Male rape in the Congo

More than 10% of rape victims in the recent surge of attacks targeted against civilians in eastern Congo have been male. One also needs to factor in male reluctance to report such crimes. Most victims actually report it only if confronted with serious health problems. This, soon after rape has been officially recognized by the UN as a "weapon of war", meaning it is primarily a calculated strategy to humiliate. terrorize and render submissive an enemy or civilian population, thereby ensuring support and non-interference. It's the same story in Darfur, in Congo and in a slightly altered context, in South Africa where it has assumed epidemic proportions despite peace and relative political stability. When will our social perception of rape as primarily a lust-driven crime committed by sexually deprived/frustrated people change? When will traditional stereotypes of masculinity that keep men from empathizing with sexual assault and leave them imprisoned in a quixotic world of power and control, change? Till then social ostracism, ridicule and total lack of empathy or self-esteem will continue to trouble the male rape victim in addition to bleeding backsides and possible castration (another strategy for sexually torturing people that these militias have been using). Possibly the same complex gives birth to a rapist in the first place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/africa/05congo.html?_r=1&hp