The Invisible War - Rape in the US military

Just watched ''The Invisible War''

The expose' about how up to 20% of female military personnel in the US forces have been victims of rape and an estimate of up to 20,000 men have been forcibly sodomized. Unbelievable in this day and age..

http://www.notinvisible.org/

Cannot begin to say how shocked I was at the treatment of the people by the system. Sadly this appears to be the current state of the US military. I can't help but wonder if the same sort of statistics apply in the UK or Canada.

Sad that an institution, that should be something to be proud of, appears to be so lacking in moral fibre and lets it's members get mistreated.

Consider watching this documentary.

LFD

 

I've known a couple of men that were victims of homosexual abuse in the UK forces. It was basically brutal hazing. Social dominance by sodomy would appear to be a trait common to many violent males.

Barracks don't sound that different from prisons by some accounts. I would like to say that I was suprised, but I wasn't.

 

This sort of nonsense and worse is notorious in the Russian military. I didn't think this sort of stuff went on in the west, I guess it comes with the territory.

 

Those numbers sound exagerated to me but even one rape is too many.

 

Thanks for your comment David but I would like to clarify something. The people in the film made it clear that there was no homosexual intent in the actions of the men sodomizing others, rather it was just to show the ability to dominate. As far as I can remember there was no discussion of anything specifically ''homosexual'' about the violence and in fact I think that the aggressors merely wanted to terrorize another person.

Rape is an act of violence and not necessarily a sexual act in any real sense of the word.

LFD

 

exagerrated?

Take a look at the link and perhaps have a view of the film. Even it it is only half or a quarter of the numbers mentioned, how is it that this crime is tolerated?

Yes one is too many.

Why should someone who has dedicated themselves to fight for their country have to worry about being raped by a colleague?? Sad. Sad. Sad.

LFD

 

Oh absolutely, I meant homosexual purely as a technical term, I didn't mean it had anything to do with sexual attraction or preference. I used the term homosexual merely to indicate that the sexual abuse was not inflicted by women.

The men guilty of the abuse would likely be, at least overtly, homophobic.

Edit: the meaning of the word "homosexual" does not have to have any connotations of sexuality. Male Masonic lodges and the Women's Institute could be said to be homosexual organisations, because only one sex is allowed to be a member. Sorry if my wording caused confusion, and thanks for the opportunity to clarify.

 

Um, yes. It was.

Homo = same

Go back and edit my post if it's a problem. I don't see a need to derail the thread with back-handed accusations of homophobia and/or confusing use of language (not sure which one you were going for).

 

oh crap I was a boy scout...does that mean I was a homosexual scout? Say it ain't so...

 

I love it when people say "in this day and age" like they think we're really that much more "civilized" than any civilization past.

 

Sadly, I have female friends who have been the victim of this kinda thing. I know one poor young woman who was repeatedly victimized and treated badly by her superiors when she came forward about it. Apparently it is not uncommon for women filing complaints to become targeted for blame, which of course only compounds the mental anguish they are already dealing with. I read one study about a military school that revealed very dark statistics about how frequently the young female soldiers were targets for sexual violence. The command almost always discouraged the girls from filing formal complaints too. They did anything possible to ignore the problem.

Here is one study discussing the frequency of the problem:

Unfortunately it's not. If anything, 20% is too low.

 

I personally feel that this is a very serious subject, and should be taken as such. Especially as I have had friends who have been victims of this kind of barbaric abuse.

If, as it seems, people can only accept one definition of a word, and for some reason find it amusing, then please edit my post and delete all those following.

 

I was wondering why those pup tents were so small.

Ok sorry for that...I'm out

 

In my four years in I heard one case that wasn't really rape, but definitely . . . not right. Hazing new guys is sometimes big, and when I first got in supposedly a guy had gotten kicked out for putting a spoon full of peanut butter in a new guys butt. I didn't even know what to think about it but that's all I've ever heard.

What I want to know about these statistics is who is the person committing the crime. Is it in the lower ranks, or the upper ranks. The lack of attention, commentary, and avoidance of this issue make me think it is because a lot of the offenders are higher up in rank, meaning they are trying to protect each other. Lord knows if it was enlisted they would be throwing people under the bus like it was in style (oh wait, it is in style). I really want to know because I have a very deep rooted hatred for crappy authority which is rampant from my experiences, and I would like every single one of their entitled, pompous, ignorant piece of crap lives destroyed. I would love to have some more fuel for my fire towards the commissioned and staff.

 

In the cases I've read about or been told about from friends, the perpetrators often seem to be in positions of authority. I'm sure enlisted are guilty too, but any NCO/officer will probably have more access to facilitate isolating their victims. And because rapists tend to be serial abusers, a relatively small group of soldiers are probably responsible for a grossly disproportionate ratio of all abuse cases tallied.

