Protect Our Defenders News Blog

 

Tampa Bay Times: Trapped in trauma: Male victims confront sexual assault in military

The Tampa Bay Times reports:

As far back as the 1991 Tailhook scandal, in which drunken aviators assaulted dozens of female recruits at a Las Vegas convention, attention on sexual assault in the armed forces has focused predominantly on female service members. Less widely publicized is that more than half of the victims in the recent survey — 53 percent — were men.

This is not surprising to the mental health professionals at Bay Pines, where a decade ago a women-only program was expanded to include beds for men. It is the only residential program in the country where men with military sexual trauma are housed and treated together and not mixed with veterans suffering other psychological problems.

Read more here.