In the discussion of sexual & domestic violence we look at the larger human issue affecting us all directly or indirectly but it's important we keep the focus on women and girls who are by far the majority of victims as verified by countless studies. Lately people have been injecting the victimization of men into the conversation suggesting both should be treated equally but the evidence doesn't back that up nor does it give fair consideration to the power dynamics between the sexes, the culture of misogyny, and the patriarchal dominance behind so much of this violence even against men. This doesn't mean men and boys don't matter, but if we allow the discourse to be derailed by those advancing statistics and studies making males out to be on par with women's victimization we run the risk of rolling back the clock on women.
One of the most common claims that men are as victimized as women comes from the CDC NISVS 2010 survey which for the first time included a new category of male sexual victimization called 'made to penetrate'. This also means it hasn't been validated by past studies. The idea is someone forces men to penetrate a person's body. Researchers don't call this rape which is defined as 'penetration of the mouth, anus, or vagina no matter how slight. Men's Rights activist want to label them to define this as rape, even though it's not.
The lifetime rate of women raped to men is 1 in 5 for women versus 1 in 71 for men. Clearly we see who the greater victim is here. The deceptive tactic being used to advance men's claims to equal status are the 12 month victimization numbers that not even compared to RAPE! They compare 'forced to penetrate to rape' which are two very different things. For one the trauma of rape is is undeniable for both sexes and although being made to penetrate is also a form of 'forced sex' it's not rape. Another way of looking at it is only men can be 'forced to penetrate' while both men and women can be raped. We should focus on comparing apples to apples.
As for the numbers 12 month numbers they use to avoid dealing with the reality that women's lifetime numbers are far greater for rape than even men's 'made to penetrate'.
Take a look at these tables:
Table 2.1 and Table 2.2 CDC NISVS 2010
In the green you see the unfair comparison of rape and 'forced to penetrate' which are nearly equal for 12 months but there is a big gap in victimization for lifetime numbers. Overall women and girls are far more victimized so we should consider any claims that men are as much victims as women disingenuous.
We also see deceptive use of statistic for domestic violence suggesting men's victimization is close to that of women.
More than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and more than 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
Clearly more women are victims and the gap is even larger for severe violence:
About 1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner (e.g., hit with a fist or something hard, beaten, slammed against something) at some point in their lifetime.