Someone to talk to

[ksmith]

Over at The Washington Monthly, there's an article about yesterday's House signing of the DADT discharge petition:

Earlier, Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania told the gathering of an e-mail he received from a company commander in Afghanistan, who mentioned how he often had to counsel soldiers who received divorce papers or "Dear John" letters from spouses or opposite-sex partners.

Murphy continued: "This young company commander, this captain, on his fourth deployment, wrote in that e-mail saying, 'I never thought I'd see the day when I got one of those letters myself. And I'm sitting here at three o'clock in the morning in Kabul, Afghanistan, and I have nowhere to go because I happen to be gay, and I can't walk to the chaplain, and I can't go to a battle buddy, and I can't walk to my commander's office, so I'm sitting here cradling my 9 mm pistol thinking about blowing my brains out. But I read this article about this Iraq war veteran named Patrick Murphy from Pennsylvania that's fighting for me, and it gives me hope.'"

I don't know what to add to this, except that I don't know how opponents of the repeal can believe that this sort of emotional isolation promotes unit cohesion, trust, and all those other qualities they claim to feel so strongly about. I won't mention the basic inhumanity of the situation, because that doesn't appear to be a concern of theirs.

Comments

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

It's pretty clear that opponents of the appeal (and most opponents of gay marriage) are simply icked out by the notion that two men* might have sex, and these opponents want to construct a world in which that possibility is never, ever, ever, ever brought to their attention even by implication.

It's very sad that innocent people have to suffer because a portion of the population can't face reality.

[threeoutside.livejournal.com]

"these opponents want to construct a world in which that possibility is never, ever, ever, ever brought to their attention even by implication."

They're icked out, I suspect, because the notion gives them tingly feelings in places they don't want to admit they've got. Lesbians don't cause the same icky reaction. Go figure. Wonder what's up with that...?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Surely you must know that girl-on-girl action was invented as a spectator sport for men? As such, it is not threatening. Until the women make it clear that they are not interested in putting on a show and in fact don't require a man for any reason. Then it becomes threatening.

The power aspect, and the perceived gain and loss of power. I can't shake the sense that it's about that as much or more than the suppressed fears of self-hating closet cases.

[threeoutside.livejournal.com]

I concur completely.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It's sad. The ripple effects of a lack of sexual maturity.

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

I'll mention the basic inhumanity of the situation for you...and no, it's not an issue of concern for the more vociferous opponents.

And that needs to be pointed out (to them and their potential but not yet hooked supporters) over and over. For social bonding to work, and thus for social groups to cohere and reach maximum effectiveness, the innate qualities common to all must be recognized and accepted, and the behaviors that produce cohesion and thus effectiveness must be clarified, taught, and reinforced. To deny, rather than accept, an innate quality--to insist that it is a "choice" (and thus not innate but added-on) is inhumane, as it would be to insist that right or left-handedness is a choice, or that skin color is a choice, or straight v. curly hair is a choice.

Any time innate qualities are not accepted, someone's butt is being snagged in a bear trap: their rock-bottom reality is being denied. Any time real choices are treated as innate, that's also going to lead to the butt-in-a-bear-trap situation. When choices are considered "natural" and nature is considered "a choice", reality has just been slung out the back door into the trash.

It's not just inhumane to treat sexual orientation as a choice--it's contrary to fact, and thus an error (perhaps in ignorance, but sometimes clearly malicious...which makes it morally wrong as well as factually wrong.)

For maximum effectiveness, any group must trust others in the group along many behavioral axes. This is especially true when a group needs to have a hierarchy (not all groups do) and is in a confined situation (a military unit in combat cannot function if unhappy people in it leave--whether by suicide or desertion.) The thief, the liar, the gossip, the person who stirs up discord--all impair unit cohesion and effectiveness. And so of course does the person who sexually assaults or harasses other group members. Since sexuality is innate to humans (however expressed), and innate at varying levels of intensity, managing sexuality within a group requires recognition of the trigger points, training, and solid commitment to promoting group welfare over individual pleasure.

Traditionally, men liked to see themselves as the ones who (rightly or wrongly) were the aggressors...and women were their target. An Army vet of my acquaintance once shocked a roomful of men by pointing out that straight men's feelings about homosexuals ("don't want them looking at me in the showers"--not wanting to be seen as sexual objects or targets) was no different from women not wanting to be seen only as sexual objects. Within the military, tolerance for men harassing women was part of the tradition...harassing behavior by men toward women was (and to some extent still is) viewed as "natural" (and thus many women vets have been assaulted and/or harassed, even though command attitudes have changed in many cases.)

What I've tried to show in my work is that gender-neutral and unit-cohesion-formative behaviors will never eliminate all harassment...but could markedly reduce it, with respect to all genders and all orientations. Zero tolerance for harassment, zero tolerance for assault, along with a sensible recognition of the varieties of innate sexuality and rules that emphasize fairness, honesty, respect: up and down the command chain, and horizontally among unit members in the same grade. No abuse of power; no abuse of reality.

But our society (and many, many others) has operated on a false view of reality for a long, long time. So it's all our butts in the bear trap.

[threeoutside.livejournal.com]

"An Army vet of my acquaintance once shocked a roomful of men by pointing out that straight men's feelings about homosexuals ("don't want them looking at me in the showers"--not wanting to be seen as sexual objects or targets) was no different from women not wanting to be seen only as sexual objects."

I'd like to highlight that statement because I've gotten the same reaction among male friends, and their shock shocked ME. One in particular, in college, one of my guy friends made some comment about some other student he thought he'd caught "looking at" him in the dorm showers and how appalled my friend was. I told him, "Now you know how we feel when you guys ogle us on the street or anywhere else," and his jaw dropped and his eyes got big and he said, "No!" and I said, "What - you can't seriously think we like it?" He was just completely stunned.

Oh, come on, guys. Really? and you wonder why men are portrayed as idiot jerks so often on TV and in chick lit? Couldn't be any REAL reason for it, could there? The behavior that so amuses and delights your frat brothers HAS to be charming and alluring to women, right?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I will never forget a thread over in Elizabeth's SFFNet group in which she posted how her husband told some of his male med school classmates--Elizabeth, correct me if I err--that women don't appreciate just the behavior you describe. The men refused to accept it. In their world, every normal woman wants and appreciates any and all attention that men bestow. Attentions are never unwanted.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

That's because there are some women who (apparently) want that constant attention. They appear on TV shows such as The Bachelor, Real Housewives of Whereever, The Jersey Shore, the Kardashians.

It's a whole culture of women who (appear to) believe that their primary value is in how they look. Therefore such a woman interprets all appreciative glances from men as a confirmation that she is of high value.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I know that some women relish any and all attention they can get, and they make it obvious that they do. But women who don't often make their lack of interest obvious as well, and they're the ones whose objections are brushed aside in the above anecdote because "all normal women" enjoy any and all attention.