Since we're in a state of agreement, I'd like to bring up Willfor's post, which I found intriguing (In a disturbing, sickening kind of way). I think it's worth discussing, as long as we omit the unnecessary details, but if tahujdt, Toady, or enough people ask, I'll delete/spoiler this post.
For those who want to read it themselves, the article itself is rather graphic, so let's not discuss those parts. If you have a weak stomach or are sensitive, don't read it. At all. I'll just summarize it as best I can.
Willfor's Post:
[TRIGGER WARNING=RAPE]
linkyI'm also going to quote this phrase but also put it under a trigger warning spoiler as well:
Later on I speak with Dr Angella Ntinda, who treats referrals from the RLP. She tells me: "Eight out of 10 patients from RLP will be talking about some sort of sexual abuse."
"Eight out of 10 men?" I clarify.
"No. Men and women," she says.
"What about men?"
"I think all the men."
I am aghast.
"All of them?" I say.
"Yes," she says. "All the men."
I'm also throwing in with what Max and Vector are saying: It's really not a reason to keep women out.
I'll try to keep this PG13, but for those who don't want the gritty details from the article: Male rape in places torn apart by civil war, Africa receiving most of the focus in the article, is turning out to be a much larger problem than anyone's even willing to admit. Men, plagued by disease and serious, long-term injuries that were a direct result of their rape are unable to admit even to their doctors what happened to them due to lack of help and a strong social stigma against men being raped. Doctors give lackluster treatment (if any), social programs (Including international ones) designed to help rape victims don't have any help for men, and families ostracize men who admit to having been raped. Their wives literally take their kids and leave them for something they had no control over. Finally, it's only because of attempts of open minded and caring people to help them that these men are finally coming forward with their stories. The article says that as help is made more available to male rape victims, the numbers of men willing to admit what happened to them has risen dramatically, and hints that as the stigma is stamped out and more help is provided that even more will come forward.
The article makes a lot of good points, too: Society's unwillingness to admit that male rape can even be a possibility puts women in the constant state of "victim" and men as protectors or defilers. For obvious reasons, men will be the instigator in the vast majority of rape cases, but accepting the idea that men are also getting raped would be a huge leap in the right direction, both in helping men defend themselves/receive treatment and bridging the gender gap on what's generally considered something that only happens to women (Which only perpetuates the stigma that women are vulnerable).
I've always suspected that male rape was more common than it's pretended to be, and that the stigma against a man admitting that sort of weakness was keeping its awareness down, but I had no clue it was such a huge problem. I'm curious to see if, as gender roles become hazier and people are more willing to be more open about these sorts of things, we'll get a better idea of what the numbers are across the board, not just in third world countries.
I'll admit that it's a fear that's been in the back of my mind for some time. It's not a fear you want to admit in public, and neither is it something you want to admit is even a possibility to yourself. No, we'd rather pretend that this is fully a woman problem, and those women should really get around to being safer or something. So when it does end up happening to a man he's practically destroyed, because all of the illusions he had about what rape is and how it affected him are completely turned upside down and he has nowhere to turn to.
Bringing it to the front of my mind makes me realize that I may have to take the same steps a woman would have to take to defend herself in such a situation, rather than simply wishing really hard that it's one of those things that I'll never have to deal with. It also brings a huge psychological equalizer to the field to the whole gender rights debate: If a woman is more able to defend herself from rape than I am, how could I even have an inkling that women are inferior to me?