yolland said:
I think Irvine and MrsS have already answered this by pointing out that the analogy is false; the logical analogy would be forcing straight women to do these things with lesbians, which again, I haven't seen widespread evidence of straight female revulsion towards.
There are no real analogies that would be the perfect fit. Even the lesbian analogy fails because the male/female “sex drives” are different.
yolland said:
Furthermore, I don't see expecting a female soldier to willingly huddle with a male soldier in order to stave off hypothermia as 'sexual harassment'; sexual harassment would be if the male soldier reacted to the situation by groping her or dropping a string of vulgar come-ons.
I disagree. Choosing to huddle close to survive is one thing. Purposely putting a female into a position where she must huddle with a man in a spooning position in order to pass the course or stay in the unit is sexual harassment.
yolland said:
And Irvine already explained the reason for having separate showers for men and women--it's simply a continutation of basic gender socialization practices in our society which people of both sexes have observed from childhood;
Couldn’t Hardaway use that defense? Would you accept it if I said that we should keep gays our out of the Infantry because it's simply a continuation of basic sexual orientation socialization practices in our society which people of both sexual orientations have observed from childhood;
yolland said:
a question of what's perceived as an appropriate audience for exposing one's nakedness. A member of the Shuri, Mursi or Me'en peoples of Ethiopia, who customarily wear no clothing at all, might see this as bizarre, but that's OK; we're not the Shuri, Mursi or Me'en so there's no logical need to change that particular custom, as it's not a major issue to supply separate barracks and showers for male and female servicepeople. Gay men and lesbians, on the other hand, have spent their lives sharing the bathroom, locker room, dorm bunks etc. with fully or partially naked members of their own sex, so there's no titillating shock factor provoked by sense of 'inappropriateness' there.
However, the heterosexual men don’t want the gay men showering them. If they have gone “unnoticed” it was a good thing. Forcing a heterosexual man to shower with an openly gay man is forcing the straight man to surrender what he believes is appropriate. It seems you dismiss “tradition” in one hand, and then use “tradition” as a defense in the other.
yolland said:
It's of course reasonable to expect that gay and lesbian servicepeople will refrain from molesting their bunkmates, just as it's reasonable to expect that straight servicemen will refrain from doing the same with female soldiers they work with at various points; it's not reasonable, however, to assume that any of the above are so innately inclined to do so as to make letting them serve unwise. That was exactly the argument often made in the 19th century for why women don't belong in the workplace: both men and women would be rendered incompetent by being continuously sexually distracted, thus the workplace would be 'degraded' and its efficient functioning made impossible.
The work around the office is much different than the work in the Infantry. This is an unfair comparison. For instance, my desk not job does not require me to shower naked with women nor does it require that I “spoon” with them to stay warm.
yolland said:
Instead, it turns out that men and women are eminently capable of working together in all kinds of arenas without transforming into incompetent libidinal beasts.
Depends on the job situation.
yolland said:
The only reason that argument ever made sense to anyone to begin with was because of the irrational assumption that simply having both sexes together in the workplace would automatically make that environment a sexual one, and it does indeed resemble 'Islamic extremist' thinking.
In every office that I’ve ever worked in there is indeed a sexual environment. There are affairs, jealousies, flirtations, harassment, etc. I’m not saying that the office needs to be segregated. I’m just saying that there is indeed a sexual environment that exists and you must choose not to participate in order to avoid it.
yolland said:
It seems to me that you're looking at the presence of gay and lesbian soldiers in their respective sex-segregated units in precisely the same way: you assume, without rational cause, that it would automatically make that environment sexual.
I’m not a psychologist; so I can’t offer much other than some basic undergraduate Psychology 101 thinking. But I remember reading that men have a sexual thought once every minute (is it more or less?). This “problem” is even more exaggerated in the military since most of the men serving are in their late teens and early twenties.
Again, the men in the Infantry are asked to perform a nearly impossible task with an almost incomprehensible amount of physical and mental stress. They need to have total focus, the sort of focus that can lead to life or death. The LAST thing they need another distraction. Allowing openly gay men to serve in their units adds a distraction whether people want to admit or not. I simply do not see why it is so difficult for non-Infantry to understand this.