Former victim testifies before a Senate committee investigating military sexual trauma. AP photo by Carolyn Kaster via KiroTV.com

Tough news about U.S. troops as victims of sexual trauma from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, as reported by George Zornick of The Nation.

The study found extremely high rates of military sexual trauma, both in men and women. About 48,100 women and 43,700 men reported suffering military sexual trauma, the authors note. These relatively even numbers are a useful reminder that sexual assault in the military happens not only to women, but men—as was demonstrated at a powerful Senate hearing last week.

Does the issue affect women disproportionately to men? You bet!

But women comprise only 14 percent of active-duty military, so even raw numbers don’t reflect the fact that women, in much greater proportions, are the victims of military sexual assault. Over 21 percent of female troops reported military sexual trauma, compared to under 2 percent of men.

But because there are nearly 10 times as many men as women in the armed services the raw numbers of victims, 48 thousand to 44 thousand, are depressingly similar.  Roughly equal numbers of human beings in service to our country.  Nearly 100,000!*

Given those numbers does anyone still think the issue of sexual violence is "just" a women's issue?

If so then here's something else to think about...

Women have only been seriously involved in combat and combat-support roles in the U.S. miltary for, what, 15 years?  20?  Not that long, right.

Chances are that that 2% of servicemen figure has been true since at least the beginning of military combat in the U.S.

Actually, it's a good guess that somewhat similar figures have been true for men in non-service but still mostly-male environments in America since 1492.

Still think sexual violence is "just" a women's issue?

Anyone still think that for men sexual violence should "just" be a sentimental wives, sisters, daughters concern instead of a "wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, and personal" issue?

If we want to stop this thing, and despite stereotypes about knuckledraggers and fantasists I'm pretty sure everyone actually does, then we can't pretend it's just a women's issue, or just a men's issue.  It's not even just a military issue.  It's an everybody issue.

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Note: While I'm often wary of "recovery" programs, while researching this post I ran across this insightful rundown at a clinic called The Ranch.  I particularly appreciated this passage which, to me, really helps drive home the commonalities between perpetrators on the one hand and their victims on the other

Military sexual trauma, defined as any unwanted sexual activity, including harassment, sodomy, rape, verbal remarks, grabbing and pressure for sexual favors, affects thousands of men each year. Victims are most often young, low-ranking enlistees who fall prey to peers’ and superiors’ desire to demean or humiliate others. The acts are rarely homosexual in nature but rather an effort to feel powerful or dominant over others.

There's really not a lot of evidence thateither same or opposite sex sexual violence is about anything but personal or social domination using as tools whatever the perpetrator considers most humiliating, degrading, and/or painful for his or her victims. 

The status of sex as least socially acceptable makes it an ideal choice for "demonstrations" of power over the powerless.  It's this fact that made, say, the case of the (evidently still completely unrepenetant) Lynndie England's sexual humiliation and terrorization of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison a gender-neutral commonplace rather than a female-gendered novelty.   Quoth she "Then you see staff sergeants walking around not saying anything [about the abuse]. You think, OK, obviously it's normal."

And, untill we recognize that, no, really, it's not just a women's issue and it's not just a men's issue and that it's almost never even a sexual issue (it's a power issue, remember) then by the tens and hundreds of thousands we'll all continue to experience, encounter, and perhaps even perpetrate what happens to roughly 21% of women in the military, roughly 2% of men in the military, roughly one in four women and one in seven men in civilian life.

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* Anyone beside me think it should be a little closer to zero for both?

What Henry Rollins said (emphasis mine)

It is obvious that the two offenders saw the victim as some one that could be treated as a thing. This is not about sex, it is about power and control. I guess that is what I am getting at. Sex was probably not the hardest thing for the two to get, so that wasn’t the objective. When you hear the jokes being made during the crime, it is the purest contempt.

That's pretty clear. If the town of Steubinville is even remotely like other sports-identity towns then even if you subscribe to dolorous of MRA/PUA/Ev-Psych analyses of gender it's unlikely such a town or school's star quarterback and wide receiver will have much trouble finding willing partners.

To add to that consider the "apology" issued by one of the four prominent, well-connected Carmel, Indiana, basketball players as part of his reduced-sentence plea bargain after "allegedly" digitally sodomizing a smaller boy on a school team bus filled with fellow teammates and at least three adult coaches.

"I can assure there was absolutely no malice in my actions. At the time, I truly believed this was normal everyday athletic team horseplay. After reflecting, I came to realize how I could have put a teammate in a situation in which they were uncomfortable."

Source: Indianapolis TV news station WISH

Horrifyingly, I believe him!  I believe the boy really didn't believe the sexual violence he perpetrated against his victim was done with any particular malice towards him.  And I also agree he probably considered it "everyday athletic team horseplay."

I very gloomily suspect the perpetrators in Steubinville were little different, even though the Carmel victims (that we know of) were male and the Steubinville victim (that we know of) was female.

