The CDC (Center for Disease Control) recently released new findings from its NISVS (The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey). The NISVS is one of the most prestigious and widely quoted surveys on sexual violence in the U.S. It is a common source of the infamous “1 in 5 women are raped” statistic. It has also been rightfully criticized for using faulty survey methods to inflate its victimization numbers and intentionally downplaying its own findings on the prevalence of male victims.

So far the NISVS has collected data for 2010, 2011 and 2012. NISVS found that between 2010-2012 an average of 1.2% (est. 1,473,000) American women per year experienced one or more attempted/completed rapes (NISVS 2010-2012 State Report, 18). However, the NISVS also found that between 2010-2012 an average of 1.5% (est. 1,715,000) American men reported being victims of one or more attempted/completed “made to penetrate” victimizations (25).

The difference stands out more when you look at data for each year. Victimization rates between female rape victims and male “made-to-penetrate” victims were relatively comparable in 2010 and 2011 (a shocking finding by itself), but in 2012 the number female rape victims fell drastically while the number of male victims of “made to penetrate” went up. The NISVS shows an estimated 740,000 more male victims of “made to penetrate” than female victims of rape in 2012 (217, 222).

“Made to penetrate” is defined as being forced to “sexually penetrate someone without the victim’s consent because the victim was physically forced (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threatened with physical harm, or when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent” (17) [emphasis added]. Even though the NISVS refuses to define “made to penetrate” as “rape” (and thus excludes it from all its statistics on “rape”), it fits reasonable (and many modern legal) definitions of rape.

CDC NISVS Yearly Rape and Made-To-Penetrate Victimization

Rape Made-To-Penetrate Year Women Men Women Men 2010 1.1% (est 1,270,000) * * 1.1% (est 1,267,000) 2011 1.6% (est 1,929,000) * * 1.7% (est 1,921,000) 2012 1.0% (est 1,217,000) * * 1.7% (est 1,957,000)

*Zero or statistically insignificant amount according to NISVS

Indeed, even NISVS’ own definition of “rape” is extremely similar:

“…completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal penetration through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threats to physically harm and includes times when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent” (17) [emphasis added].

On some level, I think that even the CDC knows that “made to penetrate” is basically a form of rape as it is often mentions male “made to penetrate” statistics in the same breath as its female “rape” statistics: “An estimated 41.3% of female victims of completed rape and 24.3% of male victims of being made to penetrate first experienced these forms of violence before turning 18” (198).

The CDC even outright admits that its decision to not classify “made to penetrate” as rape is on shaky ground:

“5.9% or an estimated 6.8 million men have been made to sexually penetrate someone else at some point in their life, a form of sexual violence that many in the practice field consider analogous to rape.” (198) [emphasis added]

So why not just define “made to penetrate” as a sub-category of “rape”? What is currently defined as “rape” by the NISVS could be re-defined as “forced penetration” and also be a sub-category of rape. I think it is still informative to track “made to penetrate” and forced penetration as separate categories, but it doesn’t make any sense to consider one rape and not the other when they are so similar.

While female victims of “rape” overwhelming report male perpetrators (97.3% male only + 0.7% male & female - only lifetime figures provided by NISVS, pg. 25), men victims of “made to penetrate” overwhelming report female perpetrators (78.5% female only + 3.5% male & female - only lifetime figures provided by NISVS, pg. 32). Women on the other hand reported no statistically significant “made to penetrate” victimization from 2010-2012, while men report no statistically significant “rape” victimization. It seems like the CDC is trying to exclude the most common form of male rape victimization and female rape perpetration from its actual “rape” statistics.

Sadly, this is nothing new for the NISVS. I’ve written extensively on its problems and anti-male bias:

You should really read those links in full, but here are some key points:

The NISVS found victimization numbers suspiciously much, much, MUCH higher than comparable government surveys on sexual assault.

The NISVS survey methods seem questionable if not out-right flawed. Deceptive and unclear questions could have easily have caused non-victims to be classified as victims.

NISVS publications focus on useless, inflammatory lifetime statistics instead of more useful and accurate yearly statistics. I suspect its because the lifetime data tends to show greater female victimization, while the yearly data tends to show more even victimization rates between the sexes. The NISVS makes no real effort to establish, control or chart the timeframe on its lifetime data. This makes it useless for charting trends in victimization or predicting future victimization. Furthermore, asking people about victimizations further back in the past makes it more likely they will mis-remember events (especially when faced with leading and deceptive survey questions).

