Whimsical Notions

Perhaps one day our culture will grow up enough to stop trying to tell adult women what we can do with our bodies and adult men what they can do with adult women, but in the meantime military men…will continue to seek us out despite the whimsical notions of those who think Nature can be controlled by legislation.  –  Maggie McNeill

Some of the worst of all lawheads, those most wedded to the farcical concept that reality can be shaped by the declarations of authorities and most detached from the actual consequences such declarations may have, exist in the rarefied atmosphere of high-level military command.  Even politicians have to be somewhat concerned about the consequences of their decisions, at least when those consequences are apparent to those they rule; after all, if things get bad enough they can be voted out of office.  But military commanders can only be removed from above, not from below; so as long as they please their own masters (which at the very top, means the political establishment), they can count on a long and distinguished career no matter how miserable the troops are or how much morale damage, physical and psychological harm, and  friction with allies their orders may cause.  Moreover, while a politician cannot readily insulate himself from the complaints of those harmed by his ill-considered diktats, it is only too easy for the Top Brass to shut themselves off from the troops and to ignore their responsibility for the results of their stupidity and shortsightedness.

The prevailing belief in the United States is that sex is unnatural.  Now, if asked, most who aren’t totally steeped in religious fanaticism will say the opposite, that sex is normal and natural.  But they don’t actually believe this; what they believe is that children are born “pure” and asexual, and remain so indefinitely until they are “sexualized” by outside contamination which ruins their sacred “innocence”.  Furthermore, they believe that even adults deprived of external sexual imagery or interaction will remain relatively uninterested in sex until such time as the government declares it’s acceptable for them to have it, and that sex without a government license is always harmful to women unless it’s completely buried inside a childish romantic fantasy.   The average American believes that “illicit” (i.e. unlicensed) sex is not only “harmful” in some way he cannot adequately explain, but also excites desire in some way that “good” sex does not, leading to “addiction”, “exploitation”, “negative secondary effects”  and other vague bugaboos for which not the slightest proof exists in reality.  Of course, regular readers know the opposite is true; porn and readily-available prostitution decrease rape and other social ills rather than increasing them, and men deprived of sexual stimulation become erratic and unhealthy  rather than lapsing into a docile, effeminate and celibate state.

A well-run military establishment would recognize that if there really is an “epidemic” of sexual assaults within the corps, the way to solving it is not to embrace moronic feminist assertions that “rape is caused by rage, not lust”, nor to “crack down” on assaults as though servicemen were unruly children in need of being “scared straight”.  No, Toru Hashimoto was right (though he seems unable to grasp the whole “consent” thing); military men do need “legal facilities for releasing sexual energy” in order to avoid problems which in extreme cases can grow into violence.  Unfortunately, the US military establishment is not well-run, and the Pentagon is far more concerned with promoting the government’s current political agenda than with the health and well-being of the troops, and so we get idiocy like this:

The U.S. military is cracking down on troops who support businesses connected to human trafficking, blocking airmen from spending money at so-called “juicy bars” and reminding all personnel of the prevalence of the problem businesses around bases in South Korea.  Leaders in the region have issued a series of directives to remind troops that prostitution and human trafficking are illegal…the three-star general in charge of the 7^th Air Force in South Korea issued a stern warning…that…“Airmen…shall not provide money or anything of value to an employee or establishment…for the primary purpose of obtaining…company or companionship”…The prohibitions include paying fees to play darts, pool or other entertainment or buying a drink or a souvenir in exchange for an employee’s company …“disreputable establishments” near Air Force bases…take advantage of people, usually young women, and force them to work in bars.  The employees are subjected to debt bondage and forced to sell themselves as “companions”…

Of course, we know the truth about this so-called “force”, and understand that for the military to deny these young women the right to make a living by the most lucrative means available to them   keeps them in poverty and may, like “end demand” schemes everywhere, force them into worse situations.  This destructive and wrongheaded policy helps nobody but the politicians who wish to pander to the whimsical notions of fanatics, but harms a great many people:  the young men deprived of an outlet for their natural sexual urges; the young women in host countries deprived of the best means of income available to them; the other young men and women subjected to sexual assault by those whose judgment and self-control has been eroded by a policy no less inhumane than starving them and depriving them of shelter; the businesses cheated of income from a large segment of the population in their areas; and the lower-echelon officers and NCOs who will be blamed for the damage caused by the refusal of their superiors to face reality.