This indifference does <em>not</em> absolve the perpetrators.  Instead it damns them.  And it damningly confirms Rollins' point: sexual violence is almost never about <em>sexual desire</em> for the victim.  Instead it's waaaay more about choosing tools for establishing, demonstrating, or maintaining social, not sexual, status of the perpetrator. Sometimes the victim is the intended recipient of the demonstration.  More often, however, the victim is the object, in the most literal sense of the word, of the perpetrator's demonstration to others.  Thus the bragging.  Thus the (not even always nervous) laughter by peers and nominal elders.  Thus the "boys will be boys" indifference by coaches, police, "proud fathers" and other nominal supervisors.

They can all "assure there [is] absolutely no malice" in the perpetrator's actions.

This is the opposite of assuring.

Incidentally I'd go one step further and say that this phenomenon of the use of sexual violence to demonstrate social dominance best explains the reflexive defense of perpetrators and for the equally reflexive anger and blame launched against their victims.

#@$!&%!!!

So in Psychology Today this guy Alain de Botton says something that ought to creep out a lot of victims of sexual violence and comfort or even delight any number of perpetrators.

Involuntary physiological reactions such as the wetness of a vagina and the stiffness of a penis are emotionally so satisfying (which means, simultaneously, so erotic) because they signal a kind of approval that lies utterly beyond rational manipulation. Erections and lubrication simply cannot be effected by willpower and are therefore particularly true and honest indices of interest. In a world in which fake enthusiasms are rife, in which it is often hard to tell whether people really like us or whether they are being kind to us merely out of a sense of duty, the wet vagina and the stiff penis function as unambiguous agents of sincerity.

Source: Psychology Today (naturally)

So... What's wrong with this picture?

Two things: First, it's totally wrong that an erection (or a wet vulva) can only mean arousal, let alone that they are "particularly true and honest" indicators.  As pretty much every man who's woken up with a full bladder can tell you.  

But second, as too many victims and perpetrators(!) of sexual violence can tell you, victims of sexual violence can develop or be made to develop(!) erections (or vaginal lubrication) and even ejaculations!

See for instance this post from Living Well, an Australian site for recovering male victims of sexual violence (my italics)

People who sexually abuse boys and men often use their knowledge about male bodies to deliberately cause an erection and/or ejaculate to occur. They do this because they know it is extremely confusing and embarrassing. They might also do it to try and convince both the person being abused and themselves that what is happening is not really abuse. Whatever the reasons, ultimately they know that if the boy or man was aroused, they might be less likely to tell anyone about the abuse due to feelings of shame and embarrassment.

Source: Living Well: Sexual Assault and Arousal

Or see also this from (a more woman-focused but still appropriate for men) survivor-support site the Pandora Project (my italics.)

A sexual response or orgasm in the course of sexual assault is often the best-kept and most deeply shameful secret of many survivors. If you are such a survivor, it’s essential that you know that sexual response in sexual assault is extremely common, well-documented and nothing for you to be ashamed of.

Source: Pandora Project: Sexual Arousal & Sexual Assault

This is consistent with what a number of sources have to say about the way perpetrators (relatives, fellow prisoners, priests and scout leaders, and of course aggressive hetero date-rapists) manipulate their victims into a) submission, b) co-operation, c) deep and abiding shame, and especially d) silence.  

Oh, and sometimes?  e) ignorance and long-term misunderstanding.

For instance if you've ever been told "You're hard, that means you want this," or "Look at you, you were soaking wet, you were loving it?"  When you hadn't really been loving it but couldn't figure your way around their point about your "particularly true and honest indices of interest?"  You might want to sit down and talk with somebody who can help you figure out what was (or is) going on.

Lest you think de Botton's particularly insidious form of gaslighting applies only to victims of sexual violence, it's important to get that some perpetrators really believe it themselves!

Check this out, also from that Pandora Project article

And it isn’t just about you and the way your body responded either. It may also have been one of the repertoire of dirty tricks rapists use to get their victims to feel responsible. Diana Russell writes that “Some rapists think they’re lovers” and tells us:

(These rapists) think that if a woman is stimulated in ‘just the right way’ she will enjoy it. The conquest may seem more important if the rapist believes he has turned the woman on physically, particularly if it is against her will. Getting the victim to respond physically may also alleviate the rapist’s guilt feelings.

This, incidentally, was one of the things that completely threw me for a loop about a year ago when it first started to soak in that an awful lot of my personal assumptions about sexual behavior growing up had been learned, some of it from a very early age, by people who themselves had been sometimes radically abused and by others who were themselves active abusers.  Thrown me for enough of a loop that while I'm still pretty sure I've always been a considerate or at least very well-intentioned sex partner I feel obliged to question whole constellations of assumptions I've made in the past.  One thing for sure, for me, personally, is that "at least I'm not like those guys" and even sometimes "at least I'm not like those gals" no longer feels all that reassuring.

Summary: if you would have found de Botton's claims  reassuring, or even just reasonable, take a little time to re-think some of those assumptions.