Far more military men are being raped by other men than is reported by the Pentagon because of the stigma attached to such sexual assaults, says a new study by the American Psychological Association.
“Rates of military sexual trauma among men who served in the military may be as much as 15 times higher than has been previously reported, largely because of barriers associated with stigma, beliefs in myths about male rape, and feelings of helplessness,” the APA said in releasing its findings Tuesday.
The Defense Department issues a biannual report on sexual assaults. Based on Internet emailed surveys it found that more men than women, in pure numbers, are sexually assault victims. Women make up about 14.5 percent of the 1.4 million active force.
“We know that there is under reporting among men and women and hope that this special issue will help to bring awareness and treatment for those that serve and protect us,” said the issue’s co-editor, Michi Fu, a clinical practitioner. “I personally wanted to pull together scholarship after hearing of reports of military sexual trauma being so much more prevalent than in the general population.”
Researchers said that even though the Pentagon survey, done most recently by the Rand Corps, is anonymous, men still are reluctant to disclose they were raped. The APA came to this conclusion by surveying a random group of 180 combat veterans, which led them to believe that the sexual assault rate is 15 times higher.
The rapes come at a cost to the men and the nation according to another survey of 2,042 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
“Male veterans who reported being sexually assaulted while serving their country suffered more severe symptoms of PTSD and depression, had higher rates of suicidal thoughts and were more likely to enroll in outpatient mental health treatment than those who were not assaulted,” the researchers found.
In 2013, the Pentagon reported that for one ear, 26,000 service members were the victims of sexual assaults, 14,000 of them men.
If the APA findings are based on one year, then the true number for military men is 210,000 sexual assaults per year.
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