| Men and women commit rape and are raped in roughly equal numbers, and that is not including prison rape. When do include that, men are the majority of the victims. The CDC's 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which looked at society at large and excluded the prison population, found that 1.1% of women and 1.1% or men surveyed were raped in the prior 12 months. 98% of women who had been raped identified a man as their attacker and 80% of the men who had been raped identified a woman as their attacker. This works out to men being 60% of rapists and women being 40% of rapists. Here is an analysis with all the calculations laid out and tied back to the data tables in the NISVS report: http://www.genderratic.com/p/836/manufacturing-female-victim... Here is a link to the data tables with the relevant figures circled: http://imgur.com/a/aw0eU Now, the NISVS's executive summary does not tell this story. It tells the usual story of rape being something men overwhelmingly to do women. The way it does that is by defining rape to be 'being penetrated against your will', excluding 'being made to penetrate', which is what a female rapist would do to a man. Nevertheless, the study does track how many men were made to penetrate (which it categorizes as 'other, sexual assault'), so it is possible to correct the definition of rape to one that doesn't erase female on male rape ('made to have sex against your will'), and when you do, rape ceases to be a gendered crime. So yes, I can imagine what it would be like for men to be raped as often as women are. Now, can you imagine what it would be like if female rape victims, like male rape victims, were defined out of existence, and offered no recognition, or help? |
Statistics have very little meaning without context.
From your first link:
>Men are the vast majority of rapists and women are the vast majority of victims because rape was defined in such a way to make sure that this was so.
Exactly. This is so because the context is that we live in a patriarchal society where it is much easier for men to use their power and dominance to take advantage of women.
You see, that's what rape is about: dominance. It doesn't have anything to do about penises or vaginas or anuses. When Person A rapes Person B it is because they want to establish their dominance on Person B. Men are disproportionately classified as rapists because they are exploiting their already dominant status in society at great harm to the other person. And if we were living in a matriarchal society, it would be the exact opposite.