Rape & the U.S. Millitary

Military sexual trauma by the numbers

Women

... make up 10% of veterans.

... make up 49% of military sexual-trauma victims.

Men

... make up 90% of veterans.

... make up 51% of military sexual-trauma victims.

One in five female veterans reports having been sexually assaulted while serving in the military.

One in twenty male veterans reports having been sexually assaulted while serving in the military.

Source: Pack Parachute, Office of Veterans Affairs, Department of Health and Human Service

OCCOM BILL wrote:

More elephants are illegally taken by poachers in lands where the elephants are more plentiful too. Pointing out this peripheral fact, or the relative poverty of the poachers themselves for that matter, does little to address concerns over elephant populations.

Likewise, murder rates spike up enormously as population densities increase, but I have yet to see anyone side-step the inherent wrongness of murder by pointing this out. One would think a group of persons who have all sworn an oath to defend the constitution of our land could be held to at least as high of a standard as the general public who has sworn no such thing.

What point are you trying to make?

Perhaps you would then illuminate us with your foolproof program for preserving elephants , or eliminating crime, even among populations that should know, and behave, better.

Oaths to defend the Constitution are generally ineffective in persuading powerful Senators not to add self-serving earmarks to legislation or take financial payoffs from important constituents.

They don't do much to restrain horny young men in close proximity to sometimes willing temptation either.

Neither behavior is admirable, but both are common.

Despite this the general incidence of crime in the military is a good deal lower than that in comparative populations elsewhere.

To the extent that such behaviors are a predictable response to the age distribution and physical circumstances of military organizations, then we have an argument for excluding women from the military - something I suspect very few posters here would support.

To the extent that it reflects some correctable defect in the structure or behavior of military organizations, then we have a different - and far more complex situation involving both corrective remedies and their usually unamnticipated side effects.

If you flat out don't believe any of it, that's one thing; but please don't go on trivializing it unless you really do see things like Shorteyes and BillRM.

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If you flat out don't believe any of it, that's one thing; but please don't go on trivializing it unless you really do see things like Shorteyes and BillRM.

Allowing warriors to be aggressively sexual might be a price that this society needs to pay to be provided with a superior warrior class. Your assumption that stopping aggressive sexuality with-in military is a good idea is at this point an unproven assertion.

LOL the military is three times safer for women then a college campus do you not love it!!!!! You do have to pick the right universes such as young women not 88 years old women.

http://www.now.org/issues/violence/030702college.html

According to a federal study, about three percent of college women are sexually attacked and thirteen percent are stalked during an academic year. "The Sexual Victimization of College Women" was released last year by the U.S. Justice Department's National Institute of Justice and Bureau of Justice Statistics. The report is based on interviews with 4,446 college women (employing a nationally representative sample) and examines the frequency and nature of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States.

Of the women surveyed, 2.8 percent experienced either a completed rape (1.7 percent) or an attempted rape (1.1 percent). The victimization rate was 27.7 rapes per 1,000 female students; 22.8 percent of the women were raped more than once, for a rate of incidents of 35.3 per 1,000 students. For a campus with 10,000 women, the number of rapes could exceed 350 per year.

I think you should stop hyperventillating.

Are you suggesting that the military doesn't take crime seriously, or is lax in enforcing its rules? If so perhaps you could provide us with something to back up your case.

I'm not responsible for the way you perceive what I write or the hidden "tones" your prejudices reveal to you.

Evidently we agree that the statistics at the opening of this thread were exaggerated and out of meaningful context. Your inferences that nothing is being done about it are entirely of your own imagination. I suggested that in my first post, however the ball didn't bounce.

I believe that very few of the most highly opinionated posters here have any experience of a military organization, of the nature of the culture it presents or indeed of the reality behind these statistics. That, however, doesn't appear to inhibit them at all.

How is rape different than smoking? I do hope the authorities catch your sick ass one day, so you can learn the difference between rape and smoking first hand.

Are you suggesting that the military doesn't take crime seriously, or is lax in enforcing its rules?

both cases it is claimed that a freedom must be curtailed because it brings harm to the innocent

How is rape different than smoking?

Give them free access to alcohol; that'll help them relax and as an added benefit, they will be much less reluctant to commit war crimes.

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How is rape different than smoking?

How is rape different than killing 100,000 Iraqis, Bill? I do wish your sense of moral outrage was, shall we say, a wee bit more evenhanded.

No reasonable person disputes the wrongness of rape. Only misogynistic pieces of **** do that.

How about we just stipulate our agreement that no foolproof plan exists to protect elephants from poachers, murder victims or rape victims... and stop pretending that age, proximity, or lack of other opportunity somehow constitute an excuse for rape?

"Horny young men" don't rape, George; RAPISTS do.

.. rather than following the misogynistic assholes in playing down the severity and heinousness of rape.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

How about we just stipulate our agreement that no foolproof plan exists to protect elephants from poachers, murder victims or rape victims... and stop pretending that age, proximity, or lack of other opportunity somehow constitute an excuse for rape?

Interesting logical shift there. My opinion is there is also no foolproof plan to prevent rape, in the military or outside it. Nowhere did I suggest that age, proximity, etc. were factors that excuse rape. Instead I pointed out that they are statistical factors clearly and consistently associated with its incidence. I clearly pointed out that the lack of data concerning relative incidence in comparable populations that was precisely the key missing element here. Without it we might as well become exorcised about the incidence of rape among members of PETA.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

"Horny young men" don't rape, George; RAPISTS do.

Interesting tautology. Is there any meaning behind it?

(Evidently you have never been to Olongapo).

OCCOM BILL wrote:

.. rather than following the misogynistic assholes in playing down the severity and heinousness of rape.

But I didn't "play down the severity of rape", and there are some posters here (probably on both sides of this matter) whose material I don't bother to read.