anything, it makes men appear to be even more victimised compared to women, because a woman futilely struggling will register as violent while a man resigning and holding back because he’s not supposed to hit girls will be considered the sole victim. Not to mention that among people accepting the CTS as valid, the man will receive sympathy, and the woman will be told “The CTS accurately measures violence, you register as violent according to the CTS, you are therefore violent”. Which you did.
“Well yeah, which it somehow does….”
If you count slapping someone who gropes you uninvited as violence.
“And this is a problem. As violence begets further violence it would be really nice if we could agree that violence should never be used against your so and that excusing such violence is wrong. It doesn’t help here, it makes it worse.”
Sure, but it goes back to my point that whenever there are complaints about violence against men being accepted, people are talking about the kind of slaps which, as wrong as they are, I can’t relate to being threatening (at least not when coming from someone considerably smaller than me). But whenever people actually talk about violence against men, the imagery is more that of a boy lying crying the floor while his girlfriend kicks him with a steel-toed boot. And with your definitions of violence, I can’t even agree that it shouldn’t be used.
“When studies bring this up (injury is usually brought up) it means they ignore this? What? As far as I recall most researchers as well as people like Glenn Sacks mention the difference in injury.”
Studies show it, but it is rarely focussed on (or even mentioned) when those studies are brought up. And to get back to the topic, this also means that many people are suspicious when those studies are brought up, because they rarely tell the whole story. The 1 in 6 seems legitimate, but I have also never seen it presented even remotely unbiased and non-hostile before.
“I don’t even….assume there were slapstick comedies with mostly wifes being hit by their husbands, imagine what the feminist reaction would be and tell us what you would think about them. Also, do you think those would help fight violence against women?”
First off, you’re talking about a cultural difference here. The USA is quite conservative (and often anti-feminist), and therefore relies on old-fashioned gender norms. One of the biggest movie successes in Denmark featured a man punching a woman in the face because she was annoying, causing her to stagger back with a bleeding nose. He’s the protagonist and it’s a comedy. Secondly, American movies still feature men using violence against women without being condemned for it, it’s just more often in the form of knocking them out for their own good. The forms and reasoning change, but it’s not as completely one-sided as you make it.
Third, it used to be quite common for men to hit women, and it wasn’t just the rather impotent slaps which the men seemed more offended over than anything else, it was things like spanking, where a husband would hold down his wife while administering physical pain and humiliation on her to get her to obey him (for her own good). Oh, and rape, which still happened until fairly recently. The reason it stopped was because feminists objected. And they had to object, defend their stances, and endure ridicule for a long time before it ceased.
And I would love for men to do the same, object more, and present coherent arguments about why it was damaging, and have boys and men who felt hurt, scared, or traumatised by being slapped on the cheek step up and tell about it. Because honestly, I don’t know many women who even know that it is considered scary or hurtful by guys, the way I’m sure most men know that holding down a woman against her will while slapping her buttocks is something a lot of women wont accept. This goes doubly for sexual force and cohersion.
But to present it as some widespread oppression of men (done by women), when women had to fight for decades for it to become objectionable to subject them to an even worse treatment, strikes me as dishonest and more an attempt to score points than changing anything. Furthermore, violence against women is still considered funny. I have seen numerous instances (mostly on American TV shows and movies) of girls getting into a fight and the guys around them yelling “CHICK-FIGHT!” and gather around to laugh at it and become aroused. Taking into account that intrasexual violence appears to be more common than intersexual violence in both sexes, how’s that for begetting violence?
I was thinking of Dr Seuss when I read doctormindbeam’s comment
Do not hit your domestic partner
Do not hit them just for laughter
Do not hit them cause you’re sad
Do not hit them cause your mad
Do not hit them if they’re a chick
Do not hit them if they have a dick
Do not hit them with a bat
Do not hit them with a hat
Not with a rake, not with a snake, not with a knife, not with a fife, not with a book not with a crook, not with a chair, not with a flare
Hitting’s wrong (or so they say)
Except in one specific way;
You get to hit in self defence
Otherwise, it’s domestic vi-o-lence!
I don’t think your post and Ozymandias’s post are contradictory. I agree with her that “generally” feminist don’t seek to marginalize male survivors. The problem isn’t with the most feminists; the problem is with certain feminist leaders and educators, particularly ones who do anti-violence work. This influential minority of feminists keeps the majority of feminists ignorant and misinformed about sexual violence towards men. This pattern occurs in many areas.
The majority of people in political movements are good people. It’s the vanguard of the proletariat that’s the real problem.
