In many ways, these narratives on wartime sexual violence perpetuate postcolonial representations whereby black men cannot control their sexuality (Kapur 2002). The focus that is put on rape of women justifies Western interventionism since black men are seen as incapable of protecting “their” women and thus the West needs to step in. As explained by Elizabeth D. Heineman (2011, 17), “Reports of sexual violence also frequently serve a larger symbolic function: to differentiate the ‘civilized’ from the ‘uncivilized’. (…) So closely intertwined are the notions of sexual restraint and civilization that efforts to legally restrain sexual violence in war often reflects efforts to claim ‘civilized’ status”. Men and women living in conflict zones are reduced to their sexual organs, men to their “primal” instincts, women to their sexual and reproductive health. This all fits the underdevelopment paradigm, whereby underdevelopment is associated with pathologies of crime and terrorism (Duffield 2001). In this narrative, developing countries require external help, and their civilian population—in particular women and girls—is victimized. This imagery of a defenseless population needing to be protected by Western intervention is itself consistent with a representation of patriarchal relations between the international community and States in conflict.
As a consequence, existing gender narratives whereby women are in need of protection that only (white) men can provide are strengthened. And representations of (colonized/colored) men as oversexed, strong and uncontrollable, whose behavior is characterized first and foremost by violence, come to justify interventionist and paternalistic policies. These narratives, which equate conflict zones with areas of wilderness where violence is deregulated, savage and incomprehensible, come to contradict well-established—though questionable, as we have seen—understandings of rape and sexual violence as political weapons of war. Because men of color are presented as exerting (and, when it is acknowledged, being victims of) sexual violence in a seemingly random and uncontrollable fashion, they are deprived of strategy and of political agency, thus legitimizing their position at the bottom of the international security order, as well as the silencing of male survivors’ plight.
It is perhaps at the national and community levels that the silencing of wartime sexual violence against men is, so to say, the loudest. Here, social constructions of masculinity roles, attributing the most important functions to men, actively prevent any kind of recognition of their potential vulnerability. As is well known, patriarchal and nationalist cultures, especially in conflict zones, usually assign a role of protectors to men; they have to be strong and unyielding, in order to protect themselves, their family, their community, but also their nation or State (Yuval-Davis 1993). Men who have been victims of sexual violence have failed to protect themselves and are thus considered as less likely to be able to protect their family, provided that their family still accepts them. Male survivors are thus seen as failed in their masculinity; they have failed to emulate the model of hegemonic masculinity that assigns to men the most important positions within the family, as backbones of their family, community and nation. Neither men nor women—their social identity might be feminized by sexual violence, their body usually still remains identified as male by the wider society—and neither fearful defenders nor glorious-in-defeat combatants, they cannot fill any useful purpose in national narratives which glorify national heroes “as resolutely individualistic, moral, rebellious and tough” (Munn 2008, 151).
Some of the humanitarian staff I spoke with believe that raping men stems from a similar strategy to that of raping women: an ethnic cleansing one.[8] Even though such a statement should certainly be qualified, it is true that in societies where ethnicity is seen as being transmitted by males only, it is indeed a very efficient way to target specifically the bearer of ethnicity and hence destroy his own capacity to perpetuate his ethnic group. And in countries where a strong connection has been built and strengthened between nationalism, ethnic belonging and masculinity, sexual violence against men and boys specifically attacks and weakens what lies at the core of national or ethnic identity and pride. As Zarkov illustrates in the case of Croatia, wartime sexual violence against men is a powerful way to undermine the strength of a nation or of an ethnic group:
Because the phallic power of the penis defines the virility of the nation, there can be no just retribution for its loss. So, when the male body is ethnic and male at the same time, the castration of a single man of the ethnically defined enemy is symbolic appropriation of the masculinity of the whole group. Sexual humiliation of a man from another ethnicity is, thus, a proof not only that he is a lesser man, but also that his ethnicity is a lesser ethnicity. Emasculation annihilates the power of the ethnic Other by annihilating the power of its men’s masculinity. (Zarkov 2011, 78)
The violation of the male body (that is, the violation of the body of any man belonging to the national or ethnic group) is very complicated to accept from a collective perspective, because the male body symbolically epitomizes the symbiotic link that is forged between masculine strength and national or group culture. Acknowledging it would publicize the symbolic feminization and subjugation of the entire nation or ethnic group. The existence of sexual violence against men is, therefore, collectively denied or silenced, especially in contexts where national or ethnic identities are seen as weakened or threatened, which is almost always the case in conflict and post-conflict settings.
If publicly exposed, the capacity of sexual violence against men to destroy family and community linkages is striking. In most patriarchal societies (Sivakumaran 2007, 268), there is a strong belief that in contrast to women, men should be invulnerable. This belief is of course highly gendered and gendering: “Vulnerability and invulnerability are not essential features of men or women, but, rather, processes of gender formation, the effects of modes of power that have as one of their aims the production of gender differences along lines of inequality” (Butler 2014, 112). But since men embody national or communal pride, the recognition that they have been violated implies that it is the whole group that has been attacked and been made vulnerable. This is maybe what explains the extreme taboo surrounding male sexual victimization in military settings, like male sexual torture at the hands of the “enemy”, for instance. Recognizing that “our soldiers” have been violated in such a way, when they stand as a bulwark against external aggression, when they are here to uphold and bolster national pride, borders on the impossible. In that way, dominant models of masculinity obliterate the possibility of certain types of male suffering, especially those that do not allow the victim to gain honor or glory. As a consequence, men who have experienced sexual abuse “are treated solely as torture survivors, and the sexual component of their suffering is virtually ignored” (Stemple 2009, 635).
If it is publicly recognized, the suffering induced by sexual violence against men expands to include the whole community, which is left humiliated, unprotected and disempowered. As a result, the communities to which they belong lose their ethnicity, but also their masculinity. The performativity of sexual violence against men turns them into communities of womanized men, of homosexuals, symbolically and psychologically deprived of any ability to regenerate and perpetuate themselves. For the concerned societies, acknowledging the existence of sexual violence against men would thus mean acknowledging that one’s group is a lesser group. The only alternative to silencing is, therefore, ostracizing survivors, casting them out of the communal space, in cases where survivors have not already fled:
8
This was mentioned to me by an interviewee from the International Rescue Committee (Bujumbura, Burundi, 12 May 2012) as well as by another working for Caritas International (Goma, North Kivu, DRC, 03 May 2009).