# Why has the military sexual assault rate jumped nearly 40%? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 2, 2019, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390 "2019-05-02T21:34:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/21 "2019-05-03T07:43:01Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > The most attractive enlisted women are of course the most frequent victims. However, what I have heard is that because the military has so many more men that women, for the people who actually handle sexual assault cases in the military, it is more frequent for the victim complaining to be a man. > > I would assume that the current “jump” is an increase in reporting as well. > > I would assume that the (almost all men) committing the assaults almost always do so on the spur of the moment, without a significant amount of forethought or planning. So measures to increase the punishments or counsel people not to do it I would not expect to be effective. > > I don’t think draconian punishment is effective, either - if anonymous surveys are true, a large (30%+) of men would commit an assault if the scenario were right. So removing offenders from the pool doesn’t help if almost the majority of the pool are potential offenders. > > What is effective is preventing the situations where these kinds of assaults are even potentially possible. Less alcohol, less scenarios where servicemembers are in groups together away from supervision, etc. Shanahan, whom I would expect to be more familiar with the details of the survey, doesn’t mention anything about fewer service members in groups together away from supervision. I doubt that would be feasible, let alone effective. And what do you regard as “draconian” punishments for sexual assault? Whether a rape, for instance, is planned in advance or done with little planning doesn’t make it any less damaging to the victim or less a violation of military (and civilian) law. And while alcohol may well play a role, it’s not the root cause. Let’s not say that alcohol and socialization are the root problem: they’re not. And preventing them won’t prevent sexual assault. Ask any of the rape victims at BYU. Shanahan wants to do better screening to keep likely sexual predators out of the military. He wants to do more prevention training with officers. He wants to make sexual harassment a stand-alone military crime. The “right scenario” for those 31% of men who admitted they’d rape a woman (if the question didn’t call it “rape”) was specified as _not getting caught or punished_. The focus should therefore be on ensuring those who sexually assault, drunk or sober, are caught and prosecuted, as well as finding more effective means of preventing sexual assault and changing the culture within the military that hasn’t responded to previous efforts. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/22 "2019-05-03T08:27:23Z")
Maybe the rules on fratensation have been reduced or more loosely enforced. I remember some former US military servicemen, on this board even, stating flatly that back when there were less women in the service, in mixed environments the NCO and officers would crackdown on the first hint of impropriety. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/23 "2019-05-03T12:12:45Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Did you read the report? Women are still a minority in the Armed Forces of the United States and in the army they make up approximately 14% of active duty soldiers and in the marines approximately 8%. It’s certainly possible for people in a minority group to be at a disproportionate risk compared to the rest of the population and I have absolutely no reason to doubt that this isn’t the case for women between the ages of 18-24. According to CNN, 1 in 3 servicemembers surved reported unwanted sexual contact. A lot of those are going to be male soldiers. I don’t say that to diminish violence against women it’s just that we tend to talk about sexual assault as a problem women in the military face without recognizing that males are often also victims. Sexual assault is often under reported and I suspect the 40% increase they’re seeing is largely the result of people being more willing to report assaults. Which is a good thing even if it’s an awful subject. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/24 "2019-05-03T12:50:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [From this article](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/military-sexual-assault-increase-pentagon-reports_n_5ccaea1ce4b0d123954f7086?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaHVmZnBvc3QuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANKFlhbWF7R5iEv0yMwEfL3512mK9vlvU60cVJx8YjV5SHZkFe41CJT_ma0dXlygkiDUQgGhSo_JYwb7ei2nA4HdxjYO8ZVA3zWL5Ov2SmnKBzXykOH2gTHNMJ2UqK_YbVA6VFf9KMfMwpcOQ3IBpavyczggWv02LfJm9y9jj0xj) about the Pentagon’s biennial report on sexual assault in the military, we learn that the rate has jumped 38% from 2016 to 2018. Where the fuck did the current military get the idea that sexual assault is back in fashion? Gee, who’s the commander-in-chief these days? