When men are the victims: The incidence of sexual assault against men

Men's experiences of sexual assault have long been a controversial issue. Feminist thinkers like Catherine Mackinnon and Susan Brownmiller have theorized sexual assault as a natural outgrowth of or tool designed to perpetuate women's disempowerment, whereas more liberal thinkers perceive sexual assault more exclusively as a criminal activity unique to women's experience, perpetrated mostly by men and experienced mostly by women. Both radical and liberal feminist theories fail to account for the incidence of sexual assault against men, and especially of men's experiences of sexual assault by women. In this study, I analyzed data from the CDC's National Intimate Partner Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS). I found that while men reported similar rates of sexual victimization over the past 12 months, their reports of sexual victimization over their lifetimes were well below women's reports. I discuss several hypotheses that could explain this disparity and suggest directions for future research.