Trigger warning for rape, abuse, sexual violence, and stalking.
The CDC has recently released the results of a new, national, methodologically sound study about the prevalance of sexual violence and rape.
Statistics, commentary, and angry ranting below.
Rape
Finally, finally, FINALLY we have a national study talking about how common rape by envelopment is. Of course, they don’t call it rape by envelopment, they call it “being forced to sexually penetrate someone,” because everyone knows that kinds of rape that tend to happen to dudes are not as real as kinds of rape that tend to happen to chicks.
18.3% of women have been survivors of rape (defined as completed or attempted forced penetration or alcohol and/or drug-assisted penetration). 1.4% of men have been survivors of penetrative rape and 4.8% of men have been survivors of rape by envelopment. Although we don’t know the overlap between the two groups, which is a serious flaw, we do know that roughly six percent of men are rape survivors.
Men who are raped are not a negligible group. Approximately a fourth of rape survivors in the United States are male! Given how many rapes occur in correctional facilities, to people who are obviously not available for a telephone interview, the percentage of rape survivors who are male may be even higher. There is no excuse for continuing to exclude male survivors from the discussion about rape culture and rape prevention.
Certain other categories of rape have even closer gender parity. Nearly a third of all survivors of coercive rape are male (6% vs. 13%); similarly, nearly a third of all survivors of unwanted sexual contact are male (11.7% vs. 27.2%). Is even a third of the conversation about coercion and unwanted sexual contact about men? Thought not. Men are hypersexual beasts, don’t you know? They always want sex!
Abuse
The single thing that most startled me about this report is that men and women are equally likely to be emotionally abused. This isn’t one of those “men make up a significant proportion of victims” things; this is one of those “the difference between the number of men and women who have been emotionally abused is literally .4%” things. There is functionally no difference.
Maybe I expect too much from American culture, but I figured that if literally half of the people getting emotionally abused are male, that we would mention that men can get emotionally abused, um, ever. We could run a few PSAs? Maybe talk about it in health class? Perhaps mention to women that they are capable of committing emotional abuse? Something?
Also, feminism? Can we stop saying that committing emotional abuse is a male privilege thing now? Because I am pretty sure, looking at these stats, that is not. Seriously, the next person who talks about (for instance) gaslighting as if it were a thing that only happens to women (glare) will be fed to the laser-headed sharks.
Roughly 44% of domestic violence survivors are male: 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have experienced severe physical violence from an intimate partner, such as being hit with a fist or something hard, beaten, or slammed against something; a little more than a third of survivors of severe physical violence from an intimate partner are male.
Men are less likely to experience domestic violence than women, particularly severe domestic violence. They are also less likely to be injured from domestic violence, as several other studies have attested (although some of that is because men tend to be larger and stronger than women). However, the assumption that survivors of severe domestic violence are necessarily female is bullshit. Our policies on domestic violence must work from a position of gender equality: it is a moral necessity to end domestic violence shelters that don’t provide services for male survivors, PSA campaigns that don’t include a single male survivor or female perpetrator, and awareness campaigns that assume that men must be taught not to abuse and women to identify abuse, instead of teaching everyone both.
Male survivors may be the minority, but they are not insignificant, and we must stop treating them like they are.
Stalking
16.2% of women are survivors of stalking and 5.2% of men, which means that roughly a quarter of stalking survivors are male; while both were likely to be stalked by an intimate partner, women were more likely than men to be stalked by a former intimate partner, and men by an acquaintance. Women survivors were more likely than male survivors to be stalked for the first time under the age of 25.
Female Perpetrators
Guess what? Except for rape by penetration, non-contact unwanted sexual experiences, and stalking, the majority of perpetrators of every type of sexual and intimate partner violence against males are female. Turns out estrogen is not the magic protection against being an abusive fuckhead we thought it was! Oops. Guess we’ll have to change the name of Men Can Stop Rape now.
I personally think there is a massive lack of awareness among women that they are even capable of committing abuse. If a man hits a woman, it’s abuse, but if a woman hits a man, it’s a hilarious joke. (Don’t even talk about queers. We don’t exist.) Emotional abuse is shamefully ignored for all genders, but particularly for men: if a woman verbally abuses a man, either he’s a pussy or pussy-whipped (and hence it’s all the fault of his lack of masculinity), or he did something wrong to deserve it.