So it is also indefensible when his friends do it, and when he does it? It’s indefensible when done to me and I don’t mind?
I agree with that entirely Hugh Ristik.
I would say good people that have been conditioned to think and say bad things through ideology. It’s not exactly uncommon in our history is it? At the same time. If I post on say feministe or manboobz with the more accurate research, I’m pretty sure that a sizable % of the followers of feminism there will consciously be saying anything to dismiss me and it, I believe and that’s the reason that there is so much anger towards feminists in the men’s movement. I also believe that the miss-education and misleading of followers of feminism, and society by the educators and others at the top, is the main source of the misandry in feminism and much of the misandry we see in society. I would go as far as to say that hate is being deliberately created by the propagandists at the top and that a large industry has been built around the misinformation, that needs the illusion in order to perpetuate itself.
That said, when ordinary followers of feminism are claiming that advocacy for male victims, is really about men wanting to victimize women which is very common and unchallenged spin, I find it difficult to believe that its just a mistake and whatever group of feminists are involved in doing it at the time, aren’t for the most part aware of whats really going on, as well as they being a group of genuinely misinformed feminists, there is also large group of feminists that know whats going on is wrong, and do it anyway.
Thank you for the vanguard of the proletariat link, I think that sums it up nicely.
All that said, kudos to our hosts here on this blog for defying the stereotypes.
You are correct that there is no evidence proving this true. However, there is no evidence proving it is untrue. As demonstrated above, the studies you might cite as proof are often problematic because they exclude certain types of rape. The other studies that show closer rates of sexual violence against men and women typically do not exclude those acts. While that is not clear evidence of equal rates, it is pretty good circumstantial evidence of it. What may differ are the ages when either group is most often abused.
That said, another way I read the “men are not equal victims of rape” comment is that men literally are not as harmed by rape as women. That may not be intended, but it does come across like that at times, and I can understand why some men and supporters take issue with those kinds of statements.
Brian, the wording may have been the researching attempting to find instances of coercion rather than rape. If you want to find if anyone has tried to coerce someone into sex, whether the sex (or rape) occurred is irrelevant.
That’s fair enough, but I didn’t recall this thread being about using feminism as a punching bag. If this blog in general is about being a free space for men (but not women), that’s fine. If people make that clear from the start, they can talk as much as they want about women being evil bitches, if that’ll help them get better. But if that is not the case, then no one should expect getting to attack and make claims about others and getting nothing but agreement.
No one here is doing any of those things that you are alleging. The idea is that male victims can talk about their experiences and she systemic, cultural, awareness and support services bias against them in a feminist space without hostility from feminists and you should respect that.
doctormindbeam : Can you provide a link to this, please?
Ona thread started by Abyss2hope, a response from Richard Jeffrey Newman (18)
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/12/03/anatomy-of-a-false-rape-accusation-comment-part-2/#comment-131627
“…Instead of trying to muscle your way into feminist discourse, or trying to force feminist discourse open in a way that is antithetical to feminism itself, why not do the work of developing a discourse about the male survivors you claim to care so much about …”
led to a new thread started by Abyss2hope
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/12/04/open-thread-for-male-survivors-of-sexual-violence/
As an aside, the comment base appears to have been modified. I say this because the links to other comments do not function as intended [see for instance comment 20 in this thread, which gives a hyperlink to comment # 209546 in the first thread – “my comments HERE”, which is now actually comment 131627 referenced above]. This might be because older comments have been archived to streamline the database, or because the database was corrupted and had to be rebuilt, or some other explanation. This is one of the problems with replying to your request. In fact, some of the comments are simply gone, as people reply to points that do not appear to exist any more, or to people who seemingly have never posted in the threads in question.
which led to, after being granted moderating authority on some scale, Newman beginning a new thread here…
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/12/17/male-survivors-of-child-sexual-abuseviolence-and-feminism-a-beginning/
In which he is clear about his stance on male survivors and feminism…
” … I do not belive that feminist discourse is a place where male survivors ought to expect either to speak or to be heard in a way that places our experience at the center of whatever is being discussed….”
and explicitly rules out any discussion of feminism’s alleged role in excluding male survivors from services and funding.
The allegation you are querying may have had its source in the following comment by Newman.
