I've been reading the comments in response to the Washington Post's editorial on military sexual trauma and the latest scandal at Lackland AFB, TX, Predators in the Ranks. If you want to see what women in the military are up against, it's a good place to go. You get to see responses like this:
So, you place men and women in close proximity 24/7 who all came from a culture steeped in sex and additionally have a rigid, authoritarian system and there is sex happening.
Wow, that comes as a complete surprise.
What is actually more surprising is thinking that there is a solution without changing the ingredients of this explosive formula.
Men + Women + Culture + Power = Sex, and lots of it, voluntary and involuntary
Is that formula too hard to understand? Try this:
Gasoline + Match = Fire
This will never be solved. I don't care what combination of studies or interventions there are.
You want women in the military? Really? Now you want them in combat? Really?
Some people are just so naive and willing to sacrifice an unlimited number of young women on the alter of feminism.
It's all about the men you know. They can't control themselves. It's natural for men and women to have sex together. Even when it might not be consensual.
Don't believe me? Check out more comments below the fold.
We need to reduce our military by stopping these foreign adventures like Afghanistan, close down bases around the world, and concentrate on defending the USA. Then there will be less need to recruit females for jobs they are physically and temperamentally unsuited for.
Instead, we're going to wreck our military by denying nature and placing young men and women together in impossible stressful situations, and deal with the consequences by giving every bogus rape claim complete credence and weighing the scales in favor of conviction.
Congress already amended the Uniform Code of Military Justice to shift the burden of proof to the defendant where he claims there was consent. Fortunately, that amendment has been ruled unconstitutional by at least one military judge.
Witch hunts and kangaroo courts. That will do wonders for morale after more than ten years of war.
Here's a great --practical Common Sense solution..get women OUT of Combat.. Wow, what a theory?! Again, women should never be allowed in combat ...infinity times infinity. Do not mix women or co op into experimental pre combat ranks; in case you can't figure out nature, men can barely maintain sanity around ANY woman in normal conditions..add a little combat and ..pow.. analogies become reality--it is ugly, raw, and not humane. Get women out of ALL combat or create female ranks to get in and out of bb gun fights. Here is a great analogy: If women being in "co-op" combat is such a G-reat idea, why not go ahead with co-op prisons?
It has been reported that a woman is 50% more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than in the civilian population. The solution must be as drastic as the problem. Women and men must be segregated into separate units with separate command structures. This may seem to be an extraordinary step, but action is required to protect the women and to preserve the effectiveness of our military. This change must be phased in and will take enormous effort and resources to implement, but we owe the women serving in our armed forces no less. The experiment of integrating women into the services has been a noble, but fatally flawed effort. Fortunately we have the example of the women's units that were so successful in supporting our military needs in the past, the WAC and WAVE corps. A further advantage of this system is that it will allow women to compete against women, strength against strength and will provide the career opportunities at every rank and level of command. A win win situation.
this debate has many parallels with the ongoing debate about about rape/bullying etc. in prisons
sexual abuse in the US military is by no means exclusively a man on woman problem but also, perhaps even primarily, a man on man problem. Furthermore sexual abuse is only one aspect of abuse of power relationships that can take many forms.
I would also like to question the wisdom of putting women in combat roles in the first place. Due to sexual dimorphism women are "on average" less strong and less aggressive than men. In combat situations there is also a risk that men will chivalrously seek to protect female comrades instead of concentrating on their primary mission.
Ok, I need to chime in here and apologize in advance for going against liberal orthodoxy. I am a judge advocate in the navy who routinely advises my command on these issues. Everyone in the media seems to buy the idea that the military has a huge sexual assault problem. Does anyone ever stop to think of whether all these claims are credible??? The media takes what these alleged victims say at face value. I've dealt with over fifty sexual assault cases in my career and I would say that less than ten were credible enough to take to trial. The vast majority are not and a few are downright ridiculous. The Wash Po does a huge disservice to the military by simply accepting these so-called statistics as fact, and even worse, assume that a sexual assault has indeed occurred because a report was made. News flash, people lie about these things too.
Do you see a theme?
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