Either the world is insane, or I am.

Groping for God and Country — and School

My son attends an all-boy high school, as did I. One of the joys of that experience is the camaraderie shared by a rambunctious band of brothers before the inevitable attractions of the opposite sex dissolve the bonds that bind them together.

That said, it is imperative for young men to learn to respect women in the person of their mothers, sisters, and the women or girls they encounter in their day-to-day lives. This requires that a respectful, chivalrous attitude be inculcated in young boys or men during their formative years. In this way they come to appreciate the complementary natures and roles that men and women bring to their interactions in life up to and including marriage for those who choose that vocation.

My idealistic view of these matters ran upon the hard rock of reality when my son joined the wrestling team. We were soon confronted with the possibility that he might have to wrestle girls from other schools who participate in the same program with their male counterparts. Evidently, this is not uncommon in many of the programs in the area.

My son’s school may not be able to participate in some wrestling tournaments in the future.

As a recovering lawyer, I have some knowledge of the claims for sexual discriminationthat could be brought because of hostile work environments created by male superiors, or their employees, predicated upon offensive words or actions — groping, for instance. One basic rule is: “Hands off.” Various Hollywood fantasies notwithstanding, these cases overwhelmingly involve men preying on women.

As for high school grappling, an athletic program that allows, nay, encourages, the manhandling of young women by young men, and vice versa, is one indicator of a culture in a very bad way. I am under no illusion that the young ladies cannot handle themselves, at least to the extent of avoiding injury or even embarrassment on the mats. On any given day a particular girl can beat a particular boy depending on relative skill, strength, speed, and the like.

What is troubling is the enforced physical contact between an adolescent boy and girl. It presumes a familiarity between the sexes far in advance of their years, not too mention their single state in life. Throwing a half nelson on someone, or pinning to the mat, a person of the opposite sex is not the way to encourage respect for that opponent’s unique and complementary sexuality — a respect that is essential to a harmonious marriage and family.

To put it another way, wrestling is not ballroom dancing which would be the ideal way to introduce young people to the opposite sex in an active, physical, yet relaxed manner, allowing for conversation and social interaction.

SADLY, THE MILITARY IS ANOTHER place where the concept of social space or respectful distance between the sexes is being obliterated in the tilt toward gender equality at the expense of a complementary, even chivalrous attitude towards women. Hand-to-hand combat training between men and women is now fairly routine in the Army whether it is between men and women, married or unmarried. Again, behavior very akin to groping is routine. In this case, it is government sanctioned and mandated.

Of course, an intrepid soldier, male or female, might resist or somehow deflect the orders of the drill instructor. But it is a brave soul, indeed, who would refuse what would have to be described as a lawful order.

Slate‘s on-line “Explainer” recently addressed the question, “Do Female Soldiers Get Any Privacy? How the army separates its men and women.”

The Explainer, a/k/a Michelle Tsai, noted that claims of sexual assault in the military rose 24 percent in 2006, and that nearly half of all assaults in the Army take place in barracks. She went on to ask, “Given these dangers, how much privacy do women get when they’re deployed in the Middle East?”

Not much evidently. In Kuwait, while awaiting deployment to Iraq, male and female soldiers are expected to sleep cot to cot under large tents that house 50 to 60 people. Women usually curtain off a single-sex section with sheets and ponchos, but this kind of “self-segregation carries the risk of alienating women from their platoon, depriving them of Army chatter, or making them seem as though they need special treatment.”

“Women tend to get a little more privacy in Iraq,” claims the Explainer. She goes on to say that groups of two and three share bunk beds in small barracks rooms, and women are housed in one part of the building. But the locks on the doors do not always work. “To ward off sexual assaults in the barracks, female soldiers below the rank of sergeant follow a buddy system at all times — for getting around the base during the day as well as for making bathroom visits in the middle of the night.” To be sure, all soldiers are supposed to practice the buddy system, but the Explainer’s sources appear to put special emphasis on it from the perspective of the female soldiers for obvious reasons.

The circumstances described by the Explainer ring true. Gender equality, as currently misunderstood,diminishes respect between the sexes and their regard for the each other’s unique, embodied personhood.