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/12/17/male-survivors-of-child-sexual-abuseviolence-and-feminism-a-beginning/#comment-132259
” I’d like to venture something here: One of the things that feminists will rightly insist on when men want to be part of what I will broadly call “the feminist conversation” (though of course it is quite a bit more than a conversation), perhaps especially when that conversation is about sexual violence, is that the men in question should acknowledge, take responsibility for, and be willing to be held accountable for, their own male privilege and the male privilege that men have as a class, even when the individual man in question might not share in some aspects of that privilege. …”
However, the problem is not simply the one comment, it is preceded by Abyss2hope ( a co-blogger and moderator) here…
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/12/17/male-survivors-of-child-sexual-abuseviolence-and-feminism-a-beginning/#comment-132250
” One key issue when men ask feminists to support their needs and goals is whether there is a good faith effort on the part of the men to support what feminists are doing for women in a particular area. The feeling of being a commodity to be exploited for men’s benefit is a huge trigger for many women who have a history of being raped or abused by men.”
Further,
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/12/17/male-survivors-of-child-sexual-abuseviolence-and-feminism-a-beginning/#comment-132241
” . . .people who try to power their way in to feminism or programs that help women are going to be met with resistance. …”
repeats the view of muscling in that Newman used, then withdrew.
Finally, poster ms_xeno contributes
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/12/17/male-survivors-of-child-sexual-abuseviolence-and-feminism-a-beginning/#comment-132242
” …Also, that any help that comes to men should be taken directly from women. Somehow, looking at why the pie gets split up the way it does in terms of social funding never happens in these discussions. It all becomes about the male power to grab an already small slice of dollars (pounds, yen, marks) away from women. …”
despite the opening post specifically ruling out the discussion of funding by male survivors.
Note that the understanding that ms_xeno is also thought to be Alsis, a friend of several co-bloggers, including Kim-(Basement Variety) and Ampersand, which might explain why this comment was not ruled out as off-topic by Newman.
While I regret the length and complexity of this response, you did ask. The exact text you are querying is not there, but then it was not characterized as a quotation. The paraphrasing used is fairly reasonable, in my view at least.
Note that there was also extensive off-thread discussion, and if you follow the pingbacks you will see the general hesitancy for a number of male survivors to decline participation in the thread.
Lastly, the promised follow-on threads never were written, particularly the one that discussed female perpetrators. The derailment of the “beginning” thread might be held to have served its purpose.
Clear this through moderation and make it visible if you choose – if you think it is appropriate.
From Alas: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/12/17/male-survivors-of-child-sexual-abuseviolence-and-feminism-a-beginning/#comment-132250
My analysis of the comment: http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/an-interesting-derailment/
I think that the distinction is less the severity of violence itself, and more the presence or absence of consent. I’ve been hit by friends so hard that it bruised and it wasn’t abusive, because I was entirely consenting during the whole process, it would stop any time I said and I wasn’t being pressured or coerced into it on any level. On the other hand, it is fully possible that a simple, harmless slap can be part of an atmosphere of terror and domination that makes it abusive.
For purposes of studies, of course, you kind of have to simplify, and punches will generally be more abusive than slaps. That said, I would be really happy if the questionnaire included the term “nonconsensually” at some point…
“I also believe that the miss-education and misleading of followers of feminism, and society by the educators and others at the top, is the main source of the misandry in feminism and much of the misandry we see in society.”
Perhaps. But we should also note that a lot of the misandry we see in society predates feminism. The idea that men are base, whereas women are angelic, is pretty damn old. I think this attitude hurts everyone, men and women, though certainly in different ways. I guess that’s one of the reasons I call myself a feminist. The feminism I have been exposed to has always fought vigorously against that notion. Perhaps my experience is atypical, however.
Lazy to use that study, yes, but I would say it’s dishonest to not point out that the 1 in 6 number for women is not comparable to the 1 in 33 number for men, but to set up in such a way (exact same wording) that readers inevitably end up doing the same as you – being misinformed and blindsided.
I sympathize with both and have known both. I don’t want to play one versus the other, but that’s a really difficult comparison to make. One in eight is 12%, which is the low end of the VA estimate of people who screen positively for it upon returning. The high end is 20%, but some other people say that the real percentage is much higher than that and there are good reasons not to trust the VA estimates. Having gone through the screenings myself, it was just a couple of questions on a paper test and a couple minutes with a psychologist where most guys don’t say much. Most guys just want to go home and see their families. Two members of my platoon had committed suicide and both were missed by these screenings. When you look at all Vietnam Vets who end up treated for PTSD, it’s actually 30% just like for rape victims.
You’re also probably not aware that being in a combat zone is not the same as seeing combat. Even in the Marines, which are combat oriented, there are 9 support Marines needed for every 1 combat Marine. The experience of the other 9 varies greatly, but if you line up the statistics of those with PTSD to the percentage who actually experienced combat in person, it could easily be closer to 100% than to 10%.