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/25 "2019-05-03T12:52:14Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Most likely it just simply was reported more often. There is no reason to believe that military men were less prone to assaulting women in the past. I think it could be both under-reporting and also an increase in sexual assault. We’re already seeing that the military is becoming a more hostile place for gay and transgender servicemen/women, and that kind of macho culture tends to breed other undesired “male” misbehavior. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/26 "2019-05-03T12:58:53Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Maybe the rules on fratensation have been reduced or more loosely enforced. I remember some former US military servicemen, on this board even, stating flatly that back when there were less women in the service, in mixed environments the NCO and officers would crackdown on the first hint of impropriety. Even now, good NCOs and officers crackdown on that crap. Even more fun was being a SNCO and cracking down on Officers being inappropriate with young enlisted women. And by “fun” I mean, something I hated doing even though it was necessary. But everyone is not focusing on the REAL problem - false accusations of sexual assault! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/27 "2019-05-03T13:29:11Z")
I’m very familiar with this report. I’ll leave it at that. The vast majority of the assault is peer-to-peer, junior Enlisted to junior Enlisted. No sexual assault and harassment is good or acceptable. But part of this is a byproduct of what happens when you put a bunch of young, frisky, health 17-24 year olds who have never been away from home before, together. Part of this is “me too.” Part of this is that behavior that would never have been categorized as harassment or assault is now categorized as such. Especially on the harassment side (not specifically part of this report) conduct would normally be ignored or dealt with in a 20 second discussion (an amazing quick tap on the wrist to call to someone’s attention that a meeting is about to end is one case in point recently), is now an initial investigation. And part is still men assaulting women. I don’t feel that the military is a less safe place to be. And the women in uniform that I work that I’ve discussed this with don’t feel that way. But, I’m not a 20 year only woman on the deck plates either. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/28 "2019-05-03T13:54:17Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > an amazing quick tap on the wrist to call to someone’s attention that a meeting is about to end is one case in point recently Can you expand on this a little? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/29 "2019-05-03T14:03:53Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Every time I’ve had one of those performance reports which include coworkers being asked about your work, I could tell exactly who had said what. References to specific details, writing style… un-anonimizing anything that’s not purely multiple-choice is real easy. > > And things such as “someone made a really nasty off-color joke in front of me, I complained about it and was told to ‘suck it up’” being moved from the official suck it up list to the official unacceptable list means a double increase (not necessarily two fold, but on two fronts): both because incidents which previously not have counted now count, and because people feel more confident that their complaints will be taken seriously, whether they involve off-color jokes, down-naming, leers… it will not be met with a ‘suck it up’. I’d attribute much more of the variation to those two factors than to a rise on the amount of jerks who feel they can be jerks openly (which yes, is also a factor, but nowhere near as high). Exactly. In a lot of cases you can tell exactly who wrote what in those things. And, in the past, the vendors would just hand over the raw data to the administration or the elected officials, who in turn would give it to the various department heads, supervisors and others so they could see what the problems being brought up were. With the unsurprising result that reprisals happened, even thought he comments were supposed to be anonymous. That broken trust stuff has been hard to win back, too. I don’t think the younger kids really understand how bad things were in the past wrt sexual harassment in the work place. This isn’t to say it’s great now, but today, in most cases, a woman (or a man) CAN bring this stuff up and feel that they won’t be further at risk, won’t be laughed at or targeted by their supervisors or fellow peer workers or the administration, and something will be done…and if it isn’t, many are now educated in the further steps they can take, legally. Also, I just think there has been a shift in the work place as to what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior. Some folks who haven’t gotten the message are in for a nasty shock if they keep doing this stuff. It’s what I tell my people. We get training from the state on sexual harassment about ever quarter now, and often HR will send out video refreshers between that. As well as other things like bullying in the work place, or other, non-sexual harassment. The days when this stuff was just handwaved away or shrugged off are done, IMHO…or we are in the beginning of the end of