Women are not perfect creatures of sweetness and light. Women can be abusers too. If we want to end abuse, we have to teach everyone not to abuse and not to accept abuse, not fall into an outdated and inaccurate gender paradigm.
Hey,
I don’t know how long you keep reading comments on your articles, but in regards to the CDC data, I would be interested in your thoughts on the fact that when one looks at the “In the last 12 months” data, the differences between male victimization and female victimization are drastically reduced (and in some categories male victimization actually exceeds female victimization), even from what you talk about here. Is it because male victimization is increasing? Are males underreporting their lifetime rates of victimization, while more accurately reporting their victimization in the last year? Some combination?
I’m alerted to new comments on all my articles. 🙂 I think there are a couple possible explanations: 1) This year was simply a very anomalous year that happened to have a higher rate of rape of men. 2) Men who are raped may be more likely to be raped multiple times. 3) The rape of men has increased in recent years. 4) Men underreport their rapes in the long term, for whatever reason (people are more likely to remember things that happened last year, but then it’s curious that this is a gendered phenomenon and one would think rapes… Read more »
I’d just add that in addition to the erasure of prison populations, the homeless population and the patients of psychiatric institutions would no doubt affect the study.
Hiya- this is my first visit to the website. I was redirected from a specifically feminist website to this post and I’m excited to have found it. I’m typically not a commenter AT ALL, but I’m so excited to find an egalitarian group that aims to discuss male equality in a positive way that I decided to break my rule just to say YAY for this website : D I tried to think of something useful to add to the conversation and even typed out a few things but nothing sounded like it wasn’t just preaching to the choir or… Read more »
These men’s rape numbers sound low if one uses the actual definitions that the study, and feminists in general, tend to use. Most of the things I could list have high kindling potential, so I’ll just point out that sabotaging BC is hard to argue as not-rape using those definitions. Which then amuses me watching feminists hem and haw about a victim’s actual ability to strike back at his assailant. But, uhm, yeah. It would be nice if it were understood that not all regrettable sex was skeevy sex, and that not all skeevy sex was rape. Otherwise, while I… Read more »
The_L “As for all feminists unilaterally covering up evidence of abuse against men–did you even fucking read this post? The entire fucking post is about how woman-on-man abuse is more common than the average person believes, and this is a feminist blog.” Did you even read my fucking posts? I specifically mentioned dissident feminists. (now let that be the end of us swearing at each other!) and abuse rate misinformation is monolithic in feminism. Just go to any large feminist site, anything to do with VAWA, Shaksville, Feministe, any feminist PSA etc. they are all pushing misinformation. Ozy is different,… Read more »
A case in point here. The main group that pushed through these new definitions that exclude envelopment as rape. (FMF). Have these deliberate lies about domestic violence up on their website. “”A Crime Against Women” Although men are more likely to be victims of violent crime overall, a recent study by the U.S. Department of Justice reports that “intimate partner violence is primarily a crime against women.”2 Of those victimized by an intimate partner, 85% are women and 15% are men.2 In other words, women are 5 to 8 times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate… Read more »
When Ozy says “it’s the Matrix,” she doesn’t mean it’s fiction. She means that it’s a system that you don’t recognize until you are able to step outside it. Just like the virtual-reality program in the movie The Matrix: if you’d told Neo a week before the events of the movie that he was living inside a computer simulation, he’d have thought you were crazy. Similarly, most people don’t see things as being misogynistic or misandrist until they are able to step outside the box and look at the situation from another perspective. As for all feminists unilaterally covering up… Read more »
Ozy “Other than that, I agree with YmcY. This shit’s the fucking Matrix.” Its not the matrix, the story I’m telling ‘has been published in the mainstream media and by the scientific DV research community, It only seems like matrix-y. Its just that because it’s women covering up abuse and the abuse is of men, it doesn’t register as something seriously in society and feminists, monolithically defend and minimise it by attacking and censoring anyone that tries to talk about it. Mainstream feminism’s unwitting collusion is self evident as is it monolithic support of extremist laws like VAWA. As is… Read more »
