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Most rape victims in the United States are men: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report.html https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report.html Cautio

Most rape victims in the United States are men: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report.html https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report.html Caution: that’s hard, explicit, distressing reading.

wonderbore 5y ago
Every time statistics like these are brought up in public they're twisted against men themselves. Oh, 80% of homicides are of men? How about "men kill xyz thousand women every year?"
onos 5y ago
Aweful. The government should be liable for this.
exikyut 5y ago
(2001) I wonder what aspects have gotten worse over the years and how the dynamic has shifted, if at all. Or maybe it doesn't matter this was from 20 years ago? :<
mellosouls 5y ago
Men are most often victims of violence generally including murder as well. You wouldn't get that impression reading the news. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Depends on whether you interpret something being on the news as a measure of how common it is. This is often demonstrated with the two hypothetical headlines "Dog bites Man" vs "Man bites Dog". One is expected based on its ubiquity, and so a poor headline, where you want some emotional reaction to hook readers.
  - mellosouls 5y ago
    True - and a good point - but also a troubling one as the clear implication is that male suffering is really not considered a concern - at least to the news platforms.
    - FrenchAmerican 5y ago
      Or maybe we don't care much about what happens in our jails. As if being raped in jail was part of the sentence. Note that rape is only the extreme form of the violence that inmates, mostly males, endure. I can't see where the suffering of men would be silenced because of their gender. On the contrary, at last, more and more often men express their suffering, which is great because the "silent strong" man used to be the reference. Men as warriors don't ever complain etc. There are more and more often in the news men stating their feelings: veterans with PTSD, Johnny Depp courageously telling how he has been abused by his partner, men denouncing being on verge of burning-out at work etc. As a man, I consider that yes, there is still plenty of men suffering in silence. And that needs to come out. The more men are able to get over the silent strong man figure - John Wayne! - inherited from the past, the more the media will talk about it. Nobody is silencing the suffering of men ; the men need to reconnect with their feelings and learn to express them. Most women are more able to express their feelings and they are indeed "silenced" - even if less and less so. An example? The "mental load". In many modern heterosexual couples, the woman is still in charge of the general on-going of the home, and the man goes to work without that load. When he comes home, he waits to be asked or just does the minimum. If you have ever been in charge of a project at work and your colleagues are only participants, you know very well the difference. Being in charge of the general coordination, ensure that everything is done when required, is quite a load. Things are improving. Slowly.
      - mellosouls 5y ago
        Much of what you say is true but my point was about the coverage of these issues in mainstream news. I don't think this is particularly a male silence problem.
sph 5y ago
I assume it applies uniquely to the United States, given the high percentage of incarcerated people?
- mellosouls 5y ago
  I would expect it to be at least as related to culture and governance as numbers, and therefore to be an issue in some other countries as well.
- goldenkey 5y ago
  Midnight Express gave me reason to believe it's other countries too like Turkey.
  - wonderbore 5y ago
    Isn’t Midnight Express an English movie? I’m not sure it can be used as source for that.
    - goldenkey 5y ago
      It was based on a true story: https://youtu.be/2b5s0WBI8ug https://youtu.be/2b5s0WBI8ug
- onos 5y ago
  They comment in the report on whether they believe this occurs elsewhere at similar rates within prisons, and they indicate that evidence suggests yes. However, great point that it likely affects more people in the USA per capita by virtue of the large incarceration rate here.
sjhuang26 5y ago
@leephillips Do you have a source for the statistic?
- leephillips 5y ago
  It’s in the link.
FrenchAmerican 5y ago
This reflects the abnormally high proportion of people jailed in the USA: - 80K inmates for 68.5M inhabitants in the UK => 0.12% - 1,215K inmates for 331M inhabitants in the US => 0,37% There are therefore around 3 times more people incarcerated in the US than in UK, proportionally. As rapes are very frequent in the US jails (as this terrible report points out) and most of the jail population are men, then indeed, what can conclude that - statistically speaking - that most rape victims are men. But if you take apart the population in jail, most rape victims are women. Of course, one can argue that prisoners are human beings like others: they are. But the gendered statistic on rape is turned upside-down by the totally abnormal proportion of people in jail in the US, when compared to comparable countries, PLUS the totally despicable jail system where rapes are numerous. Note that rapes are very common as well in jails of comparable countries. I have no information about this, but I can't see why rapes would be more frequent in American jails rather than British jails - all others things being equal. But maybe the US jail system and/or the US jail population may lead to more (or less, why not) rapes: I have no clue about this. I'm not saying that they are in jail for no reason, but that the US society is ... dysfunctional. That analysis may appear outrageous in the US, but it is something obvious to many other countries. But from saying "dysfunctional" to point out why it is so, there is a huge leap where political inclinations are bound to express themselves. In this case, these are not biases, because politics is precisely about how we live together in a society. And indeed, people don't live in the same world, in the sense that their interpretative frameworks are so diverse. That's why I find the formulation of that figure problematic. I would find it less click-bait-y and trolly to say: "Rapes of men in the US jails are incredibly numerous" - maybe adding "to the point of outnumbering the rapes of women". Why is it problematic? Because it echoes a large incel, masculinust, far-right discourse against feminism. Each time women (and "woke" men, to use their vocabulary) denounce something, there are always troves of righteous men pretending that the issue is true for all sexes alike (since in their views, sex and gender are the same thing). The formulation "Most rapes victims in the United States are men" is a way of saying that all genders are equally victims of rapes in general. But they are not. In the world, and probably in all countries except the US, rape victims are overwhelmingly women and girls. The US exception is not related to a gender equality but to the abnormal rate of incarceration. I don't know if there was an intention in the formulation or not. Maybe not, so I'm not at all in an accusatory mode. I'm just saying that this formulation offers ground to misinterpretation. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-figures-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-f... https://www.statista.com/statistics/203718/number-of-prisoners-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203718/number-of-prisone...
amarshh 5y ago
Is this not just because most rapists are men (and sexual assaulters more generally are men), and the only people they can rape in a prison environment are other men? Which is also why prisons are segregated by sex, to avoid women prisoners being sexually assaulted, raped and impregnated by deviant men. If prisons had no such sex segregation, it would overwhelmingly be the women being raped, not the men.
- ffggvv 5y ago
  yes but it doesn’t change the fact. the men who are on the receiving side are just as much victims regardless if a member of the same sex or differnt is the perp
  - amarshh 5y ago
    True but I think the point is more that when men want to rape, they'll rape anyone and anything they can. Women, men, children, animals. Their depravity knows no bounds. It does make me wonder if penectomy and castration should be the standard punishment for rape, not just incarceration. Otherwise they're just being given access to a new set of potential victims.