The NISVS continues to exclude victims of “made to penetrate” from its definition of “rape”, even though it fits the reasonable definition of rape (being physically forced to have penetrative sex against your will). The CDC has been heavily criticized by men’s rights activists for this move. The CDC’s response to exactly why they have excluded “made to penetrate” from rape has been lackluster and evasive.

Although the overwhelming number of male victims report female perpetrators of “made to penetrate”, by excluding “made to penetrate” from its definition of “rape” the CDC can claim male victims of “rape” mostly report male perpetrators. Thus rape can continue to be portrayed as a crime with only male perpetrators.

Despite being widely quoted by both politicians and media, both the CDC and mainstream media have largely ignored the NISVS’ shocking and noteworthy findings on male rape victims to such an extent it seems like the CDC is trying to intentionally play them down or actively cover them up.

Feminist research Mary Koss has publicly stated that she believes male victims of female rapists should be excluded from the definition of rape. She offers no solid justification for this. I strongly suspect it is because it harms the political utility of the word for the feminist movement. Koss has worked for the CDC in the past and there is suspicion that the NISVS’ inexplicable reluctance to fully acknowledge male victims of female rapists may be caused by the researchers desire to protect the feminist narrative that rape is a tool of Patrichial oppression.

CDC NISVS publications continue to be misleading and awful

If you want to analyze the new NISVS data, you should be reading the 2010-2012 NISVS State Report, Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Violence, Stalking, and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization — National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, United States, 2011 and the 2010 Full Report with a critical eye. However, these are long reads and most people will likely choose to instead read the shorter NISVS summaries and infographs.

These often don’t define important terms (such as “made to penetrate” or “sexual coercion”) and rely heavily on the unreliable lifetime statistics. However, they are informative because they show you how the CDC wants you to interpret the NISVS findings and what talking points it wants the media to regurgitate. Case in point, look at these few paragraphs from the 2-page Findings from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010-2012 State Report summary:

“In the U.S., about 1 in 3 women and nearly 1 in 6 men experienced some form of contact sexual violence during their lifetime.



Nearly 23 million women and 1.7 million men have been the victims of completed or attempted rape at some point in their life.



An estimated 6.8 million men were made to penetrate another person in their lifetime.” (1)

Surprise, surprise. All lifetime statistics. Also none of the terms are defined in the document. What is “made to penetrate”? What is “contact sexual violence”? You wouldn’t know if this was the only thing you read. If you read the full 2010-2012 State Report, you’ll learn that “contact sexual violence” includes: “rape, being made to penetrate someone else, sexual coercion, and/or unwanted sexual contact” (18). However, “sexual coercion” contains behaviors that aren’t actually violent. Most aren’t illegal and some aren’t even necessarily immoral. The NISVS defines “sexual coercion” as:

“unwanted vaginal, oral, or anal sex after being pressured in ways that included being worn down by someone who repeatedly asked for sex or showed they were unhappy, feeling pressured by being lied to, being told promises that were untrue, having someone threaten to end a relationship or spread rumors; and sexual pressure due to someone using their influence or authority.” (17)

Have you ever (subjectively) asked for sex one too many times? Have you ever acted (subjectively) “unhappy” when you didn’t have sex!? Well you committed an act of “contact sexual violence”! Don’t frown too much or the CDC will label you a violent rapist.

Cooking up questionable victimization categories like “sexual coercion” and mixing them together with different victimizations to create a larger (and mostly useless) uber statistic are common tactics for bad/biased researchers looking to inflate their victimization numbers.

It would be much more honest to combine “rape” and “made to penetrate” into one figure. If only there was an all-encompassing, commonly used word to describe being physically forced to have sex against your will. Maybe something short…only four letters…

It might also help to actually explain what “made to penetrate” is in the 2-page summary. It would be even more honest to point out that in 2012 men and women reported the exact same percentage of “contact sexual violence” (3.8% - NISVS 2010-2012 State Report pg. 217, 222).

