Last week, Slate published an article on recent results from the National Crime Victimization Survey, reporting that 38% of sexual assault victims were male. This is quite the shock compared to the statistics we’ve grown used to seeing: RAINN reports, for example, that male victims comprise 10% of all cases.
Why the drastic increase? Are there more cases, or simply more victims coming forward? Are the majority of the cases male-on-male, and how do we define female-on-male rape, anyway? I’m interested in asking these questions in hopes of someday being able to answer them, and hopefully without the “awareness of one kind of rape detracts from another” sentiment of some of the comments on the Slate piece.
Why We Need to Talk About Men Who Are Raped — May 5, 2014 on Role/Reboot
Gender on the Rocks 
For lack of a better phrase, I find the concept of a “gender specific” rape to be an intriguing matter. I know, as an ex-police officer, that men were FAR less likely to report a rape, predominantly because many of them felt their masculinity to be under question if they were a victim of another man. And many would have felt they would have been made a laughing matter, if they reported being victimized by a woman (and it does happen).
Although, I think reporting for this type of crime has gotten better, there is still a long ways to go on the matter.