14,000 men in the US military were raped last year. Little to none of them reported it.

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

The military is seen as an easy rape target for a lot of people, mostly civilian, for a number of reasons. Primarily because most men won't report being victimized.

I'm probably part of the problem for asking this question, but of all the sorts of people that represent an 'easy target' for anything, a trained soldier is the last entry I'd expect to see. Right next to 'surly velociraptor'.

 

[kyp275]

Militaries are - in many ways - like frats but with guns. There's hazing, domination and humiliation (sexual and otherwise), and dehumanization.

But THEN, pile on top of that: exhaustion; sleep deprivation; isolation; loss of autonomy and agency; loss of individuality; repression of desire; exclusion from positive, reciprocating, sexual and romantic relationships; regular, combative, violent encounters; indoctrination of killer instinct; the power and skill to act on that instinct; and the compulsion to do so.

I mean... SHIT, man!

Anyway, isn't it strange how the very same men who readily engage in homo-erotic behavior -- and can do so in the most depraved manners -- in structured, and sometimes even in martial environments, are so quick to call other men "fag"?

Methinks they doth protest too much!

Can you try to fit more terrible lies and stereotypes? I don't think you quite have enough yet.

 

[Ramzal]

-snip-

 

[Gorrath]

Really? Are you seriously suggesting that male and females be forced to sleep in the same room, use the same restrooms, and the same open showers?

I believe the British military is in favour of that. They also have strict rules about not having sex with fellow personnel on deployments, though.

The U.S. Army also has rules against having sex while on deployment, with anyone. This has the unfortunate side effect of leading to false rape accusations when the sexual relationship is discovered. Some people would rather accuse someone of a crime they didn't commit than deal with their own mistakes/breaches of UCMJ. It's one of the big reasons some people think male and female units should be segregated.

As for the OP: It's amazing how a broad and nebulous term like "unwanted sexual contact" turns into rape. A few guys played a prank on me where they piled weights on my chest while I did sit ups. You end up clenching your eyes when it gets really tough. They then have someone drop their pants and stand over you so you sit up into their bare ass. I wasn't exactly amused, but calling that bit of "unwanted sexual contact" as part of a friggin' prank "rape" would be ridiculous as hell.

 

[Gorrath]

Militaries are - in many ways - like frats but with guns. There's hazing, domination and humiliation (sexual and otherwise), and dehumanization.

But THEN, pile on top of that: exhaustion; sleep deprivation; isolation; loss of autonomy and agency; loss of individuality; repression of desire; exclusion from positive, reciprocating, sexual and romantic relationships; regular, combative, violent encounters; indoctrination of killer instinct; the power and skill to act on that instinct; and the compulsion to do so.

I mean... SHIT, man!

Anyway, isn't it strange how the very same men who readily engage in homo-erotic behavior -- and can do so in the most depraved manners -- in structured, and sometimes even in martial environments, are so quick to call other men "fag"?

Methinks they doth protest too much!

I kind of hate to pile on, but let me be the third service member in this thread to call you out. Your over-generalization is crude as hell. Loss of agency and individuality? About as much as I lost "agency and individuality" while participating in organized sports. Exclusion from positive, reciprocating, sexual and romantic relationships? Where on Earth did you get that crap? I had wonderful sexual and romantic relationships when I was in the service. Where did you even pull most of this?

Being in the service is just a damned job. It's a demanding one with some unique features, but it's not like you're turned into some emotionless robot devoid of opportunity or capacity to be an individual and have stable, positive relationships.

 

[vagabondwillsmile]

Can you try to fit more terrible lies and stereotypes? I don't think you quite have enough yet.

Unless you served, I don't think you have the slightest idea of what it's like. There is pride in being able to accomplish what few could have. I've formed bonds with people that were stronger than my own biological brothers in service. I've been given opportunities to experience different cultures and different mindsets when others were sitting comfortably at home, doing fuck all. Yes, there are bad sides to it but those are far and few inbetween. Even though my severance from the service (aka my discharge) was not the prettiest situations ever I am proud of my time in the United States military.