This trend is even more pronounced in the context of active combat roles for women, especially those with children, as highlighted by the recent capture of Royal Navy Acting Leading Seaman [sic] Faye Turney by Iranian pirates. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, occasioned by this incident involving a mother of a young child on active duty in a hot zone, Kathleen Parker observed that “our military is gradually weaning men of their intuitive inclination to protect women…”

A RECENT LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL to bring back the military draft, for women as well as men, generated very little comment. While there may be a lot of reasons why America may never see a draft again, it is noteworthy that a congressman would include women in his proposal without a second thought.

The Air Force also has issues pertaining to decorum between the sexes. A few years back an officer working in missile silos underground, overnight, sharing close, confined accommodations with female officers, sought a “religious accommodation” because he viewed it as an inappropriate situation for a married man. Initially, he was able to obtain alternative scheduling until feminists suspected sexism, resulting in an extended controversy.

Daniel P. Moloney described this case in “Sex and the Married Missiler,” in First Things (February 2000). Space does not allow for a full description of the Kafkaesque experience of this officer, but Moloney’s opening sentence captures his dilemma quite nicely:

“At Minot Air Force base in Minot, North Dakota, a wife kisses her husband goodbye knowing that he will be spending the night alone in close quarters with a fit, talented professional woman officer.”

These days it can be difficult to be both an officer and a gentleman.

G. Tracy Mehan, III, lives in Northern Virginia. He is the father of five daughters and two sons.

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My comment:

On co-ed wrestling–

Every now and again, I come across an article that convinces me (when I am in a generous mood) the world is filled with stark, raving lunatics (when in a condemning mood) the world is filled with worshippers of The Dark Lord eager to kiss the baboon-like buttocks of Baphomet. 

Who in their right mind would consider such an idea as co-ed wrestling even for a second? 

Did someone change the rules of teen bio-chemistry since I was that age? Are we expecting young men, awkwardly shy yet burning with mad lusts, to grapple the supple young limbs of healthy sixteen-year-olds on the sweaty mat, and not somehow regard this as an intimate form of contact?  

Ah, but since we live in a world where the rap music, television, and movies all portray the behavior of gentleman and the gift of chastity and clean-mindedness as the highest possible virtues, and since self-control and self-denial are constantly praised and propounded in our modern culture, I am confident that these pure young knights will be models of chivalry when they have snatched the long-hair young nymph in a full nelson, applying remorseless pressure to neck and shoulder-bones, and will be respectful of the femininity of their wrestling partners when getting their heads crushed between a pair of shapely thighs. Sternly raised by the strictest standards of Stoicism and self-command, not a sexual idea will ever enter their heads! Good thing we do not live in the most porn-infected culture in history, otherwise boys might regard girls as sex objects, rather than sacrosanct.  

Oh, wait, I forgot: that was only on the cube-shaped Bizarro world. 

Here on Earth our culture BOTH teaches that women are porn objects AND teaches that they are Amazons needing men no more than a fish needs a bicycle, not for protection nor love in their lives–except unless they are annoyed by a masher, in which case the whole apparatus of the police must swing into action to protect the poor, helpless dears: but any hint that the mashers should be taught in youth to be chivalrous and civilized and chaste is dismissed as unrealistic, unfair to women, and maybe even unnatural. Nope: equality demands they wrestle with the boys. Maybe they should wrestle in the nude, like the ancient Greeks? After all, we don’t want a society strangled by taboos and outworn prejudices, do we?  After all, Robert Heinlein taught us all in his juvenile SF that the prejudices of society are entirely artificial and have no logic to them, right?

 

And why not allow the boys to punch the girls in the face, or the girl to crush the boys’ testes like so many ripe apricots? But let’s also make sure our society discourages violence toward women. 

 

Win or lose, I do not see how any impressionable boy can come away from the match with a polite, respectful, or healthy attitude toward womanhood: if he wins, he is tempted to think violent strength against women is laudable and normal.

 

If he loses, he is tempted to think the women are in no need of cherishing or protecting, that they are, indeed, merely dickless boy, as able to stand a good slapping around as their other buddies–except for the embarrassing fact that the she-boys are eunuchs. They are like boys but not as rugged or manly.

 

In this idea of things, there is nothing about femininity to cherish or protect. It is not a positive virtue, but only a lack of manhood, a failure of an equal unit to be able to perform as an equal. In such a world, there is no female grace, merely sexual titillation. Pink frills on a dress are no longer regarded as feminine: only tight leather halter-tops and silicon-inflated breasts.

