In Debate Over Military Sexual Assault, Men Are Overlooked Victims
Daniel Acker for The New York Times
A scrapbook made by Gregory Helle, who says he was raped by another soldier in Vietnam.
By JAMES DAO
Published: June 23, 2013
Sexual assault has emerged as one of the defining issues for the military this year. Reports of assaults are up, as are questions about whether commanders have taken the problem seriously. Bills to toughen penalties and prosecution have been introduced in Congress
But in a debate that has focused largely on women, this fact is often
overlooked: the majority of service members who are sexually assaulted
each year are men.
In its latest report on sexual assault, the Pentagon estimated that
26,000 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, up
from 19,000 in 2010. Of those cases, the Pentagon says, 53 percent
involved attacks on men, mostly by other men.
“It’s easy for some people to single out women and say: ‘There’s a small
percentage of the force having this problem,’ ” said First Lt. Adam
Cohen, who said he was raped by a superior officer. “No one wants to
admit this problem affects everyone. Both genders, of all ranks. It’s a
cultural problem.”
Though women, who represent about 15 percent of the force, are
significantly more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than
men, experts say assaults against men have been vastly underreported.
For that reason, the majority of formal complaints of military sexual
assault have been filed by women, even though the majority of victims
are thought to be men.
“Men don’t acknowledge being victims of sexual assault,” said Dr. Carol
O’Brien, the chief of post-traumatic stress disorder programs at the Bay
Pines Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Florida, which has a
residential treatment program for sexually abused veterans. “Men tend to
feel a great deal of shame, embarrassment and fear that others will
respond negatively.”
But in recent months, intense efforts on Capitol Hill to curb military
sexual assault, and the release of a new documentary about male sexual
assault victims in the military, “Justice Denied,” have brought new
attention to male victims. Advocates say their plight shows that sexual
assault has risen not because there are more women in the ranks but
because sexual violence is often tolerated.
“I think telling the story about male victims is the key to changing the
culture of the military,” said Anuradha K. Bhagwati, executive director
of the Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy group that has
sharply criticized the Pentagon’s handling of sexual assault. “I think
it places the onus on the institution when people realize it’s also men
who are victims.”
The Department of Defense says it is developing plans to encourage more
men to report the crime. “A focus of our prevention efforts over the
next several months is specifically geared towards male survivors and
will include why male survivors report at much lower rates than female
survivors, and determining the unique support and assistance male
survivors need,” Cynthia O. Smith, a department spokeswoman, said in a
statement.
In interviews, nearly a dozen current and former service members who
said they were sexually assaulted in the military described fearing that
they would be punished, ignored or ridiculed if they reported the
attacks. Most said that before 2011, when the ban on openly gay service
members was repealed, they believed they would have been discharged if
they admitted having sexual contact — even unwanted contact — with other
men.
“Back in 1969, you didn’t dare say a word,” said Gregory Helle, an
author who says he was raped in his barracks by another soldier in
Vietnam. “They wouldn’t have believed me. Homophobia was big back then.”
Thomas F. Drapac says he was raped on three occasions by higher-ranking
enlisted sailors in Norfolk in 1966. He said he had been drinking each
time and feared that if he told prosecutors they would assume it was
consensual sex. Parts of his story are corroborated in Department of
Veterans Affairs records.
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