There’s also a very high rate of suicide and homelessness among war veterans, too, plus depression, not to mention the physical disabilities caused by war injuries. PTSD doesn’t even begin to paint a complete picture of challenges faced by combat veterans, so it’s really an apples to oranges comparison to say which experience was the more serious and life altering
You’re right, Brian. I missed your comment because it was a couple days later and stuck in one of the leaves of the threaded view.
It does count vaginal and anal penetration with finger or object. Both types of assault could be perpetrated by women, and the second could be perpetrated against men.
However other forms of rape are decidedly one-sided. The act of forcing ones genitals into ones victim’s mouth, or forcing ones opposite-sex victim to engage in PIV sex is counted only if the perpetrator is male.
A common point raised in feminist circles is “intent doesn’t matter”. It doesn’t matter what the researchers had in mind, the end result was that they used a sexist definition of rape.
I’m glad you caught that too, but I think you’re understating how big a failure the definition used but the Dube study is.
They are measuring something only tangentially related to what they claim to be measuring. And then credulous (or dishonest) people pass on the number not knowing (or not caring) that it’s completely bogus. The true number could either be lower or higher.
Let’s take another look at that definition:
Four questions from Wyatt 36 were adapted to define sexual abuse during childhood and adolescence: “Some people, while they are growing up in their first 18 years of life, had a sexual experience with an adult or someone at least 5 years older than themselves. These experiences may have involved a relative, family friend, or stranger. During the first 18 years of life, did an adult, relative, family friend, or stranger ever (1) touch or fondle your body in a sexual way, (2) have you touch their body in a sexual way, (3) attempt to have any type of sexual intercourse with you (oral, anal, or vaginal), or (4) actually have any type of sexual intercourse with you (oral, anal, or vaginal)?” A “yes” response to any of the four questions classified a respondent as having experienced child sexual abuse.
First note the “or”. It says “adult OR someone at least 5 years older”. So it’s not 17 and 23, it’s potentially 17 and 18.
Second their definition (or their explanation of it) is confusing and seemingly contradictory. Where does the five years go when it comes to the actual questions? What does this even mean: “…did an adult, relative, family friend, or stranger ever…”. Are those three categories of adults, or four categories, one being “adults”?
If the former, then they’re completely excluding sexual abuse by other minors (which is a spectacular failure) or if the latter they’re including it only if they were a a relative, family friend, or conversely a stranger, but exclude it if they were say “an acquaintance” (which is bizarre and arbitrary).
And that’s without getting into the usual thorny problems like defining what counts as an “attempt” to have sex.
Frankly, the most charitable thing I can say about this Wyatt (whoever that is) is that they may be an idiot. Otherwise, I would have to conclude they’re a lier of the worst sort who constructed this definition in order to get a predetermined result.
Now to be clear, my beef is not specifically with the 1in6 people, they’re overall message is a good one, and their namesake statistic might even be true, but using something so broken as their #1 source damages only their credibility.
Also try to imagine what the feminist analysis that all men benefit from rape feels like for any of these 1 in 6.
You know I questioned (don’t know if they id’d as feminist or not) someone about this a few months ago at Ethecofem. I named a specific male feminist and asked them to explain how rape benefits him, a man that is allying himself with feminism in (what he thinks) is the best way to achieve gender equality. The best that person could do was say my question was invalid because I asked about a specific person. I wished I had followed up.
So to anyone in eye shot let me ask. How does rape benefit all men? Bear in mind that when you say all men you include men who are against rape, men are feminists or ally themselves with feminism, men who want to have loving consesual relationships with women, men who respect women, etc….. How do those men benefit from rape?
Yeah its great that they are bringing it up in larger numbers now but that doesn’t magically erase the fact that there are still a few feminists out there that are in the know on it. In fact barely 2 years ago I did a post answering that very question for a feminist. Despite feminists regularly claiming that they are “the ones” that are fighting for gender equality for all people. If they want to claim that distinction they they have to be ready to pay the piper when they fall short.
And also not to come down on you specifically Brian but I’m seeing an awful lot of “but at least feminists are…..” explanations coming up when flaws are pointed out. I can say that as a man that a lot of feminists don’t let that fly by them, so why should they get off with it?
And there is also the fac
The fact… what?
Don’t leave me hanging!
First off “the fact that there are still a few feminists out there that are in the know on it” should be “the fact there are still a few feminist out there that are not in the know on it.”
And there is also the fact that in my experience “but at least men are….” doesn’t fly to well with feminists. So why should it fly for them? (Brian I’m not trying to come down on you specifically just making an observation.)
Don’t worry TB I’m not gonna leave you hanging.