 

Meanwhile, the mating dance must go on as it always has, except now all the dancers are taught the wrong steps. Men no longer pursue; women no longer allure; the equality means that if one of the two equal partners gets pregnant, that is his-or-her problem (but, oddly enough, it is always a her). Delicacy of feeling is rubbed out, and the women are taught to be as crude and aggressive as men. The world turns into a locker room with locker room sentiments about sex, and there is no more place to go to escape the odor of the locker room.

On women in the military–

I have nothing against women in uniform freeing up a man to fight. But putting them in combat units or on cruise is an idea that defies belief. 

Look: the military is supposed to be about service. It is about getting the mission done. It is not about proving something about yourself or drawing attention to social causes or anything. The point of the military is to push young men into hell, and get them to break things and kill people,  so that the greater hell of defeat at the hands of an enemy is avoided. Anything that distracts from that goal is a luxury we cannot afford.

So, if the voices calling for females in combat were all sergeants and captains saying, “We need women in combat to complete the mission!” then the needs of the mission should come first, and the women drafted and sent into the breech to be raked with the grapeshot, and die in bloody heaps so hamburger-ground that their corpses cannot be identified.

 

If we were Israel, and needed every able bodied man, male or female, to bear arms lest our nation fail and be thrown into the sea, then draft the women by all means, and put guns in the hands of old men, raw youths, and the walking wounded as well.  I mean, are we serious, or are we kidding around?

If it is someone else, anyone else, saying, “I would like women in combat for some purpose of my own,” then again the needs of the mission should come first, and these selfish voices should shut the hell up, and let the soldiers get on with their horrible, honorable, hellish work. Are we serious, or are we kidding around? 

If you want woman in combat, you have to take reasonable precautions based on a reasonable understanding of how human nature works, and how unit cohesion works. If we were intelligent ants from planet Klendathu, fine, we could do thinks differently: but we’re naked killer-apes who go into heat all year round, naturally polygamous, naturally assholes, and we instinctively want to reproduce when we think we’re about to die.

 

So let us take human nature into account. Ideally, there can be no fraternization or opportunity for it; no males in command over females; separate quarters, separate units, separate training… if the circumstances allow: but if your nation is so desperate that young mothers are throwing down their babies to pick up a pikestaff, then a certain amount of rape and fornication and fraternization is the price you pay. Are we all comfortable with that price? I am not. To resort to last-ditch desperation when the situation is not desperate is profoundly unserious. 

Low unit cohesion is the price you pay. When the Captain’s girlfriend is not going to stand in the breech, but you are, you are not going to feel that she is just one of the guys. Now if you are the Captains rival for her affections, and he orders you to go into the thick part of combat to lend a hand to Uriah the Hittite, you think you are going to be all yessir and gung-ho? You going to throw yourself on a hand grenade to save the two of them? 

Are we as a nation going to sit back while the enemy rapes our captured soldier-girls, and just shrug and mumble something about equality? 

(sarcasm on) I mean, those gals can take it, right? They’ve been through boot camp. It is no dishonor on our nation if we cannot protect our women, right? I mean, honor has nothing to do with war! War is just one more forum where we can experiment with social engineering ideas of equality, right? (/sarcasm off)

Equality, my aunt’s bung hole. There is no equality on post: everyone wears their rank on their sleeve. Some point about a right to serve? There is no right to serve in the military because there are no rights in the military: you go and you do as those placed in authority over you say to do, and you can disobey only if the order is illegal: which, in effect, means a higher authority overrules your officer. 

Equality and rights are things the soldiers sacrifice so that lazy fat and stupid people back home, civilians like me, can enjoy our rights and our equality. They die in stinking hellholes, crying and trying to stuff their bleeding entrails back in their severed bowels, so guys like me can sit on the backporch on the Fourth of July grilling burgers and franks with the kids, and watching the fireworks over the river with a beer in my hand. 

So: does putting women in combat make their job harder or easier? If it makes it harder, why are you even talking about yourself, your equality, your rights, you, you, you, instead of talking about what the unit needs and what the mission needs. And if you are not talking about what the unit needs and the mission needs, why should those bold badass young men want you in their unit or on their mission?

 

About John C Wright

John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.

April 16, 2007 @ 2:39 pm

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