The Quebec feminist site/group Sisyphe, will often say that Quebec MRA are all spouting lies, even if it’s based on neutral statistics. Tell them that men should get DV funding for shelters, and they’ll say it’s all about abusing women and negating feminist funding, so it’s obviously anti-feminist. Bring up the anti-male court bias in sentencing or custody, and they’ll say it’s all about not paying child support and beating their wives and girlfriends, while the sentencing discount will be justified with things about how women are truly inherently less violent and more reabilitable, while men are not. Try to… Read more »
Narcissist: Radical feminists are a huge and widely varied group, ranging from misandric transphobic asshats like Mary Daly to people like bell hooks, who actually raised awareness of female abusers (particularly of boys). Not even are feminists not a monolith, but radical feminists aren’t even a monolith. 🙂 Enthusiastic consent is not crypto-separatism, unless you think that heterosexual couples couldn’t possibly have both parties really enjoying the sex (although enthusiastic consent is off-topic so if we wish to continue discussion of it please take it to the Open Thread.) Other than that, I agree with YmcY. This shit’s the fucking… Read more »
Also Noahbrand The truth about symmetry and bi-directional DV has been out since the 80s. “by 1986 there were already 23 studies showing equal rates including two national studies”. [1] The fact that the people that control the shelters movement and abuse industry to this day are using taxpayers money to make dishonest PSAs in order to lie to the public about gendered abuse is a huge scandal. The fact that honest researchers have been threatened, intimidated and ostracized for telling the truth is a huge scandal. What makes it most difficult to change, be main thing that’s standing in… Read more »
It doesn’t need to be a Conspiracy Theory, because its The Matrix. Its All the Fucking Matrix. Seriously. Maybe if I say it more and more people will be bludgeoned into agreeing? 😛 This shit – privilege, oppression, etc – works on two levels: 1) Wiring. You’re (almost certainly) cognitively biased toward your own cause, because Evolution. Robin Hanson (warning: libertarian of a kind, transhumanist, probably not a feminist) calls this Homo Hypocritus. Worth a lookup. 2) Society. 1) is bad enough, and then we go and turn it into institutions. This is the kryiarchy any social justice type knows… Read more »
Noahbrand I’m not talking about a conspiracy theory. What I’m talking about is very well documented. And just because someone is talking about problematic aspects of feminism, like the abuse cover up and the discrimination by the shelters movement, it doesn’t make them anti-feminist, unless of course feminism is a monolith, I actually said “thankfully we have dissident feminists” further up the page. DISABUSING THE DEFINITION OF DOMESTIC ABUSE: HOW WOMEN BATTER MEN AND THE ROLE OF THE FEMINIST STATE LINDA KELLY* h tt p://law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf CURRENT CONTROVERSIES AND PREVALENCE CONCERNING FEMALE OFFENDERS OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V75-Straus-09.pdf You can get… Read more »
noahbrand: see, your comment is exactly what I mean when I say that essentially all feminists are defending transphobia. There is actual, demonstrable evidence of a not-so-secret conspiracy to drive anyone who wasn’t an utterly transphobic asshole out of feminism – read Roz Kaveney’s piece, take a good look at what happened to Sandy Stone and Olivia Records, think about all the other trans women who didn’t reach positions where they could speak out, count up all the big-name 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s feminists who were massively, publicly transphobic and all the womens-only events that were and… Read more »
wow, that’s incredibly blatent, and not a single comment seems to have been posted pointing out that the CDC study quite clearly says the exact opposite of what she’s claiming it does. I’d tend to disagree with the innocent interpretation, though; if she hasn’t actually read the parts of the study that talk about the gender of the perpetrator she shouldn’t be claiming it shows they were always male, and if she did then there’s not really any way to misinterpret it. @makomk: I think on the contrary she can interpret it that way “innocently”, because privilege. The kryiarchy really… Read more »
Oh bugger, that got mangled and stuck in moderation at the same time. Short version, there’s no real summary that I’ve seen but this post by Roz Kaveney http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=384 is a reasonable starting point as is Questioning Transphobia in general.
