It is always interesting to see someone who generally considers an act a non-issue–or in this instance completely negligible and somehow an attack on real female victims–pretends to be concerned about it:

To quote myself: The prison rape epidemic is probably going to get worse. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' projections, if our current rate of sending men to prison is maintained, then at some point in the future 15% of American men will have spent time in prison. (6% of white men, 17% of Latinos, and 32% of Black men. For comparison's sake, the projections for women are 1%, 2% and 6%.) If those projections are true (or even partly true), and if the prison rape epidemic continues unabated, the overall number of American rape victims will vastly increase over the coming decades. This is true even if rape prevalence outside of prison doesn't change at all. This is one reason why it's essential to support strong measures to combat prison rape; unfortunately, all that's gotten through congress so far are weak half-measures.

It is also rather interesting that while trying to pretend that prison rape against males is a worthy cause Ampersand conveniently continues to ignore that men and boys get raped and sexually assaulted outside of prison as well, 40% of which is committed by females. It certainly is a worthy cause and one that I personally address offline quite frequently, but in this instance Ampersand's post is kind of like the Catholic Church releasing a coloring book about sexual abuse. Part of the reason why the Church had to release the book is because the Church created an internal infrastructure that silenced victims and treating victims as negligible. And part of the reason why Congress does not "combat prison rape" is because feminists like Ampersand framed rape as a "women's issue" and created a support infrastructure that silences male victims and treats male rape (even against boys) as "so low as to be negligible."*

Perhaps if feminists like Ampersand actually considered male rape a real problem rather just something to be ignored, dismissed or derided whenever advocates for male victims mention it or hijacking it when it seems politically correct to do so or to look unbiased then the problem could be sufficiently addressed. But with the callous, borderline condoning sentiment found in the quote "so low as to be negligible" (that is unfortunately common in the support community as well) it is hardly surprising that male rape does not get the attention it deserves or needs.

The attitude is that it really is not a legitimate problem**. It may be wrong on some level, just not one that would actually result in addressing the issue or providing support and services for male rape victims (or the feminist-friendly phrase "unfortunate male sexual experiences"). Even the series of posts Ampersand linked to demonstrate that he tacitly does not think male rape deserves anywhere near the same level of attention that is given to real female victims. At moment the posts just looks like lip service, especially given the frequency in which male rape victims have been mocked and attacked on his blog (often with Ampersand's support of the attackers) and the half-hearted attempt to "discuss" male victims with the odd demand that they first pay tribute to female victims before being acknowledged.

None of that actually leads to addressing the issue, and as one can see from the numerous comments on all the posts Ampersand linked to not too many feminists disagree with ignoring or downplaying the male rape (i.e. they think it has some merit, but nothing near the level of merit of real female rape). One would think those interested in the issue would also get involved with organizations that regularly address and discuss the issue and advocate on behalf of victims, but it is quite rare for any feminist to support a "men's group."

However, all of this loses sight of the fact that there are real men and real boys who are actually raped and hijacking this cause by pretending to care because it is politically correct to do so or because of how it makes one look does those men and boys a great disservice. They deserved to be recognized as unequivocal victims (not lesser victims or the popular "victims, but…") and treated in the same fashion and given the same access to resources and attention that females would be given.

But more importantly, men and boys deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, not used in a such a way that ignores the majority of them because it would play against some preconceived notion about who can be and is really a victim. The overwhelming majority of rape against men and boys happens outside of prison. That may not sit well with feminists like Ampersand, but with the numerous studies available about male victims someone would have noted that a significantly high portion of it occurred in prison.*** Framing rape against males as a prison rape issue demonstrates a severe bias (and perhaps underlying animosity) towards male victims in general, and one that probably has no relation to whether or not men