It’s hard to not to get conspiratorial about the CDC’s portrayal of the NISVS when they have been sitting on a bombshell about male sexual victimization for years, yet seem to make every effort to downplay it and always make women seem like the chief victims of sexual assault.

Case in point, the CDC made the very odd decision of portraying all the data in the latest 2010-2012 NISVS State Report averages the 2010-2012 data rather then just showing all three years of data side by side. I found this infuriating. I don’t care about averages when looking at victimization data. I care about trends. I want to know the differences between 2010, 2011, and 2012. I want to know if rates are going up or down. I can’t do that if they have been mixed together into one useless number.

You have to go to the very back of the 200+ page report to actually get the newest 2012 data. It’s almost as if they were crammed in the back appendix as an afterthought or reluctant obligation.

My suspicion is that the researchers saw the 2012 “made to penetrate” victimization rate far surpass the female rape rate and panicked. The CDC has rightfully already faced severe criticism about how it has dealt with its male victimization data. My guess is the researchers wanted a way to downplay male victimization numbers without it looking too obvious.

NISVS recommendations show its thinly veiled feminist agenda

This suspicion is increased by the “Implications for Prevention” section of the 2010-2012 Report which clearly has a thinly veiled feminist bias. There is a whole subsection entitled “Providing Opportunities to Empower and Girls and Women”, but no direct mention of specifically supporting (much less empowering) men. Furthermore, the subsection quickly jumps the shark by recommending a slew of economic entitlement programs for women to correct the supposed “power imbalance” between women and men:

“States may consider approaches that focus on strengthening economic supports for women and families by addressing poverty, economic insecurity, and power imbalance between women and men, or strengthening leadership and opportunities for adolescent girls through building confidence, knowledge, and leadership skills in young women to help secure better education or employment opportunities later in life. For example, Microfinance programs provide loans and savings opportunities to low-income households to improve the financial and social status of women and families.” (206) [emphasis added]

I understand that socio-economic status can play a part in violence, but this seems like a non-sequitur on the part of the researchers. Either way, that doesn’t explain why men are completely left out of these suggested economic “supports”. Apparently there are no men/boys in “women and families”. Also, the assumption of an inherent power imbalance favoring men over women is textbook feminist Patrichary theory.

While men are passed over as deserving candidates for “empowerment”, men are unsurprisingly the focus of the subsection entitled “Promoting Social Norms that Protect against Violence”:

“Another approach to impact social norms is one that mobilizes men and boys as allies in prevention efforts. The intent is to make the prevention of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence everyone’s concern rather than solely a women’s issue. Such approaches work by promoting healthy, positive norms about masculinity, gender, and violence among individuals who can then spread these social norms through their social networks.” (205) [emphasis added]

In case you are holding out vague hope that CDC is talking about programs designed to teach men and boys about the dangers of being victimized, the CDC gives an example of the kind of program it is talking about:

“For example, Coaching Boys into Men is an intervention that trains athletic coaches to model and encourage respectful, non-violent, healthy relationships with their male athletes. Coaching Boys into Men has been shown to decrease negative bystander behavior (e.g., laughing at sexist jokes) and decrease dating violence perpetration of male high school athletes (Miller et al., 2012).” (204) [emphasis added]

This whole thing reeks of the feminist belief in “toxic masculinity” and the idea that men must be drastically re-socialized (“reprogrammed” might actually be a better word) in order to not be sub-human monsters (in other words, become feminist drones).

Furthermore, the subsection contains absolutely no direct mention of any programs, methods or even a need to address possible social norms that may contribute to violence against men by women, even though the NISVS found direct evidence of this violence. It doesn’t matter what the researchers’ own data says! First rule of feminism - women have problems, men are problems.

Just scratching the surface

I haven’t even finished my read of the 2010-2012 NISVS yet (its over 200 pages) so there may be more to talk about. In the meantime, it remains very concerning that premiere the health organization in the U.S. doesn’t think being physically forced to have sex against your will is rape. This is like saying it’s not “murder” if you use a hatchet instead of a shotgun. Can you imagine the howling if the majority of the NISVS’ female rape victims were not defined as being victims of “rape”, but of “unwanted penetrative sex” and excluded from CDC rape statistics? What’s even more concerning is the CDC is likely doing this to support a feminist agenda, even if that means throwing male victims of rape under the bus.