While once referred to as “human rights’ last taboo,” the issue of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against men and boys is today widely acknowledged at the global level, despite remaining taboo in much of everyday society. I investigate what made this change possible in addition to clarifying why this “landscape of silence” permeated the global level at the first place as well as the change’s broader practical and normative implications. I argue that advocates of male survivors seized an institutional opening for the articulation of male vulnerability to CRSV catalyzed by the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1820, which marked the beginning of a ‘split’ between the issue of CRSV and the broader Women, Peace and Security agenda. Lying at the heart of this puzzling change are state and organizational preferences for re-purposing the framework of CRSV as a ‘weapon of war’ – originally pioneered by feminists – away from its associations with patriarchal violence. This allowed the issue of CRSV against men and boys to surface despite the two primary factors which kept it off the agenda in the first place: the international community’s preoccupation with the overwhelming issue of violence against women and girls, and homophobic and heteronormative assumptions around sexual violence and male survivors. While increased recognition of male survivors is a welcome departure from the status quo, the language of ‘silence’ and ‘silencing’ which characterizes much of the recent discourse around CRSV against men and boys fuels reductive and harmful perceptions around male survivors as well as competition and antagonism within the broader CRSV issue network, particularly amongst some of those who identify as feminists. As such, this dissertation reveals the limitations of silence as both a conceptual framework and rhetorical tool in awareness-raising efforts. The project draws from 35 in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of professionals constituting the transnational advocacy network on CRSV, participant observation at several international research conferences relevant to CRSV, and analysis of hundreds of both inductively and deductively selected advocacy publications and UN records.