This Week in Sex: Condoms vs. Jesus

Military finally dealing with sexual assaults of male soldiers

Last weeks’ Newsweek featured the story of Gregory Jeloudov, a Russian immigrant who joined the American army at age thirty-five. He was mocked for his accent by xenophobic fellow recruits, and ultimately, became the victim of the a brutal sexual assault. When he told his superiors, they brushed it off.

Unfortunately, it's not a very uncommon story. Sexual assault is a highly publicized problem in the military — even if it’s a very ineffectively dealt with one. A woman in the Army in 2011 is more likely to be sexually assaulted by a male colleague than she is to be killed in combat. However, the issue of men getting sexually assaulted is just coming to light, despite that fact that a mind-boggling 50,000 men in the armed forces have experienced “military sexual trauma.”

Despite the publicity, it's not clear what will be done, since the military is one of the most difficult places imaginable to deal with this sort of problem. And, more than anything, its structure and culture of machismo are to blame. It's a culture that doesn't encourage confessions of "weakness," which unfortunately, would include admitting you're the victim of assault. And the military is close-knit and insular — if such an assault takes place, you can’t just “quit” but rather will be stuck working with the same group of people, perhaps for years.