wonderbore 5y ago

Every time statistics like these are brought up in public they're twisted against men themselves. Oh, 80% of homicides are of men? How about "men kill xyz thousand women every year?"

onos 5y ago

Aweful. The government should be liable for this.

exikyut 5y ago

(2001) I wonder what aspects have gotten worse over the years and how the dynamic has shifted, if at all. Or maybe it doesn't matter this was from 20 years ago? :<

mellosouls 5y ago

Men are most often victims of violence generally including murder as well. You wouldn't get that impression reading the news. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Depends on whether you interpret something being on the news as a measure of how common it is. This is often demonstrated with the two hypothetical headlines "Dog bites Man" vs "Man bites Dog". One is expected based on its ubiquity, and so a poor headline, where you want some emotional reaction to hook readers.
- mellosouls 5y ago
  True - and a good point - but also a troubling one as the clear implication is that male suffering is really not considered a concern - at least to the news platforms.
  - FrenchAmerican 5y ago
    Or maybe we don't care much about what happens in our jails. As if being raped in jail was part of the sentence. Note that rape is only the extreme form of the violence that inmates, mostly males, endure. I can't see where the suffering of men would be silenced because of their gender. On the contrary, at last, more and more often men express their suffering, which is great because the "silent strong" man used to be the reference. Men as warriors don't ever complain etc. There are more and more often in the news men stating their feelings: veterans with PTSD, Johnny Depp courageously telling how he has been abused by his partner, men denouncing being on verge of burning-out at work etc. As a man, I consider that yes, there is still plenty of men suffering in silence. And that needs to come out. The more men are able to get over the silent strong man figure - John Wayne! - inherited from the past, the more the media will talk about it. Nobody is silencing the suffering of men ; the men need to reconnect with their feelings and learn to express them. Most women are more able to express their feelings and they are indeed "silenced" - even if less and less so. An example? The "mental load". In many modern heterosexual couples, the woman is still in charge of the general on-going of the home, and the man goes to work without that load. When he comes home, he waits to be asked or just does the minimum. If you have ever been in charge of a project at work and your colleagues are only participants, you know very well the difference. Being in charge of the general coordination, ensure that everything is done when required, is quite a load. Things are improving. Slowly.
    - mellosouls 5y ago
      Much of what you say is true but my point was about the coverage of these issues in mainstream news. I don't think this is particularly a male silence problem.

