In the history of the military, they have never been quite so squeamish about sex.
We all know that American culture is openly obsessed with sex, but the military on the other hand, is moving swiftly in the opposite direction.
This accusation of being so uncomfortable with the idea of sex has recently exploded into public view with the recent firing on the captain of the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier on the eve of its deployment to support the war in Afghanistan.
In 2006 and 2007, Captain Owen Honors starred in a series of shipboard videos in which he pantomimed masturbation and peered into the showers of men and woman who were semi clothed. Then, within 48 hours of the videos surfacing on the Internet, Honors was sent packing.
He surprisingly went willingly and about half of the 17 Navy skippers who lost their commands last year were fired for sexual dalliances. The Army and the Marine Corps have similarly adopted absolutely no tolerance policies for any kind of sexual discretion.
These days, the commanders on the battlefield are far more likely to lose their jobs for marital infidelity than for marital failings.
“With the Americans, it was quite extraordinary,” said Emma Sky, a British civilian who spent several years working as an adviser to top American commanders in Iraq,”
The military’s extreme sexlessness in the midst of so much killing is quite uncomfortable. “It is not quite natural,” she said, “it is a really bizarre moral code. I would joke with them that they were a bunch of Christian jihadis.”
The sex habits of soldiers, sailors and marines may seem like a trifling matter amid a deathly battle. But the whole thing is kind of inevitable between a military focused on fight and a society that is increasingly losing interest in the distant conflicts.