Here is an interview from a couple of the women featured in the documentary who speak about how their rapists were their COs and they were denied the ability to hold them accountable because of it:

The Invisible War: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAKiCdD0hkE"]Interview.[/ame]

And yeah, I share your hatred of unqualified leadership abusing their positions of authority over better, more dedicated enlisted men and women. It's inexcusable. Those questionable service records tarnish the legitimate officers/NCOs sharing their units.

[Forgive any incoherence here, I am on Ambien for insomnia and hydrocodone for recent tooth pain and I am HIGH! Take me to funky town...]

There is a petition to fill out to help bring awareness to this issue, but also to allow you to personally sign up via email or cell phone (optional) for future volunteer opportunities with the organization, doing whatever they require to assist sexually abused veterans. I have signed up so we'll see what they ask of me, of anything at all.

TIV: Sign The Petition.

 

Erm...we are (in developed nations).
In many tangible ways we really are more civilised than most past civilisations.
Less violence, less murder, less abuse, less rape, less inequality, less slavery, less racism, less genocide, less child labour, less human sacrifice, less blood sports, less exploitation, less eunuchs and castrati, etc etc.

Just because some people in the army get raped (something I'm absolutely not making light of) doesn't mean we're still living in the dark ages.
To think we've not made advances in civility over the years is to ignore what's going on (or more importantly not going on) in the streets outside your house.

 

I think Sketco's right on this one, and it's an important point that this is about culture, not innate behaviour.

It's not the violent sociopaths that turn the barracks into pits of abuse, but the pits of abuse that turn people into violent sociopaths.

I would suspect that it is more prevalent in some units than others, because it has historical precedent of being accepted or ignored. For me, the crux of the issue is about what is accepted in terms of the culture of a unit or military branch.

Not true. Evidence would suggest that, on the whole, we became vastly more exploitative and violent with the advent of agriculture and trade.

To think of human development as a linear scale between uncivilised and civilised is a grave error IMO.

We have recentley made gains in these areas, yes. The huge increase in reporting these things gives some people the impression that these crimes are more prevalent, and you make a good point that we should not be fooled in that regard.

Just because we can now export some of these things, does not mean we do not participate in them. Just because Primark or H&M don't have slave-wage kids manning the tills, don't forget that they're still making the clothes for less than a pittance, and in horrendous social circumstances.

More people died as a result of warfare in the second-half of the twentieth century than the first, mainly in proxy wars during the "cold" war. Because our leaders are no longer defecating on their own doorstep, we view the world as a more peaceful place.

As for less inequality, it depends on how you slice the pie. The wealth gap in developed nations is increasing: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3629

The more cynical and conspiratorial amongst us could argue that those in power have become better at getting a profit from their subjects, and keeping them complacent about social iniquity.

It would appear that we had around 190,000 years of relative civility, and then 5,000-10,000 years of horrendous exploitation and violence. Of course, it is impossible to prove this, but it's based on the only evidence we have: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ed-their-egalitarian-ways-three-complementary

So really, we've had a mixed bag. Technology equally increases and reduces life expectancy, depending on which side of a wealth-gap or war you are on. I would personally rather be a medieval peasant than a mill-worker during the industrial revolution, or a modern-day sweatshop worker. Some people might say that their iPhone increases their quality of life, but it doesn't do much for the poor sods who made it.

Yes, but sometimes we have to look a little further to get the whole picture.

To get back to the point, we should not become complacent with the idea that we can leave this to sort itself out, based on false notions that we as a species march inexorably toward increased compassion and civility. We demonstrably don't.

 

Would it?
As I understand it hunter gatherer peoples can be (and are) very violent and exploitative. One of the highest rates of death in Papaua new guinean men is violent death at the hands of another man.
That's pretty much been the reality of human life for centuries all over the world.

Indeed. But what is clear is that there has been enough of a trend over the course of human history that we can safely say that much of the world is more civilised today (and by that I mean more moral towards each other) than previous civilisations.
It's not linear. It's more than likely saw toothed and jagged when you look at any number of factors but there will still be a trend.

Indeed. But the countries where those children live they'd be doing that anyway (that's not to excuse it though). We might help change the scale or extend the problem longer than needed. If we stopped buying cheap foreign goods those children wouldn't all of a sudden get lovely childhoods, toys and kisses from mummy. They'd still be expoited by someone until the countries in question move the overall moral zeitgeist (and in some ways economy of that country) beyond employing child labour as the western world did in the past.

So yes...some parts of the world are sadly as bad as they've ever been (and worse in some cases).
But I still find it disingenuous for a man in the western world to say that life today is no more civilised than it would have been for him 100/200/500/1000 years ago.