Sexual Violence Against Men in Civil Conflict

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241243091
• Author: Katherine Sawyer
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(3) 743–758

© The Author(s) 2024

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10659129241243091

journals.sagepub.com/home/prq

Sexual Violence Against Men in Civil

Conf‌lict

Katherine Sawyer

1



Abstract

Sexual violence against men in conf‌lict settings is neither a rare nor recent phenomenon, yet its absence in academi c

scholarship and humanitarian initiatives remains glaring. Despite the advances in our understanding of the determinants

of wartime sexual violence against women, surprisingly little empirical research exists on sexual violence against men in

conf‌lict. Acts of sexual violence are commonly enacted against men in war, yet because they do not f‌it more narrow

def‌initions of rape, accounts of these experiences are often misclassif‌ied as “torture.”Moreover, in many countries

experiencing pervasive conf‌lict-related sexual violence, there exist restrictive laws regarding sodomy and homosexuality,

reducing the chances that males will report their experiences. Using originally coded data on sexual and gender identity

laws and reported incidents of sexual violence in civil conf‌lict, I f‌ind that laws that outline the protection of sexual and

gender identity expression including the decriminalization of same-sex activity are signif‌icantlyassociate d with reports of

acts of sexual violence against men. The results speak to the gap in the literature on male sexual violence with tangible

consequences for the distribution of humanitarian aid, availability of medical and psychological services for victims, and

aims of peacekeeping missions.

Keywords

civil conf‌lict, sexual violence, civilian victimization

Introduction

Civilian victimization includes a broad array of violent

acts (e.g., torture, mutilation, looting of private property)

and targeting strategies (e.g., discriminate versus indis-

criminate). Recent work has emphasized the need to

understand the conditions under which actors commit acts

of sexual violence and predict when civilians (particularly

members of minority groups) will be targets (Butler,

Gluch, and Mitchell 2007;Cohen 2013 2016;Cohen

and Nord˚

as 2014;Doctor 2021;Eriksson Baaz and

Stern 2009;Johansson and Hultman 2019;Karim and

Beardsley 2022;Leiby 2009;Loken 2017;Nagel 2021;

Soules 2023;Wood 2008 2009). Beyond the immediate

societal and individual consequences of sexual violence

during war, this particular form of violence has important

negative downstream consequences for post-conf‌lict

peace and reconstruction. However, while early

research into wartime sexual violence suggested that most

conf‌licts involve some level of rape and sexual abuse of

women specif‌ically (Benard 1994), sexual violence

against males is often underreported (Sivakumaran 2007);

moreover, the empirical literature on sexual violence has

largely ignored reports of male victims. Why is male

sexual violence understudied and underreported?

This is the f‌irst study to evaluate empirically the effect

of domestic laws on reports of sexual violence against

males in civil conf‌lict.

1

In so doing, this research con-

tributes to the burgeoning positivist literature on gender

and civilian victimization in conf‌lict studies. Using new

data on sexual and gender identity laws and reported

incidents of sexual violence in conf‌lict, I f‌ind that laws that

outline the protection of sexual and gender identity ex-

pression including the decriminalization of same-sex

activity and gender expression are signif‌icantly associ-

ated with increased reporting of acts of sexual violence

against men in civil conf‌lict. The results speak to the gap

in the literature on male sexual violence with tangible

consequences for the distribution of humanitarian aid,

Stony Brook University, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Katherine Sawyer, Department of Political Science, Stony Brook

University, 100 Nicolls Rd, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.

Email: katherine.sawyer@stonybrook.edu

availability of medical and psychological services for

victims, and aims of peacekeeping missions.

Below, I review the state of the literature on sexual

violence perpetrated against men in conf‌lict and aver that

the currently accepted def‌inition of gender-based violence

(GBV) may be contributing to the dearth of quantitative

research in the area, as well as the under-reporting of male

sexual violence during wartime. Next, I turn to my core

argument concerning the distinction in the impetus for

sexual violence perpetrated against men and how do-

mestic laws regarding sexual and gender identity ex-

pression may work to increase the identif‌ication and

reporting of men as victims of sexual violence in spe-

cif‌ically civil conf‌lict. I then discuss the original data

coding of domestic sexual and gender identity laws and

the f‌indings from the empirical analyses. I use a series of

statistical tests, including an instrumental variables

analysis, to identify patterns in reporting sexual violence

against men in civil conf‌lict based on the presence or

absence of these domestic laws. I conclude with a dis-

cussion of the implications for the study of male sexual

violence and a call for further research.