It is a shame that people can talk down an experience they probably know nothing of because they've never been in it and only read about it in blogs. And sorry, but "I have a family member who was in service" doesn't cut it in case you were going to go there. You have the right to speak about the military however you wish and yes there are bad eggs, but you have no idea what you are talking about.

I kind of hate to pile on, but let me be the third service member in this thread to call you out. Your over-generalization is crude as hell. Loss of agency and individuality? About as much as I lost "agency and individuality" while participating in organized sports. Exclusion from positive, reciprocating, sexual and romantic relationships? Where on Earth did you get that crap? I had wonderful sexual and romantic relationships when I was in the service. Where did you even pull most of this?

Being in the service is just a damned job. It's a demanding one with some unique features, but it's not like you're turned into some emotionless robot devoid of opportunity or capacity to be an individual and have stable, positive relationships.

This is what I get for leaving my forum drift open around people and not watching my stuff. Ramzal, I actually do have four family members who have served or who are serving. But I've never discussed any topic like this with any of them, and I don't know what their takes on it would be. So I certainly won't be going there. There are two Reservists, one Marine, and one Army. I think I've mentioned something about one of them in a much older post. I know I've mentioned in previous posts that I?ve traveled abroad a great deal. At one point, I lived not far from a base and made a couple of friends that were stationed there. They were very cool. They never had a bad thing to say about their lives or their service other than they wished they were at a base somewhere warmer. Additionally, I only post to Newsroom or Featured Content threads. I never post in Off Topic Discussions. Never. That?s not much to go on but that?s all I have.

That said, I suppose I'll give my thoughts. OT Whatever the numbers are, one incident is one too many. Whether it's the armed forces, a school, work, or anywhere else for that matter. I hate that there is a problem, but the problem isn't being ignored. Maybe there are aspects unique to military life that increase the chances of assault? I don't know. Military life style is definitely different from all other life styles. Depending on the topic sometimes people don't want to talk about it.

And Gorrath, Don't worry about piling on. You were a lot cooler and calmer than you had any reason to be. Now, if you'll excuse me, there is a discussion I need to have.

You won?t get it from where it should come from, but you deserve an apology, so you get one from me.

 

[Gorrath]

Can you try to fit more terrible lies and stereotypes? I don't think you quite have enough yet.

Unless you served, I don't think you have the slightest idea of what it's like. There is pride in being able to accomplish what few could have. I've formed bonds with people that were stronger than my own biological brothers in service. I've been given opportunities to experience different cultures and different mindsets when others were sitting comfortably at home, doing fuck all. Yes, there are bad sides to it but those are far and few inbetween. Even though my severance from the service (aka my discharge) was not the prettiest situations ever I am proud of my time in the United States military.

It is a shame that people can talk down an experience they probably know nothing of because they've never been in it and only read about it in blogs. And sorry, but "I have a family member who was in service" doesn't cut it in case you were going to go there. You have the right to speak about the military however you wish and yes there are bad eggs, but you have no idea what you are talking about.

I kind of hate to pile on, but let me be the third service member in this thread to call you out. Your over-generalization is crude as hell. Loss of agency and individuality? About as much as I lost "agency and individuality" while participating in organized sports. Exclusion from positive, reciprocating, sexual and romantic relationships? Where on Earth did you get that crap? I had wonderful sexual and romantic relationships when I was in the service. Where did you even pull most of this?

Being in the service is just a damned job. It's a demanding one with some unique features, but it's not like you're turned into some emotionless robot devoid of opportunity or capacity to be an individual and have stable, positive relationships.