sph 5y ago

I assume it applies uniquely to the United States, given the high percentage of incarcerated people?

mellosouls 5y ago
I would expect it to be at least as related to culture and governance as numbers, and therefore to be an issue in some other countries as well.
goldenkey 5y ago
Midnight Express gave me reason to believe it's other countries too like Turkey.
- wonderbore 5y ago
  Isn’t Midnight Express an English movie? I’m not sure it can be used as source for that.
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    It was based on a true story: https://youtu.be/2b5s0WBI8ug https://youtu.be/2b5s0WBI8ug
onos 5y ago
They comment in the report on whether they believe this occurs elsewhere at similar rates within prisons, and they indicate that evidence suggests yes. However, great point that it likely affects more people in the USA per capita by virtue of the large incarceration rate here.

sjhuang26 5y ago

@leephillips Do you have a source for the statistic?

leephillips 5y ago
It’s in the link.

FrenchAmerican 5y ago

This reflects the abnormally high proportion of people jailed in the USA: - 80K inmates for 68.5M inhabitants in the UK => 0.12% - 1,215K inmates for 331M inhabitants in the US => 0,37% There are therefore around 3 times more people incarcerated in the US than in UK, proportionally. As rapes are very frequent in the US jails (as this terrible report points out) and most of the jail population are men, then indeed, what can conclude that - statistically speaking - that most rape victims are men. But if you take apart the population in jail, most rape victims are women. Of course, one can argue that prisoners are human beings like others: they are. But the gendered statistic on rape is turned upside-down by the totally abnormal proportion of people in jail in the US, when compared to comparable countries, PLUS the totally despicable jail system where rapes are numerous. Note that rapes are very common as well in jails of comparable countries. I have no information about this, but I can't see why rapes would be more frequent in American jails rather than British jails - all others things being equal. But maybe the US jail system and/or the US jail population may lead to more (or less, why not) rapes: I have no clue about this. I'm not saying that they are in jail for no reason, but that the US society is ... dysfunctional. That analysis may appear outrageous in the US, but it is something obvious to many other countries. But from saying "dysfunctional" to point out why it is so, there is a huge leap where political inclinations are bound to express themselves. In this case, these are not biases, because politics is precisely about how we live together in a society. And indeed, people don't live in the same world, in the sense that their interpretative frameworks are so diverse. That's why I find the formulation of that figure problematic. I would find it less click-bait-y and trolly to say: "Rapes of men in the US jails are incredibly numerous" - maybe adding "to the point of outnumbering the rapes of women". Why is it problematic? Because it echoes a large incel, masculinust, far-right discourse against feminism. Each time women (and "woke" men, to use their vocabulary) denounce something, there are always troves of righteous men pretending that the issue is true for all sexes alike (since in their views, sex and gender are the same thing). The formulation "Most rapes victims in the United States are men" is a way of saying that all genders are equally victims of rapes in general. But they are not. In the world, and probably in all countries except the US, rape victims are overwhelmingly women and girls. The US exception is not related to a gender equality but to the abnormal rate of incarceration. I don't know if there was an intention in the formulation or not. Maybe not, so I'm not at all in an accusatory mode. I'm just saying that this formulation offers ground to misinterpretation. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-figures-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-f... https://www.statista.com/statistics/203718/number-of-prisoners-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203718/number-of-prisone...

amarshh 5y ago

Is this not just because most rapists are men (and sexual assaulters more generally are men), and the only people they can rape in a prison environment are other men? Which is also why prisons are segregated by sex, to avoid women prisoners being sexually assaulted, raped and impregnated by deviant men. If prisons had no such sex segregation, it would overwhelmingly be the women being raped, not the men.

ffggvv 5y ago
yes but it doesn’t change the fact. the men who are on the receiving side are just as much victims regardless if a member of the same sex or differnt is the perp
- amarshh 5y ago
  True but I think the point is more that when men want to rape, they'll rape anyone and anything they can. Women, men, children, animals. Their depravity knows no bounds. It does make me wonder if penectomy and castration should be the standard punishment for rape, not just incarceration. Otherwise they're just being given access to a new set of potential victims.