Exposures and Invisibilities: Media, Masculinities and the Narratives of War in an Intersectional Perspective

Various forms of violence against men – and especially sexual violence – in contemporary wars increasingly challenge feminist dichotomies of omnipotent violent masculinities and vulnerable femininities. Multiple vulnerabilities of specific groups of men in wars seem to be both ever more visible, and carefully tucked away from public eyes. Media play significant role in both exposing and invisibilizing sexually violated male bodies. In this chapter, the author conducts an intersectional analysis of two cases of sexual violence against men that will be taken as examples of the extremes of media exposures and invisibilities. The first is the almost total invisibility of sexual violence against men during the war through which former Yugoslavia disintegrated, in the local and international media. The second example is the high exposure of sexual torture of Iraqi men in the Baghdad prison Abu Ghraib, in American and international media - on TV, in the press, and on the Internet.