In 2010, the CDC released a compilation of statistics for violence against men and women for the fifty states. The opening line of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey states that on average, 24 people in the United States are victims of some sort of violence perpetrated by an intimate partner or an acquaintance every minute. Numbers can be deceptive, however. It is important to remember that these surveys can only be completed using reported cases. With the stigma against victims still alive and well, it’s unlikely that we will ever know exactly how prevalent acts of domestic violence are. The numbers that do exist should give you some idea.
Somehow, in light of the figures in the report I mentioned above, statistics regarding abuse against men by intimate partners are allowed to fall through the cracks. A few figures I pulled out from the report (current to 2010):
- 1 in 4 (28.5%) men in the U.S. have experienced some sort of physical violence in their lifetime
- Almost half (48.8%) of men in the U.S. have experienced emotional abuse
- 2.1% of men in the U.S. have experienced stalking by an intimate partner or acquaintance
- 1 in 21 men in the U.S. have been raped or experienced another form of sexual abuse
For the U.S. broken down by state, the top five states for male domestic violence victims, including physical violence, emotional violence, and stalking:
- California: 3,015,000 victims
- Texas: 2, 328,000 victims
- New York: 1,463,000 victims
- Florida: 1,437,00 victims
- Ohio: 1,048,000 victims
For the U.S. broken down by state, the top five states for male domestic violence victims, including physical violence, emotional violence, sexual violence, and stalking:
- California: 3,737,000 victims
- Texas: 3,104,000 victims
- New York: 2,423,000 victims
- Florida: 1,731,000 victims
- Georgia: 1,401,000 victims
How does your state rate in the lists? View the report and find out!
It should be apparent, then, to our legislators and law enforcement alike that something needs to be done about violence perpetrated against men by intimate partners. Precisely because so little help or compassion exists for male victims of domestic violence, there is little reason for men to come forward. We live in a society that would rather mock them instead of provide the same protection and assistance and support it gives to female victims. The statistics you can find are skewed because they are under-reported, so relying on them to place intimate partner violence against men in a list of priority is at the very least damaging. The figures most likely would run on par with that of women’s statistics, which are, ironically also under-reported, but not as severely as that of their male counterparts.
I have also begun to add videos of male survivors. They are included with the female survivor videos under the general page title Survivor Videos, as I feel it’s important for everyone to begin associating both men and women as potential victims of domestic violence instead of perpetuating the act of sweeping the men under the carpet.
Please note that there are several sub-divisions to the statistics detailed in this report. They include acts of varying types of violence (physical, sexual, and emotional) both by intimate partners AND general perpetrators. Be sure that you watch the wording when reading the statistics. Also violence is further broken down into more specific groups by type, severity, perpetrator relationship to the victim, and ethnicity.
The link to the report on the CDC website is below:
Picking Up the Pieces 
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The “1 in 71 men have been raped” stat from the CDC survey doesn’t tell the whole story. It defines “rape” as the attacker penetrating the victim, which excludes women who use their vagina to rape a man (rape by envelopment) which is counted as “made to penetrate”. The very same survey says “1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else,” which is far more than 1 in 71. Also, the study says that 79.2% of male victims of “made to penetrate” reported only female perpetrators, meaning they were raped by a woman.
The above, lifetime stats do show a lower percentage of male victims (up to 1.4% rape by penetration + 4.8% made to penetrate = 6.2%) than female victims (18.3%) although it is far more than the 1 in 71 you stated. However, if you look at the report’s stats for the past 12 months, just as many number of men were “forced to penetrate” as women were raped, meaning that if you properly include “made to penetrate” in the definition of rape, men were raped as often as women.
Egalitarian,
The figure I intended to include for the average number of men raped or otherwise sexually assaulted by an intimate partner or acquaintance was 1 in 21. The original figure (1 in 71) was actually for this type of violence perpetrated against a male by any general perpetrator. Thank you for pointing that out to me so I could correct it on the page.
To be fair, though, none of the four general stats I pulled from the report tells the entire story. The statement of those statistics was more meant to call attention to the fact that most people do not talk about acts of domestic violence and assault in all its forms committed against men by their intimate partners.
In fact, even when you do “have all the facts in front of you,” you can never truly be presented with the entire picture or know how prevalent these acts of violation are. The reason for this, also mentioned in the post, is because domestic violence and sexual violence, while already under-reported, are severely under-reported in cases where the violence is perpetrated against the male. Sadly, when people and organizations quote statistics from these reports (and you can see how detailed they get), they almost always quote female statistics, as though the male victims just don’t exist.
I feel the fact that society allows itself to turn a blind eye to the men suffering in these situations is yet another form of emotional violence forced upon the victims. No one should ever have to be victimized at home and then by everyone else on top of it when they try to leave or come forward… simply because they are male. We perpetuate this cycle into the future by teaching the new generations that men are supposed to extremely physically powerful, able to overcome and stop everything, that they cannot be harmed, abused, and hurt by others, and that men don’t cry. And then we teach them that if they can’t meet all these criteria, they are weak.
The simple fact is that men also deserve to live happy lives free of violence, to be safe and secure in their own homes, and to love and be genuinely loved and well-treated in return. Not just female survivors of domestic violence like myself. All of us.
Just did a quick Google search for dv shelters for women, then followed up with one for men. The one for women came back with over 2.4 millions hits. The one for men? 1.2 million. Twice as many. I’ve got to admit, though: that’s a good sign. As little as 13 years ago, I think that might have been maybe 1,000.
It is true that domestic violence is severely under-reported when it is against the male. I think that is because of the double standard: “We males are considered to be so much bigger, and stronger than women, and we’re all barbarians that can’t control ourselves. Whereas women wouldn’t hurt a fly unless absolutely necessary.” It’s even a trope on tvtropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale?from=Main.AbuseIsOkayWhenItIsFemaleOnMale (Warning: tvtropes is a time sucker worse than just about any other website I’ve encountered).
You know, when I was going through my situation with Christine, when I tried to say what was happening, and I was asked, “What did you do? Obviously you did something to deserve it,” that was devastating, to say the least. Now, whenever I hear, or read, that line, it gets my blood boiling. No one deserves to be hurt by their partner.
I wish I had had access to resources like this so many years ago. It might not have taken me so long to heal completely.
As society slowly begins to shake itself out of the fog its in in relation to men being DV victims, the number only increases. However, the fact that this attitude is so prevalent at all is absolutely ridiculous. Using the double standard of men being more physically capable than women is almost implying that if a woman *is* abusing a man, he should handle his business, which only means more violence. Violence is wrong, period, regardless of the sex of the perpetrator.
Men are far less likely to come forward because many fear being mocked for their “lack” of masculinity and allowing themselves to be abused, but also because the fear of not being believed is much stronger, in addition to there just not being a comparable amount of resources available to male victims who want to get out of the relationship. So many end of staying and trying to endure. Enduring until the point where they either snap and hurt the abuser or they themselves do not survive. I am glad you were able to get out. I am also happy that you have been able to come forward and share your experiences so that others like you can have examples of men who share the same story.