Jacob, writing for Toy Soldiers on “Military rape and suicide“:
The majority of reported cases of sexual violence in the military involve male victims, yet only one VA facility in the country offers residential treatment for men.
This is what happens when one treats an issue that affects everyone as a “gender-violence” problem. The other (apparently non-) victims do not get the help they need. When combined with the attitudes in the military and cultural attitudes about male vulnerability, this leaves abused men little recourse. They must tough it out, turn to drugs, or turn to suicide to cope with their problems.
What makes this particularly disgusting is that these men chose to fight for their country. They chose to give the ultimate sacrifice, and rather than help them, we ignore them.
Advocates who use ideologically charged and openly discriminatory terminology to attempt to claim or dominate a topic for their broader based cause or ideological crusades, to include attempting to downgrade the experiences of other victims on the basis of race, gender or other arbitrary factors, are not truly dedicated to eradicating sexual violence. That is textbook ideological advocacy that co-opts the suffering of survivors of sexual violence to make a political case, rather than actually working to end rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence. Rather than helping all survivors, they contribute to the culture of shame, hate and mockery that those who don’t fit their narrow definitions and box-based thinking suffer on a daily basis.
We’ve all had enough of that.
Read the rest here:
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/military-rape-and-suicide/