This lie propagates stereotypes about male sex roles.In truth, a research study appearing in the Journal of Sex Research appearing found that 47% of men believe that men who are sexually assaulted by women get sexual pleasure from the occurrence. Fears of disrupting group cohesion by a raped male in the service stop many who are assaulted from talking about their trauma.Īnother caustic mistruth is that men who are raped gain pleasure from the experience.Being a victim of male rape has nothing to do with masculinity. No man is “too big” to be sexually assaulted.There is a toxic male culture of “toughing it out” in the military, which fuels many from reporting an incident.Connected to this mistruth is “strong men don’t get raped”. One of the most damaging lies about male military rape is that “real men” don’t experience sexual assault. Our hope in this article is to expose the myths that exist about men who are raped in the military and to stop the culture of lying about an issue that is not often discussed and widely misunderstood. There are a number of issues connected to the rape of men in the military, which largely are connected to organizational culture.”īecause we care about our service members, we’ve done some deep research on this topic and are publishing 5 lies about military rape that need to stop. The department of Defense (United States Department of Justice, 2013) estimates that 67% of women and 81% of men do not report their military sexual assaults. “Though it is acknowledged that most males who are assaulted in the military do not report their assaults, the extent of underreporting is not well understood. Those numbers could be higher because the majority of men serving in our armed forces do not report what happened to them. In truth, military men are raped too and by an alarming rate.Īccording to research published in a 2015 American Psychological Association’s journal entitled: Don’t Tell: Military Culture and Male Rape, approximately 50% of service members who are sexually assaulted are males. When the topic of rape in the military comes up, many people assume that it only happens to women. Here are 5 lies about men who are sexually assaulted in the military that need to stop. Male military rape happens a lot more than you might think.