Sexual Violence Against Men in

Civil Conf‌lict

Despite the progress that has been made regarding the

causes of sexual violence against women, surprisingly

little empirical work, particularly cross-national, has been

conducted on male sexual violence. In part, this is due to

the systematic under-reporting of male sexual violence

both from authorities and from victims. Acts of sexual

violence such as genital mutilation, enforced sterilization,

and forced penetration are commonly enacted against men

(Sivakumaran 2007), yet because they do not f‌it narrow

def‌initions of sexual violence, men’s accounts of these

experiences are often misclassif‌ied as “torture”(Carlson

2006;Carpenter 2006).

The def‌inition of gender-based violence (GBV) is itself

contested, and no single conceptualization has been

universally accepted; most def‌initions broadly charac-

terize GBV as violence targeted toward an individual

because of their gender or as a result of “gendered power

inequities”(Carpenter 2006, 85). Though such descrip-

tions are gender-neutral, their interpretation and appli-

cation in legal settings have led to a functional focus on

the experiences of women as victims of violence in

conf‌lict. This gender disparity is exacerbated when the

study of GBV is narrowed to perpetration of sexual vi-

olence. The attention devoted to female victims in this

domain is certainly not unwarranted, as women and girls

have long disproportionately been the victims of sexual

violence in times of both peace and conf‌lict. It is

problematic on many fronts, however, for our knowledge

of men as victims: understanding the determinants and

prevalence of sexual violence against men depends on a

functionally gender-inclusive def‌inition of GBV.

Narrow def‌initions of sexual violence are just one

contributing factor to the misclassif‌ication and under-

reporting of sexual violence against men. Although the

empirical literature on male sexual violence is sparse,

signif‌icant qualitative interviews offer insight into this

phenomenon and the lack of reporting, particularly from

the victim’s perspective. The causal impetus for the act of

male sexual violence is intimately linked to many male

victims’own reticence to report this violence. Interviews

with victims suggest that male sexual violence is not

simply born out of biological, sexual motivations, as

opportunistic theories would suggest

2

but is a deliberate

act intended to shame its victims. Sexual violence is an act

of power and dominance (Sivakumaran 2007). This is not

unlike the motivations for sexual violence against women.

For women, whose sexual virtue is almost deif‌ied in many

cultures, rape is a literal attack on the woman victim, as

well as a design to impugn her virtue and that of her larger

community, which is required to protect the sexual virtue

of its women (Hansen and Wahlberg 2008;Koo 2002). In

cultures wherein women’s political participation is al-

ready tenuous, sexual violence can further act to remove

the role of women in political life.

However, the shame induced on male victims of

wartime sexual violence is arguably distinct from that of

women in two respects: sexual violence against men is

specif‌ically an attack on their sexual and gender identity.

First, sexual violence against men in conf‌lict is an attack

on men’s sexual identity. Being a victim of male sexual

violence, particularly penetrative rape, is often perceived

by witnesses, community members, and even aid workers,

as evidence of homosexuality. This is especially the case

as civil conf‌lict often occurs in contexts where homo-

sexuality is illegal if not simply stigmatized (Solangon

and Patel 2012). For example, in countries within Africa,

like Uganda, where anti-gay legislation and discrimina-

tion, hostility, and violence toward homosexuals is

commonplace, the media describes male sexual violence

as “endemic”to conf‌lict (Storr 2011). Yet, despite its

anecdotal regularity, the M´

edecins Sans Frontières, for

example, only documented six percent of its sexual vi-

olence victims as male (M´

edecins Sans Frontières 2009;

Solangon and Patel 2012).

The homosexual myth around male sexual violence

originates in “classical”views of masculinity, namely, that

men ought to be “strong, assertive, sexually dominant, and

heterosexual”(Herek 1986, as quoted in Davies 2002,

204). In this narrative context, non-sexually dominant

males are viewed as “gay”or “other”explaining why—

even in cases of female perpetrators of sexual violence

744 Political Research Quarterly 77(3)