This is what I get for leaving my forum drift open around people and not watching my stuff. Ramzal, I actually do have four family members who have served or who are serving. But I've never discussed any topic like this with any of them, and I don't know what their takes on it would be. So I certainly won't be going there. There are two Reservists, one Marine, and one Army. I think I've mentioned something about one of them in a much older post. I know I've mentioned in previous posts that I?ve traveled abroad a great deal. At one point, I lived not far from a base and made a couple of friends that were stationed there. They were very cool. They never had a bad thing to say about their lives or their service other than they wished they were at a base somewhere warmer. Additionally, I only post to Newsroom or Featured Content threads. I never post in Off Topic Discussions. Never. That?s not much to go on but that?s all I have.

That said, I suppose I'll give my thoughts. OT Whatever the numbers are, one incident is one too many. Whether it's the armed forces, a school, work, or anywhere else for that matter. I hate that there is a problem, but the problem isn't being ignored. Maybe there are aspects unique to military life that increase the chances of assault? I don't know. Military life style is definitely different from all other life styles. Depending on the topic sometimes people don't want to talk about it.

And Gorrath, Don't worry about piling on. You were a lot cooler and calmer than you had any reason to be. Now, if you'll excuse me, there is a discussion I need to have.

You won?t get it from where it should come from, but you deserve an apology, so you get one from me.

I don't hold it against you or even the person posing as you. Misconceptions about the military and what service is like run rampant. I appreciate you clearing the air and having a chat with whomever thought it'd be fun to post on your account. I take your explanation at face value and have no reason to distrust your claim. I appreciate the apology too; that's big of you.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

I'm not surprised tbh. Testosterone fueled men all put together away from female company and trained to be dominant and impose themselves on situations and people? Not exactly an ideal breeding ground for moral sentimentality and kindness.

It's been happening since the days of Sparta.

Lots of stereotypes, but a bit light on facts.

Away from female company? Wrong. Females aren't "segregated" away, outside of things like living area for obvious reasons.

Trained to be dominant and impose themselves? No. You're trained to be disciplined and proficient in your job. Seriously, movies and TV shows are a terrible source of what it's like in the military.

If they haven't done it already, I'm expecting them to blame it on "gays in the military".

Sigh, I don't even.

I think it's comparable to prison rape. Otherwise heterosexual men (and women) that resort to homosexual rape after extended periods without interaction with the opposite sex.

Again, less movies and TVs. Seriously, outside of extended missions in the field outside the wire(and even then that depends on your unit composition), there's about zero time where there's "extended periods without interaction with the opposite sex".

I'm not even talking about garrisons (where there are an endless avenues for that kind of things around the bases). There were so much civilian contractor/TCN presence on bases in warzones that interacting with the opposite sex isn't really a problem.

I'm sorry to joke in what is a very serious topic but...

You mean guys don't try to get out of the military by doing this?

No, but people do try things like threatening suicides etc. I've seen quite a few of those in the first couple weeks in bootcamp.

(There are plenty of women in the US military as it happens, and they have more chance of being raped by male US personnel than killed by the enemy)

And you're also more likely kill yourself in a traffic accident than being killed by the enemy. I'm sorry, but this statement is rather misleading. Both the type of war we've been fighting and advances in medical technology means that far fewer people are being killed in combat. We've had less troops KIA in over a decade of fighting than in many single battle in older conflicts like WW2.

Military service is a hostile environment even without having to deal with enemy combatants.

Yea ok, when and where were you in the service again? I'm sure you must have something to based that statement on right?

I'm assuming that you serve or have served in such an environment? But you are right, they're based on third part hearsay.

Can you please describe further what laws there are/aren't regards male/female relations on board? Does much actually go off, and is it encouraged, discouraged or neither?

also, I'm really struggling to believe you aren't trained to asert yourself. Just look at your post - asertive and dominant. Be interested to hear why you don't think that's the case.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'm assuming that you serve or have served in such an environment? But you are right, they're based on third part hearsay.

Can you please describe further what laws there are/aren't regards male/female relations on board? Does much actually go off, and is it encouraged, discouraged or neither?

also, I'm really struggling to believe you aren't trained to asert yourself. Just look at your post - asertive and dominant. Be interested to hear why you don't think that's the case.

