Another noticeable trend is that the use of extreme forms of violence like castration and mutilation seem to be particularly pregnant in cases of genocide, as the examples of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bassiouni 1994), Darfur (Kristoff 2006) and the Armenian genocide (Bjørnlund 2011) show. Transgressing the taboos surrounding male sexual victimization is part of a strategy of escalation of horror, whereby male prisoners are, for instance, forced to bite off the testicles of other prisoners, or to perform acts of bestiality, like in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As explained by Mullins in the case of genital mutilations perpetrated on corpses during the genocide in Rwanda, these excesses are also a means to express total domination over bodies that are taken to represent a larger despised ethnicized body, thus signaling their vanquished and inferior status:
Sexual mutilations, be they of men or women, are the most extreme form of this gendered destruction. The literal bodily destruction and ownership of sexual anatomies taken from dead bodies symbolically constitutes the strongest denial of agency (or, the strongest imposition of pure victimhood) both specifically on the victim in question and the community as a whole. Desecration of corpses in this highly gendered manner is the ultimate expression of control and power. (Mullins 2009, 24)
This is not to say, of course, that excesses are not committed in non-genocidal cases of conflicts. For instance, treating male prisoners as if they were women—sexually, but also with regards to social tasks, such as cooking and cleaning, which they are expected to perform—is or has been a relatively widespread practice in conflict areas like Burundi, which arguably has not recently displayed genocidal patterns. When men are raped by dozens of soldiers or combatants, such as in Eastern Congo, or when they are used as sex slaves, obvious dynamics of domination and of symbolic emasculation are at play. Such forms of punitive gendering have a long history, as the pre-Colombian Berdache practice, documented by Trexler (1995) testifies. Indigenous Americans forced their defeated male enemies to transvest and behave as if they were women—though the status of Berdache could also be adopted by personal choice by members of the community (Williams 1986). This practice, together with the above-mentioned case of Ancient Greece where captured enemy men and boys were frequently used as sex slaves, suggests that in the past punitive gendering was often part of a socially accepted as well as politically and militarily condoned policy. Nowadays, however, such practices are neither socially nor politically supported, but they remain nevertheless practiced by some armed groups, at an admittedly much smaller scale.
Variations in frequency and types of wartime sexual violence against men pose an obvious challenge to analysis, as does the fact that sexual violence—against both men and women—does not occur in every conflict, at least to the best of our current knowledge (Wood 2009). Our understanding of that type of violence is seriously hampered by the fact that available data is still limited and almost never systematic, meaning that many cases of sexual violence are never recorded, and that some types of sexual brutalization might be more affected by underreporting than others.[7] Awareness in both policy and academic communities is also still very low. On the basis of the empirical data that has been collected so far, we can, however, infer that there are indeed important variations in how and to what extent wartime sexual violence against men is perpetrated. A question that remains pending is whether this is just a question of salience, of dominant types in different conflict settings, or of opposite models. For instance, do differences in perpetrators’ types signal a difference in nature? In Eastern Congo, for instance, perpetrators are both soldiers of conventional armies and members of non-state armed groups, whereas in Sri Lanka sexual violence has been mostly perpetrated by members of state security services, and in detention settings. And should we consider that variations in types of violence perpetrated are an indication that there is not one, but several models—and related purposes—of wartime sexual violence against men? In countries like the Congo, Burundi and Sierra Leone, for instance, there have been a few documented instances of sexual torture perpetrated by rebel groups involving the pouring of acid on the genitals, or the use of electric shocks, but these cases seem anecdotal as compared to the staggering number of rapes, sexual slavery, castrations and so on that they have been committing. During the Sri Lankan or Syrian conflicts, on the contrary, relatively few cases of sexual slavery, mutilation or castration have (so far) been recorded, whereas sexual torture for political motives, involving acid, electric shocks or beatings of the genitals, seems to have been much more common.
Another important and yet unanswered question relates to the potential differences between sexual violence against men committed during conflicts and during peacetime: are we dealing here with a difference in nature, or in degree? Empirical evidence collected so far suggests that it is both. Levels of male victimization in conflict zones are far higher than what is registered in “peaceful” countries, suggesting that sexual violence against men is indeed far more widespread during conflicts. But it seems also that it takes on new features. Episodes of castration, mutilation and male sexual slavery are, for instance, relatively rare in peacetime, suggesting a difference in nature that is maybe more salient than in the case of sexual violence against women. Further, the public and sometimes collective nature of wartime sexual violence against men, with an important number of gang rapes, public forced nudity, public sexual humiliation and so on also changes the meaning and impact of sexual violence. Even if sexual violence is always partly the result of wider societal and cultural norms regarding gender roles and expectations, societies usually treat it as a series of individual events; if, as in conflict settings, sexual violence becomes public, it takes on an unmissable collective meaning, and its consequences expand to affect the whole community, men and women alike.
Finally, it is worth underscoring the fact that all these patterns suggest the existence of multiple links and common characteristics between conflict-related sexual violence against women and against men, the extent of which still remains to be explored. Similarities also pertain to the way these two types of violence have been gradually integrated into political and academic agendas. The study of, and fight against, wartime sexual violence against men is currently facing the same hurdles that wartime sexual violence against women faced several decades ago—though, of course, the battle is not yet won on that front either. Lifting the taboo, raising awareness, conducting in-depth research and devising adequate responses will undoubtedly take time. But if sexual violence against women and against men are indeed two interrelated phenomena, they will need to be tackled at least partly jointly at the level of policy programming, and they will benefit from a renewed dialogue and cross fertilization between research on conflict-related sexual violence, and on conflict masculinities.
7
Beatings of the genitals are, for instance, more likely to be reported than cases of rape, which are much more stigmatizing for survivors. As observed by Feldman (1991, 128) in the case of Northern Ireland, such beatings were reported almost casually by survivors, as if they were not something to be particularly upset about. The follow up question is of course: are these beatings making up a large percentage of cases of sexual torture in detention because they are more common, or because other instances of sexual violence are less reported?