I’m not sure how much I’d trust any stats that were available anyway, as there are so many inherent difficulties with gathering such data in any meaningful and comprehensive manner. Therefore, I admit that I do not know whether the rate of wartime rapes committed against the enemy have changed substantially.

I do know that according to anonymous surveys, about 1/3 of *military women* report having experienced serious sexual assault. Having taken a few of those “anonymous” surveys myself while in service, I know that those answers only represent the women who had reason to believe that they were in a place that was “safe enough” for them to disclose, and where their responses would truly be anonymous. My unit was not among those safe spaces, so despite having endured numerous sexual assaults (whether or not I was raped depends on how you define rape… if you include being drugged and coerced-consent and date-rape, then yes, multiple times. But if you only include “forcible” rape, as the military culture does, then no) from literally my first DAY, my survey answers reflected nothing but sunshine, roses, and rainbows.

Clearly, as a female veteran, I did and do support the gender integration of the US military.

But I also recognize that this integration has been implemented in such a way as to provide a safe and target-rich environment …for the rapists.

They no longer *need* to rape the enemy, they can just rape their sisters-in-arms, and the whole institution will aid and abet them in so doing, and in silencing, shaming, and ostracizing their victims.
http://m.guardiannews.com/society/2011/dec/09/rape-us-military?cat=society&type=article

I hear it’s getting better for those on active duty since Panetta took over, but it’s still an incredibly long way from “acceptable”.

Likewise for those vets in the VA system – unlike my sisters who served before me, at least I’ve been able to get a modicum of grudging treatment for my MST(Military sexual trauma, sort of an informal subset of PTSD), but even now, 4 years after first seeking treatment and compensation for this, I’m one of the vets who has “personality disorder NOS” listed as my official diagnosis, NOT PTSD. Why? PTSD is service-connectable and compensable. “Personality disorder” is not.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/12/30/42665.htm

That’s just another facet of how the rape culture continues to re-victimize survivors long after the initial assault.

Back on-topic…
I think the “rape switch” idea is useful for dialog, and real in the sense that yes, demonstrably, people will do things under stress that they would consider morally repugnant otherwise, and rape is not a special case that is somehow immune from that mechanism. Refraining from putting people in such positions, and policing them stringently when this is unavoidable are good solution-ideas that can come from framing it this way.

I also find “Schoedinger’s rapist” a useful conceit, because it aptly describes that sense of uncertainty when confronted with an unknown person in an insecure setting. But I always find myself wanting to clarify that for me, the point of telling that story is not to convince every man that he could be a rapist, nor to make every man responsible for my fears, but to try to help EVERY man and woman understand why those fears exist, and to enlist the help of EVERY man and woman in reinforcing by their own words, behavior, and influence on others, to simply acknowledge that fear, accept it as real and valid, and to contribute to creating a culture in which it is neither dismissed nor pandered to, but simply made unnecessary because sexual assault becomes so rare, and its impact so reduced that it’s just a non-issue for all practical purposes.

We don’t fear the bubonic plague anymore, because it’s known, diagnosed readily when it does occur, and readily treated without blaming and shaming the victim.

When sexual assaults are likewise rare, identifiable in the sense that no one dismisses, denies, or shifts blame for them, and treatment for the victims is accessible, effective, and stigma-free, I’ll consider the point of that story to have been successfully internalized by our society.

It’s not whether you’re allowed to propose such a thing, or not, because, contrary to your new rhetorical tactic (now you’re trying to divert us into arguing about censorship or somesuch), you’re “allowed” to suggest this possibility. What’s important is that you think to do so, when you clearly don’t believe there is such a thing, and when you haven’t and clearly would not propose something similar in a similar argument, such as a hypothetical “killing rage switch”. You should stop and think for a long, careful moment why you reached for that particular counterargument, knowing that it’s as provocative as it is. That is to say, you should face up to the implications that you chose it because it’s as uniquely provocative as it is and then consider why you are relying upon provoking rather than arguing something more substantive.

But, of course, you are being disingenuous, you won’t accept the rape switch and won’t explain why you reject the idea, you just pull a completely nonsense theory out of your tush and claim that if we can’t refute the nonsense, every other theory must be rejected too, in the same way a creationist might argue that if evolution cannot explain the origins of life, their personal vision of god must be true.

But I guess if you get to posit someone else’s thoughts that makes you win any argument you like, huh?

Well, no, it clearly would have been a non-sequitor but, more to the point, it wouldn’t have the shocking, offensive emotional resonance. Even more to the point, it wouldn’t be deflecting the discussion about men raping toward a discussion of women being responsible for being raped. It was done in bad-faith — unlike many such arguments, it wasn’t an earnest attempt to argue that women ask for it. But, see, “wow” thinks he/she wins both ways: either we redirect our disgust at the proposition back onto our own proposition (the preferred response), or we seriously consider the possibility and the discussion is successfully diverted and obscured. As the result of an absurd rebuttal proposition that wouldn’t have been offered were we talking about a “cannablism switch”.

Also, I think that this is related to the “why do people react this way” question. Because a sad and revealing aspect of people who get worked up on that side of discussion about sexual violence is that they very frequently move very quickly to rhetoric and actions that are deliberately threatening to women. They’ll assert, either in earnest or not, that women are responsible for the sexual violence they suffer. They’ll stalk and threaten. They will become, in a word, transgressive. And that tells us a lot.