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Tonight’s Frontline looked at US soldier suicides and PTSD. At one point, they had an expert explaining that it was a bad idea to send soldiers with PTSD back to combat because one incident of trauma will combine with the next rather than giving the person additional strength to overcome it. So far, so good. Unfortunately, he used an example of a woman who had been raped to illustrate his point, saying that she wouldn’t “shrug off” being raped a second time. The casualness of the reference, including the phrase in quotes, indicated precisely how unimportant, how unshocking rape is to this man―and indeed perpetuates that barbaric ordinariness with which too many regard rape. (Could you imagine such an offhand remark being made about a soldier’s experiences while discussing the challenges of recovering from sexual assault in a world saturated with rape culture?)

Besides, survivors of rape are very different from soldiers. A US soldier who is to be sent back to war has choices. Admittedly not good ones: desert, hide from the law or serve time in jail. These are, however, more options than are afforded to a woman when a man rapes her. Moreover, soldiers when they go to war fight and kill: they have real reason to feel guilt no matter how many people call them heroes or how many medals they are given. A woman who has been raped feels guilt only because society shames her. While a soldier and a rape survivor may in some cases experience similar challenges in recovering from trauma, the situations are remarkably different, so the comparison is neither informative nor persuasive, at least not as a throwaway line.

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1. Rapists’ Art

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