
The rape of men: a dark secret of war (2011) - reedwolf
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jul/17/the-rape-of-men
======
zyxzevn
As additional info: The same is going on in some of the CIA's secret prisons,
according to whistleblowers and images. And many other kinds of torture. Also
stuff going on in Saudi Arabia. Of course the CIA used "national security" to
forbid any publicity on it. But you can find it on wikileaks or similar
uncensored sites. The only way to bring this into the open, is by revoking the
"national security" in cases of crimes and war-crimes.

I have also seen problems for women (and some men) in the US military. But
that is a whole different chapter.

~~~
iudqnolq
The CIA did a lot of "rectal rehydration" and "rectal feeding", and you can
find reports of it in the mainstream media. For example,
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-
torture-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-torture-
report-worst-findings-waterboard-rectal)

While you aren't wrong that the Saudi Arabian government tortures prisoners,
you're phrasing implies that they are unique when in fact most authoritarian
governments around the world torture people in their prisons.

~~~
spats1990
>While you aren't wrong that the Saudi Arabian government tortures prisoners,
you're phrasing implies that they are unique when in fact most authoritarian
governments around the world torture people in their prisons.

Could you expand a bit on the significance of this? This seems like the kind
of response that would be met with scorn if Saudi Arabia were substituted for
certain other authoritarian governments in this sentence.

I've been grappling with it a bit myself, lately. When we are thinking about
the human rights violations of a particular government or organization, is it
important to consider them in context (similar to your statement, if I'm
reading it correctly--i.e. such violations are not unique)? But then such
attempts to place things in context are often met with accusations of
whataboutism (which is sometimes the case in that "provision of context" is
actually "attempt to deflect the conversation"). In other cases I'm not so
sure.

~~~
iudqnolq
I didn't at all intend to justify or excuse anything the Saudi Arabian
government has done. Not uniquely despicable isn't a good look. I did worry
that people not familiar with the issues who read the comment I replied to
would come away with the impression that for a totalitarian country to torture
is unusual.

It's completely valid to say "lots of countries torture, and let's focus on
Saudi Arabia because they get a lot of US support so we as US citizens have
more leverage over them than most countries". It's also completely valid to
say "let's focus on Saudia Arabia because they're on the worse end and we need
to start somewhere".

I wouldn't have left my comment there was a large discussion about Saudi
abuses; I thought the comment was useful because it was in reply to a single
offhand looking comment.

------
mirimir
I gather that it's much worse than TFA reports.

In that these are just the men who survived.

~~~
bitL
Newspapers routinely skip mentioning e.g. 5,000 young adult males massacred by
Boko Haram but ring alarm bells when 100 young women are kidnapped. I guess it
sells better?

~~~
ohithereyou
We, as a society, have decided that men are largely disposable.

------
leroy_masochist
This was perpetually going on within the Shia-Sunni turf war that happened
during the US occupation of Iraq. We as a species are capable of some pretty
horrible things.

~~~
mean_gene_1976
I'm sorry, but are you saying the US sodomized local nationals or something?

~~~
pietroglyph
They may not be saying that, but the US absolutely has sodomized people during
the so-called “War on Terror”. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2014/dec/09/cia-torture-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2014/dec/09/cia-torture-report-worst-findings-waterboard-rectal)

Here’s one about the army that’s more graphic:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse)

No one has been prosecuted for the war crimes the CIA commited. Although some
low-level army personnel were court martialed for the Abu-Gharib torture, none
of the clearly complicit higher-ups were even indicted. In the case of the
CIA’s torture program, it is clear that those at the highest levels of
government sanctioned these war crimes. Bush, and those around him, should be
in prison for their disgusting, shameful actions.