Was the reference to Florence Nightingale’s questionable actions intentional? In any case, I don’t think there’s a good summary, but some good starting points to look at if you want to research it yourself would probably be this post by Roz Kaveney and Questioning Transphobia in general, the effects of Mary Daly, her protege Janice Raymond, and their sadly influential work The Transsexual Empire (on Sandy Stone in particular), and how the last major feminist blog that could claim to be trans-friendly handled this. More recently, there’s stuff like Julie Bindel’s transphobic Guardian pieces, her position of influence, and the… Read more »
Makomk,
Its amazing how these groups have maintained their public Florence Nightingale image when they have been willfully engaging is such corruption and bigotry for decades now.
I’d to know more about their treatment of trans women. Is there a site where I can read up about it?
@Narcissist: I’m confused. Not about your conspiracy theory; I get that you’re married to the idea that feminism is a malevolent undercover monolith designed to wreck everything, its members sworn to silence about the true agenda except for those that aren’t. It’s a pretty standard conspiracy structure, and indeed I’ve seen that particular incarnation before. No, what really throws me is your apparent notion that this theory would be particularly welcome on a feminist blog, particularly one that by its very existence is evidence against your theory. That’s like trying to peddle geocentrism at the Air & Space Museum. Let… Read more »
@Narcissist: Mustn’t forget about trans women – the feminists running many of the shelters and rape support groups have been refusing them service and spreading all kinds of harmful misinformation about them for decades too. (They even managed to get anti-discrimination laws here in the UK written with an exemption specifically to allow them to go on doing it.)
Noahbrand Since it was taken over by radical feminists the 1970s the shelters movement has insisted on discriminating against men and children that are being abused by women, and have published mountains of misinformation about abuse and the nature of it (the information that abuse is not gendered has been there for decades, feminism has been suppressing it) and so willfully contributing to abuse in society, not forcing them to change immoral. Its entirely reasonable to forcefully insist that they obey anti-discrimination laws and not lie to the public and government about abuse rates. Reasoning doesn’t work, its been tried… Read more »
“Private donations never make up for a lack of public funding, despite the fervid fantasies of various libertarians.” Oddly, I’ve also seen a lot of feminists insist that it doesn’t matter that state funding for rape counselling and domestic violence services is pretty much entirely for women-only services, and that anyone complaining about this should stop trying to hijack money aimed at women and set up their own privately-funded ones. In fact, it seems to be the most common rebuke to anyone objecting to this imbalance in funding. @$ocraTTTe$: wow, that’s incredibly blatent, and not a single comment seems to… Read more »
The few men’s shelters that exist (1, maybe 2, in Canada) are privately funded, so it’s not impossible.
“I think a lot of men’s advocacy energy is being wasted on this particular issue and this particular argument. We shouldn’t be in the business of closing shelters, it’s not morally persuasive to those outside the movement, and frankly not to many of us inside it, either. ”
Don’t close the shelter, but don’t finance it with public funds if they’re not working according to the simple guidelines they’re held over (for example: offer equal services for men and women).
If they absolutely want to only help women, they can finance privately, see, not closing there.
If they absolutely want to only help women, they can finance privately, see, not closing there.
Well, no, they probably can’t. Private donations never make up for a lack of public funding, despite the fervid fantasies of various libertarians. (I’m not accusing you of being a libertarian in general, BTW. That’s an awful thing to call someone without evidence.) So in practice, your plan does call for closing shelters. Let’s not be disingenuous here.
@Lamech, “Well private ones can do what they want, but basically yes organizations that only service half the victims either need to change or stop getting federal funding. Remember Title IX? That is how discrimination needs to be dealt with. If a group discriminates based on gender we cannot support them. The funds can then be sent to some place that is gender neutral.” On the other hand, however, we have examples like the religious hospitals I mentioned in my initial post. Places that do discriminate, yet get public assistance anyway because it’s deemed that the other work they do… Read more »
Great work Ozy, and great work everyone here speaking up in support.
Here’s to more and better data, and more awareness, and more action to end rape, violence, abuse, and help its survivors (of any gender.)