that shit anyway. And that is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/30 "2019-05-03T14:19:40Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Can you expand on this a little? It was just an example. There was a meeting of about 15 people in a conference room. One of the women was taking about one point at the end of the meeting and we were about 5 minutes over. A man next to her lightly touched her wrist and said “we are way overtime here, lets wrap this up and we’ll start the next meeting with this.” He was in contact with her for perhaps half a second. I was there and barely remembered it. This would normally not be an issue or a minor issue at worst which she could have called his attention to directly with him after the meeting. She didn’t discuss it with him, but went to HR and an investigation was launched which necessitated formally counseling. My point was that this would go under the category of harassment. It wouldn’t be part of this report of course, but it would be an additional case of harassment which no one that heard about this, male or female thought was an issue at all. IMHO, the me too movement, which is overall a net positive, doesn’t yield positive results in all cases. None of this means that harassment or assault is acceptable. But that an increase in reporting doesn’t necessary mean there is in increase in harassment or assaults. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/31 "2019-05-03T14:22:06Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > I would assume that the (almost all men) committing the assaults almost always do so on the spur of the moment, without a significant amount of forethought or planning. So measures to increase the punishments or counsel people not to do it I would not expect to be effective. I dispute this. Let’s think of a scenario. Officer A sexually harasses officer B and Officer A’s superior instantly grabs him, pulls out a knife, and slits Officer A’s throat. Officer A flops on the floor like a fish with bloody hands holding his neck. He stops twitching after 30 seconds or so. All around watch, mouths hang open in shock. If this was allowed, I would say that sexual assault/harassment in the near vicinity would drop to dang near zero. Forethought or not. Now, obviously I am not saying sexual harassment deserves a death sentence. But the idea that “oh, since it is not forethought, punishment won’t work” is silly. If it is swift and harsh, not too many examples will be needed. ---
**Author:** ![KMS94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ad7895/32.png) [@KMS94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KMS94)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/32 "2019-05-03T14:23:39Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What, in those two years, inspired a close to 40% rise in reporting? It may be coincidental, but 2016 was when the Army opened all jobs to women, including armor, infantry and artillery. I wonder if that had an effect. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/33 "2019-05-03T14:28:06Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > It was just an example. I understand. I was just wondering about the circumstances. Thanks for the additional info. Guess that guy hadn’t heard of “Don’t touch people without their permission” ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/34 "2019-05-03T14:36:09Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I understand. I was just wondering about the circumstances. Thanks for the additional info. > > Guess that guy hadn’t heard of “Don’t touch people without their permission” I suppose. Virtually all of people in the command though, both men and women, guessed that she had’t heard of “act like a grown up handle it like a professional.” She didn’t come off well. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/35 "2019-05-03T14:36:50Z")
Generally in social science sudden large changes in measured behavior reflect a change in measurement more than a change in behavior. Either the definition of sexual assault has changed or the number of reporting entities has changed. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/36 "2019-05-03T14:38:31Z")
A 38% percent _decrease_ in sexual harassment reports would surely be reported as good news, and now we are to believe that a 38% increase in sexual harassment reports is a good thing because it only means that more people feel it is o.k. to report it? Can somebody give me a damn good reason not to call “bullshit” at this point? ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/37 "2019-05-03T14:48:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > A 38% percent _decrease_ in sexual harassment reports would surely be reported as good news, and now we are to believe that a 38% increase in sexual harassment reports is a good thing because it only means that more people feel it is o.k. to report it? > Can somebody give me a damn good reason not to call “bullshit” at this point? I don’t think anyone said this is a good thing are they? A bit of hyperbole there? And if it did decrease by 38%, I’d guess that there would be some who would say that culture may have changed making it less likely that women (and men) would come forward. What I said (speaking only for myself) is that from my limited view and contract with only a small subsection of the military on a day-to-day basis, I don’t see an increase in assault (or harassment). And that perhaps some of the increase is due to an elevated level of attention paid to this type of behavior and the reporting of it. Where that would meet with an actual level of assault I don’t know. I mentioned that the “me too” movement might be partially responsible for an increase in reporting not commensurate with an increase in assaults, but earlier you didn’t conciser “me too” as a component. Perhaps you still aren’t? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/38 "2019-05-03T14:48:29Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > I suppose. > > Virtually all of people in the command though, both men and women, guessed that she had’t heard of “act like a grown up handle it like a professional.” She didn’t come off well. !. Unless you conducted some sort of survey(or unless you are the Chaplain) you have no idea all of the people in the command thought…or which women are telling you what they think you want to hear just to play it safe. 2. Is this “lightly touching of the wrist” to let someone know that the person speaking should shut up something that is done to men also? When you’ve been to meetings where men have tended to run on, do you lightly touch their wrists? ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/39 "2019-05-03T14:58:48Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > There was a meeting of about 15 people in a conference room. One of the women was taking about one point at the end of the meeting and we were about 5 minutes over. A man next to her lightly touched her wrist and said “we are way overtime here, lets wrap this up and we’ll start the next meeting with this.” He was in contact with her for perhaps half a second. I was there and barely remembered it. This would normally not be an issue or a minor issue at worst which she could have called his attention to directly with him after the meeting. She didn’t discuss it with him, but went to HR and an investigation was launched which necessitated formally counseling. Would he even ‘lightly touch the wrist’ of a male co-worker and expect it to be OK? An awful lot of the ‘lightly touch the wrist’ and ‘guide them by touching their lower back’ stuff are things that guys absolutely will not do to other guys, which indicates pretty clearly that they already know it’s a problem. If it was the CEO, would he come up and pat the CEOs arm to make his point? In any event, I’m not really sure why it’s unreasonable to expect people to manage to master first grade level skills like ‘don’t touch people’ in a professional environment, but if someone hasn’t learned such basic lessons they clearly need to be taught. Expecting her to confront the guy directly is silly; as your own response demonstrates, the guy would just shrug it off and say it’s no big deal. Even after HR stepped in to try to inform him that touching other employees is not cool, he apparently denies that it’s a problem, as do you and a number of other people that you’ve talked to. Also, as an adult it’s not really her job to teach co-workers elementary-school level social skills like ‘STOP TOUCHING ME BILLY’. > [@](#): > > My point was that this would go under the category of harassment. It wouldn’t be part of this report of course, but it would be an additional case of harassment which no one that heard about this, male or female thought was an issue at all. IMHO, the me too movement, which is overall a net positive, doesn’t yield positive results in all cases. Note that your response here is factually incorrect; both the victim and HR heard about this and thought it was an issue. The fact that you’re making what are clearly false claims about the incident to discredit the victim is a pretty good indicator of what she could expect if she did try to confront the guy directly, and of the social backlash she could expect from people telling her to just suck up touchy mcfeely’s wrist fondling if she didn’t go to HR. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390/40 "2019-05-03T15:00:17Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > What I said (speaking only for my self) is that from my limited view and contract with only a small subsection of the military on a day-to-day basis, I don’t see an increase in assault (or harassment). And that perhaps some of the increase is due to an elevated level of attention paid to this type of behavior and the reporting of it. > > I mentioned that the me too movement might be partially responsible for an increase in reporting not commensurate with an increase in assaults, but earlier you didn’t conciser me too as a component. Perhaps you still aren’t? Do you consider a rise in harassment due to various factors(the history of their current Harasser-In-Chief among those factors) a possibility? Even if the #me too movement is somehow a factor, it is _still_ bad news because that means that the problem has been much worse than has previously been admitted…and if so, it is a problem you don’t seem to see, according to your own words. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-military-sexual-assault-rate-jumped-nearly-40/833390.md?page=3)