I had an uncle in the Australian Army. They want discipline and team players. Not people who will aggressively conflict with the people around them. The metaphor he used was; "anybody you'd gladly have on your side during a game of rugby". Physically fit, but knows when to pass the ball and adapt to the positions of other players on your team.

That being said, that was the army of about 40 years ago, but I don't see why such qualities of cool-headed teamwork would suddenly find themselves unwanted. And once again, US army may be different ... but of the soldiers I've talked to they seem to be pretty down-to-earth and reasonable.

As for the numbers it's absolutely depressing, but I don't think it's a US problem solely. From what I hear it's not just the bad eggs that get in trouble when something like this emerges into the public view. Sad to say, but I think a lot of service personnel kind of 'suck it up' if only to save face for a lot of people they know.

 

[kyp275]

I'm assuming that you serve or have served in such an environment? But you are right, they're based on third part hearsay.

Can you please describe further what laws there are/aren't regards male/female relations on board? Does much actually go off, and is it encouraged, discouraged or neither?

also, I'm really struggling to believe you aren't trained to asert yourself. Just look at your post - asertive and dominant. Be interested to hear why you don't think that's the case.

Outside of things that are specific to each gender such as uniform/hygiene regulation, there aren't really any regulations specific about male/female relations that I'm aware of. The ones that DO exist are primarily concerned about relations between officer/enlisted, NCO/Non-NCO etc. Basically it's there to protect against fraternization. In other words, as long as you're not too far apart on the rank (ie. a Captain and a Corporal, or Staff Sergeant and a PFC etc.), or be in the same chain of command (Platoon Sergeant and someone in the same platoon), or are already married (adultery is a crime under the UCMJ), what you do on your own time is your own business. Heck, sometimes you can find married couples in the same unit.

Where people can get into trouble is if they violate those things I listed above. It really depends on your command still though, sometimes they'll let things slide unless it becomes too obvious where they have no choice but to take action.

As for the rest, it's pretty much like what PaulH said. What's important is discipline and ability to follow orders, do your job and work with others. There may indeed be a bunch of alpha dogs running around, they may even hate each other's guts. But when the fire starts coming downrange, that all goes away. You're going to watch his back, and he's going to watch yours, and the only "asserting" that's going to be done is from the one who's giving the orders, whether it be the platoon commander or just a fire team leader. Sure, you can speak up(in appropriate time and place) if you thing a mistake is being made, but you sure as hell aren't going to be asserting to your Sergeant on what to do. By the same token, I don't need to be assertive or dominant when telling my men what to do. When I tell Lance Corporal Joe that he needs to square away his room and clean that head, I can tell him in the same casual tone of voice as I would to my friends, but I'd still fully expect him to follow my order.

There's no training the troops to assert themselves. You'll probably gain more confidence, but that's just from repeated honing of your craft. The rest is just each individual's personality. There are the "assertive" ones, and then there are the "quiet" ones, but ultimately what's respected is how well you can do your job, and if you're in a leadership position, how well you know your stuff and lead your troops, and that's always been true in my 10 yrs in the USMC.

 

[Kennetic]

Being in the US Army myself, male rape does exist but I have my doubts about that number. You mostly see that in all-male units such as combat arms. We actually had a male on male incident in one of our infantry companies before we went to Korea. Two guys got drunk and one guy forced himself on another soldier. The victim reported it and he ended up not deploying with us. The aggressor got moved to another unit while the investigation is still ongoing and we haven't had an update on that yet.

One of the issues is that infantry units in particular have a lot of pride and don't like to report stuff like that because of the stigma behind it. We have briefings ALL THE TIME about sexual assault but the bottom line is, if you don't report it, then nothing can be done about it.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

I'm assuming that you serve or have served in such an environment? But you are right, they're based on third part hearsay.

Can you please describe further what laws there are/aren't regards male/female relations on board? Does much actually go off, and is it encouraged, discouraged or neither?

also, I'm really struggling to believe you aren't trained to asert yourself. Just look at your post - asertive and dominant. Be interested to hear why you don't think that's the case.