~~~
afroboy
The funny thing that Lynndie England is free now in US.

~~~
mean_gene_1976
That’s what the US is all about. Freedom

------
pontus
This article made me sick. Terrible.

------
cryptozeus
Just reading of this is brutal..can’t imagine someone going through this and
have a will to live

------
celeritascelery
> “There's a fear among them that this is a zero-sum game; that there's a pre-
> defined cake and if you start talking about men, you're going to somehow eat
> a chunk of this cake that's taken them a long time to bake [for women]. I
> know for a fact that the people behind the report insisted the definition of
> rape be restricted to women," he says

That seems to be as much the source of the problem as the stigma itself. The
relief agencies don’t want to acknowledge male rape because it goes against
the narrative they have created.

~~~
rectang
> _That seems to be as much the source of the problem as the sigma itself._

No.

The original rape is worse than anything the relief agency does.

~~~
rndgermandude
For the individual victim, the rape is certainly a lot worse than what those
agencies do.

However, at scale, agencies that try to censor information and reports about
rape/violence other than male-on-female rape/violence might do a lot of harm
regardless, be it through stigma, or be it through denying victims and future
victims (preventative) information and help, or by getting government to
marginalize these problems.

I remember some (women) associations campaigning/lobbying against "men's
shelters", trying to get their funding cut or not allocated in the first
place, or trying to get local governments to deny permits to operate such
shelters. WTF.

~~~
rectang
> _I remember some (women) associations campaigning /lobbying against "men's
> shelters"_

Citation needed.

~~~
rndgermandude
I'd have to google, as I didn't read about it recently. So you could google
yourself. Or just dismiss me as a crackpot who makes stuff up.

But you might be interested to read about this lady:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey)

>She is known for having started the first domestic violence shelter in the
modern world, Chiswick Women's Aid, in 1971 [...] Pizzey has been the subject
of death threats and boycotts because of her research into the claim that most
domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally capable of
violence as men.

------
commandlinefan
It’s considered part of the punishment of being jailed.

------
jacobwilliamroy
Is it true that Bush Jr. can't leave the U.S. because he'd be arrested and
tried for war crimes?

~~~
zamadatix
I'd assume not considering he has left the US multiple times since his
presidency and does not seem to be under arrest. There was
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_War_Crimes_Commis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_War_Crimes_Commission)
but if you read about that the connection to the questioned claim (and the
claims of the linked commission) have dubious basis at best.

When you hear something that makes you ask whether or not it's true it's best
to try to validate or invalidate it quickly rather than hold onto it. In this
case a simple Google search saves a lot of assumption.

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
Has he gone to europe before or since he cancelled that trip to switzerland in
2011, when those lawyers were threatening to have him arrested and tried?

------
anongraddebt
Maybe this is as good a place as any to mention a weird and confused use of
the term 'homophobic'. I don't understand its use in certain places, so that's
why I'm bringing it up.

It will often be used to describe aspects of a culture or belief system. Half
the time it makes sense (i.e. throwing gays off roof tops) and the other half
the time it doesn't make sense but still comports with the accepted definition
(i.e. non-bigoted traditional gender role value systems).

If I google "phobic define", I get something about an extreme aversion or
irrational fear. If I google "homophobic define", I get something about a mere
dislike OR a prejudice.

To have a dislike for something is not sufficient for having an irrational
fear or extreme aversion to something.

~~~
RichardCA
The word "homophobia" was derived, it's not a true phobia in the psychiatric
sense.

If it were, then there would be people who become irrationally terrified when
presented with groupings of things that are all the same.

It's more akin to a portmanteau. But that doesn't mean the phenomena it
describes are not very real ones.

I would argue that homophobia and transphobia are both describing the same
underlying phenomenon. But I also respect that there is fierce debate around
that question.

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
I'd say that the underlying phenomenon is classic xenophobia. These are just
specific cases of it, where the "foreign/different/alien" thing is someone's
sexual or gender preference, or even opinion on the validity of those things.
(EG it's possible for a homosexual to be anti-homosexuality: their tribal
affiliation's homophobia is stronger than their personal sexual orientation.
Then you get headlines about a "Wide Stance".)

