The rape of men: the darkest secret of war

[sibelian]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jul/17/the-rape-of-men#start-of-comments

"In Africa no man is allowed to be vulnerable," says RLP's gender officer Salome Atim. "You have to be masculine, strong. You should never break down or cry. A man must be a leader and provide for the whole family. When he fails to reach that set standard, society perceives that there is something wrong."

Often, she says, wives who discover their husbands have been raped decide to leave them. "They ask me: 'So now how am I going to live with him? As what? Is this still a husband? Is it a wife?' They ask, 'If he can be raped, who is protecting me?' There's one family I have been working closely with in which the husband has been raped twice. When his wife discovered this, she went home, packed her belongings, picked up their child and left. Of course that brought down this man's heart.

Back at RLP I'm told about the other ways in which their clients have been made to suffer. Men aren't simply raped, they are forced to penetrate holes in banana trees that run with acidic sap, to sit with their genitals over a fire, to drag rocks tied to their penis, to give oral sex to queues of soldiers, to be penetrated with screwdrivers and sticks. Atim has now seen so many male survivors that, frequently, she can spot them the moment they sit down. "They tend to lean forward and will often sit on one buttock," she tells me. "When they cough, they grab their lower regions. At times, they will stand up and there's blood on the chair. And they often have some kind of smell.""

[KitSileya]

1. Rape is a heinous war crime, no matter what the gender of the victim

It is a favorite way for soldiers to destroy communities. I am so glad we finally managed to classify rape as a war crime. It is imperative that in countries were war has brought this crime to increased number, aid organisations that work with victims are given resources to train in working with male survivors (unfortunately, we have been given ample opportunity to build expertise on working with female survivors,) and very importantly, doctiors must be trained in reconstructive genital and anal surgery for men. It will require a lot of change in how organisations who try to help work - it is taboo to talk about women who have bern raped, and it is a thousand times more taboo for a man to say he is a survivor.

In these countries, there is also a need to work with former soldiers, who need re-training not only to a new profession, but also to unlearn the acceptance of rape that is prevalent in these men. It permeates the whole culture, that women are fair game, and that the worst thing you can do to a man is to make him a woman through rape.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. Either way, it seems to boil down to the low opinion of femininity

that is taught to boys at a very young age. One of the biggest insults boys give to one another is that they throw like a girl, run like a girl, etc. Some of it is handed down to boys by grown men, but it's often reinforced by women as well. I think one of the greatest ways humans could evolve is to get rid of this tendency to extol male 'strengths' and denigrate female 'weaknesses.' It's simian behavior, and not worthy of a species that prides itself on learning from its mistakes and progressing.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. Agreed

I am not shy about pointing it out when I hear it either. I manage a U14 boys soccer team and have let a number of the players have it for using gender and sexuality based insults in their banter. Heck, I've called total strangers out on it. I just have no tolerance for it. Doing whatever we can to combat the notion that male is strength and female is weakness is important in my opinion. You never know when you're going to get through to someone.

[KitSileya]

5. Definitely true,

which is why the second part of feminism, besides working to show that girls can do the same things as boys, is to work to accept boys doing what was considered 'girl things'. It is not enough to fight to let girls play with toy trucks, we also have to fight to let boys play with dolls. Typical 'feminine' values must be accepted as of equal value as 'masculine' values, and boys must be encouraged to show emotions other than anger or pride. Boys must be allowed to cry - men who insist that boys not cry or show emotions are actively harming boys.

This is what feminism teaches about how patriarchy also limits men - it makes it so bad to be female that when men experience what are considered things that only women experience, such as rape, the stigma is increased exponentially. And while women have learned to play along with this culture, like sufferers of Stockholm syndrome, it is men who bear he greatest task in acknowledging that the culture that gives them such power, also works to harm them if they do not conform to patriarchy's standards of masculinity.

Unfortunately, the men described in the article have their suffering increased because of this fear and hatred of women. For example, the hatred of gays in Uganda is adding to their burden. It also doesn't help that the help organisations are focusing so much on the first part of feminism ("women are as strong as men!&quot that they are ignoring this very important group of victims. They will never reach but more than halfway if they only focus on the women - they must also focus on the men, those that are victims, and those that are perpetrators (or both.)

[4Q2u2]

2. Male centric Culture's also have another edge to a sword

A man in those circumstances is supposed to fight to the death to preserve that manhood. Death before dishonor. So others are looking at this person and say, if he would not fight to the death to protect his manhood, how will he fight to the death to protect me. That manhood is seen as the prized possession. Weary is the head that wears the Crown.

[Nay]

6. It's not much of a secret, is it? Rape is a way of dominating someone, and men

willing to rape other men to dominate them certainly aren't rare. Look at the prison rape problem. That problem isn't caused by 'women dressing like sluts.'

As far as the African women who leave their raped husbands, that certainly is no way to support a hurt family member, but those women have been told every day of their lives that they had to have a man around to protect them (and in Africa, I would think this is truer than for, say, the U.S.), and once the man has proven that he can't protect himself, what is she to think? She herself has been denigrated all her life as weak, a 'wife,' in need of protection, in need of a man's strength, and all of a sudden.....she has no protection. And she has herself and a child to protect. Well, my take on this is that men of a patriarchal culture who portray themselves as leaders and protectors and women as weak and stupid and in need of a man, any man, should not be surprised when he is discarded when he cannot provide what he said he would. Let's begin with that. Patriarchy hurts everyone, folks.

The sort of lawlessness that allows brutal men to brutalize other men indiscriminately is the same lawlessness that allows child soldiers, kidnapped 8-year-old girls made into 'wives,' wholesale rape of any woman caught out somewhere by herself, brutal poaching for cash, etc. It is the result of a lack of laws, lack of enforcement, and the presence of total corruption. If the U.S. is not careful, we'll be seeing it here, too.

[Behind the Aegis]

7. It is a weapon of choice for many rebel groups.

Though the victims are usually women, boys are particularly vulnerable. It is used as a way to control them. For adult men, it is used to humiliate in a way that either results in suicide or being ostracized. It is amazing the depths that this goes. I have read many reports, including way back to the late 80's, that would curl your hair. Some times they are actually raped with various objects, including machetes!