Outside of things that are specific to each gender such as uniform/hygiene regulation, there aren't really any regulations specific about male/female relations that I'm aware of. The ones that DO exist are primarily concerned about relations between officer/enlisted, NCO/Non-NCO etc. Basically it's there to protect against fraternization. In other words, as long as you're not too far apart on the rank (ie. a Captain and a Corporal, or Staff Sergeant and a PFC etc.), or be in the same chain of command (Platoon Sergeant and someone in the same platoon), or are already married (adultery is a crime under the UCMJ), what you do on your own time is your own business. Heck, sometimes you can find married couples in the same unit.

Where people can get into trouble is if they violate those things I listed above. It really depends on your command still though, sometimes they'll let things slide unless it becomes too obvious where they have no choice but to take action.

As for the rest, it's pretty much like what PaulH said. What's important is discipline and ability to follow orders, do your job and work with others. There may indeed be a bunch of alpha dogs running around, they may even hate each other's guts. But when the fire starts coming downrange, that all goes away. You're going to watch his back, and he's going to watch yours, and the only "asserting" that's going to be done is from the one who's giving the orders, whether it be the platoon commander or just a fire team leader. Sure, you can speak up(in appropriate time and place) if you thing a mistake is being made, but you sure as hell aren't going to be asserting to your Sergeant on what to do. By the same token, I don't need to be assertive or dominant when telling my men what to do. When I tell Lance Corporal Joe that he needs to square away his room and clean that head, I can tell him in the same casual tone of voice as I would to my friends, but I'd still fully expect him to follow my order.

There's no training the troops to assert themselves. You'll probably gain more confidence, but that's just from repeated honing of your craft. The rest is just each individual's personality. There are the "assertive" ones, and then there are the "quiet" ones, but ultimately what's respected is how well you can do your job, and if you're in a leadership position, how well you know your stuff and lead your troops, and that's always been true in my 10 yrs in the USMC.

So wait a sec, "there may be a group of alpha-dogs running round, but when in the fire they have your back", but you say there's no assertion?

I appreciate your reply, but just look how assertive that in itself is. I somehow can't see any forces training their troops to be passive. The very nature of the job requires decisive actions.

I'm not saying everyone falls into the same bracket, but I'd say the very nature of the job attracts people who wish to be empowered.

 

[kyp275]

So wait a sec, "there may be a group of alpha-dogs running round, but when in the fire they have your back", but you say there's no assertion?

I appreciate your reply, but just look how assertive that in itself is. I somehow can't see any forces training their troops to be passive. The very nature of the job requires decisive actions.

I'm not saying everyone falls into the same bracket, but I'd say the very nature of the job attracts people who wish to be empowered.

I'm not sure how you got that from my post. As I said repeatedly, that's just the individual's personality. There are no " How to be assertive 101" course in bootcamp. About the only thing I can think of where they actually tell you to speak up unconditionally is calling out unsafe actions and halt fire on the firing range.

Nor does being decisive somehow equates to assertive, if being able to make quick decisions is "assertive", then every doctor/fire fighter /first responder / stockbrokers etc. are all assertive.

And the DMV would be the complete opposite, yet DMV employees are probably some of the most "assertive" people I've seen

Frankly, you seem to have some weird concept of what being assertive is. You asked me what it's like in the military, I obliged, but that somehow makes me "assertive"?

To me it looks like you just have this Hollywood-esque idea of what the military is like, which is very far from reality. If anything, it's law enforcement that are trained to assert themselves when needed, it's simply not something all that relevant to the military. How assertive you are don't mean jack to that rifle/vehicle/explosives etc. It's not some kind of sports team/frat house in movies where you have people yelling and screaming at each other over their egos and trying to be the one in charge.

No, in the military, you can be the most soft-spoken and quiet one in the room(fun trivia: the more senior/higher ranked the person is, the more soft-spoken they tend to be), and everyone will shut up and listen when you talk, because you're the company first sergeant.