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" Sexual abuse of men within the military is tough to write, tough to handle, and tough to deal with for several reasons. The first, and most obvious, is a homophobic reaction among some readers. These would probably be people who do not actually read Esquire. On teh intertoobs things, get forwarded and twisted in order to meet some people&amp;#039;s personal agendas. That happens to all writers, of course, but as I seem particularly inclined to write about issues that carry some baggage, it seems to happen to just about everything that I write. So I wanted to treat this issue carefully, and in particular, I wanted to make sure it could not be twisted around, because this is a very complex issue. Remember when I noted that last year, the DoD reported that, according to anonymous surveys, the likely number of sexual harassment, assault, and rape incidents in the military the preceding year was somewhere near 26,000. What I did not highlight, but some would have noticed if they followed the link, was that roughly half of those reports were by men. In other words, around 13,000 males were harassed or assaulted or raped that year. Men outnumber women in the military by a vast margin, roughly 4-1, so the rate for women to be assaulted is far higher. But the absolute numbers for men were also bad, and so we should open our eyes to this. Particularly since I think it should be obvious that men are culturally much less likely to report, anonymous or otherwise. If you know anything about rape you know that it is usually not about sexual attraction. Prior studies of men who have been prosecuted for sexual violations of other men in prison consistently show that the accused (and convicted) absolutely do not identify themselves as &amp;quot;gay&amp;quot; or homosexual. In reality, regardless of the genders involved, most sexual crimes are about power. Which brings me to a fairly typical story, sent to me by a brave man who was willing to let me use his name and all identifying features, but I will not do that. I will pass on his story, but this will remain anonymous. When I asked him if he would let me tell his story he responded this way. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll be glad to. A friend recently said to me that we are only as sick as the secrets we keep. I don&amp;#039;t want to be sick from this anymore.&amp;quot; His is a story which is broadly reflective of several of the other letters I have received these past couple of months. So as with my female friend&amp;#039;s stories, I will let his stand as a representative of the 13,000 others out there to whom something like this happens every year. And lest you think that this is a new story, recall that T.E. Lawrence, aka &amp;quot;Lawrence of Arabia,&amp;quot; of First World War fame was a victim as well.  &amp;quot;I enlisted in the Air Force Reserves in the early 90s. My father swore me in (he was a retired officer from that unit). I went to Lackland Air Force Base by commercial airliner, and arrived on base late at night. I stuck out like a sore thumb - one of only two northeners, the other man the only Air National Guardsman. I failed to progress, and was recycled into another flight.\u2028 Sergeant Michael [name withheld] and his flight were completely different than my prior flight. All of his men were jacked to be there. His walls were decorated with American state flags between the lockers. The dayroom had aircraft models on the tables. None of the dorms I had pulled dorm guard duty in had any of these things.\u2028 After approximately a week of not fitting in there either, I was called into the Sergeant&amp;#039;s office, and shown into his personal quarters. He told me to sit down on his cot. This was after light&amp;#039;s out, and all lights were out.\u2028 He told me that my problem was that I had not had sex recently and needed to masturbate. I lay back on his cot. I pulled my shorts down and touched myself. I did not get hard. He commented on this, and told me to relax. He touched me then.\u2028 I don&amp;#039;t remember how it ended. I received a flight separation.&amp;quot;  The men who do these things, and each story is different, do our nation harm. Sometimes these assaults occur under the false-heading of &amp;quot;team building&amp;quot; (a better phrase would be &amp;quot;hazing&amp;quot;), other times they take place more conventionally, with one man exerting power over another, just for the rush of the power. It is sick, and it is wrong, regardless of who the victim might be. I just do not know what to do about it, because to get even the reporting to a realistic level you need to change a culture, and that is no small thing. The opinions here are those of the author and not the DoD, the Army, or any unit with which he is affiliated. I can be reached at R_Bateman_LTC@hotmail.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a27747/military-male-sexual-assault-031114/>