If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Something like that.
So why is it acceptable for women to say, “I don’t wish to shower with men,” and not for men to say, “I don’t wish to shower with gay men?” This has been asked, above, but no one’s really addressed it.
It was touched upon in wolfstu’s wonderful post above:
I myself am having trouble seeing the commonality, frankly.
We go to great lengths to hide women’s nudity from men (rightly or not), but we don’t hide men’s nudity from each other.
Women can reasonably fear (for their safety) to appear naked and vulnerable, in front of men, in situations beyond their control. Straight men can reasonably fear only discomfort to appear naked and vulnerable in front of gay men.
I would also argue (altho have not seen any data) that the sexual harassment of women by straight men is far more common than the sexual harassment of straight men by gay men.
Can you tell me why the two situations are importantly equivalent?
I agree with Bricker that the current military position behind showering facilities is logically flawed. If, hypothetically, women are separated from men to prevent lascivious ogling, men should be afforded the same protections.
It would be logically consistent to admit gays to the military and provide individual shower stalls for everyone, but that might be expensive and annoying. I think the military should just get rid of the sex divide altogether. “Hello recruits, welcome to boot camp. Those are your showers. Yes, women and men shower together. Harassment will not be tolerated, but neither will puritanical hysterics. You’re all of age and I’m assuming you’ve all seen genitals before. If not, there’s an internet out there.”
Alternately, the military could just admit that they provide separate men’s and women’s facilities because that’s our social norm, and it makes as much sense in the military as it does in the gym.
I don’t think this is a legitimate arguement - there are certainly men out there who have been targets of sexual harassment by gay men and by straight women, and they feel just as vulnerable and uncomfortable as harassed women do.
Arguing that women should be protected, but not men, is the sort of mindset that lets male-on-male or female-on-male domestic violence go unpunished and underreported.
I think the proper response is to punish the behavior (harassment), regardless of the gender or orientation of the perpetrator.
That’s true – but it’s simply an appeal to tradition. I assume you wouldn’t argue that since we go to great lengths to assure the continuing illegality of same-sex marriage, we should thus accept that same-sex marriage should remain illegal?
OK, now we’re getting somewhere.
Why is womens’ fear reasonable in that circumstance? What is it about a woman’s fear that wouldn’t apply to, say, a slightly built, short man? Like the hypothetical woman, he lacks the physical strength to defend himself from attack. And I assume you agree that a solidly built, tall and muscular woman has no reason to object to mixed-sex showers, since she has as much ability to defend herself as the average man does – right?
I haven’t seen any data either. But are you seriously suggesting that sound basis for policy is, “I haven’t seen any data, so we’ll go with my gut feel?” Certainly there are situations – prison, for example – where men credibly feel worried about sexual assault.
And if you’re going to rejoin by pointing out the gyms are not prison – I will reply by observing that, so far as I’m aware, the incidence of male-female rape in health club gym showers is pretty near zero. So what reasons, then, can women claim to be credibly apprehensive?
Right, the two situations are equivalent because, generally speaking, a naked gay man can overpower and forcibly penetrate a naked straight man as easily as a naked straight man can a naked straight woman, which may explain why the overwhelming majority of violent rape is committed by gay men.
(That was sarcasm.)
Of course, generally speaking, men are bigger and stronger than women, so generally speaking, a generic man is less at risk from attack by a male than a generic woman would be.
But what of the specific skinny, short, nearsighted guy I posited above? Is HE entitled to shower away from gay men?
From what I understand, something like 97% of military facilities are equipped with private showers.
So your answer is “Yes, he’s entitled to shower away from the ogling eyes of gay men, and to that end, the vast majority of military showers are private?”
Post #47 was meant as a response to mischievous. Curse my slow posting habits!
Lacking the resources or incentive to provide private sleeping/bathing/toileting facilities to each individual, separation into two easily defined categories makes sense. Can you imagine the bureaucratic nightmare otherwise? OK, Kowalski, as a large gay man, you or not permitted to shower with Brown, who is a small straight man, but you can with Johnson, who is a large gay woman. Peters, you’re bisexual, which would normally be a problem, but we feel you’re too much of a wimp to threaten anyone but Brown. Chambers, on the other hand, self-identifies as a heterosexual male but is rumored to have “experimented” with his lab partner in his senior year of high school…
Sorry, I meant to do some research before I actually posted that. (post lunch haze and all that)
I wouldn’t phrase it that way. I would say that everyone should be able to shower in private. I don’t care for communal showers under most any setting.
The fact that a man may be harder to overpower is of little consolation if you’re the targeted man in question. Anyone can be overpowered if taken by surprise, or by multiple assailants, or with a weapon.
Regardless, we’re not talking about rape here. I think everyone agrees that rape should be (as is) illegal. What we’re talking about here is someone maybe looking at you in the shower, and looking at you so discretely that you didn’t know the person in question was attracted to your gender until informed otherwise. There’s sort of a leap between that and rape.
Doesn’t ONE facility make even more sense?
I think you made my point for me. Sexual danger is not defined by gender, and who “threatens” who is not easily discerned.
So why separate only on this one basis?
I don’t really have a problem with deferring to tradition, so long as you’re not subordinating anyone’s rights in the effort to follow tradition for tradition’s sake. When women first started joining the military, I suspect that the issue of showers was brought up as a reason they shouldn’t be allowed in. In this case, there was a simple solution: separate showers. The separate showers idea does not appear to be workable when the issue comes to gay soldiers. So, in the face of an unacceptable social injustice, tradition has to go by the wayside.
On the other hand, I don’t have any particular objection to unisex showers. It worked in Starship Troopers, right?
OK, I thought I was going to stop, but I can’t let this stand.
Society makes arbitrary but logically based distinctions all the time. Undoubtedly some 17-year-olds are better equipped to make decisions about whether or not to buy cigarettes or lotto tickets than some 19-year-olds, but society has determined that it has an interest in protecting its younger members from the consequences of poor decisions.
For the sake of argument, let’s presume that every adult can be categorized as one and only one of the following: (1) straight man, (2) gay man, (3) straight woman, (4) gay woman. Which of these categories do you feel is at the most risk of sexual assault? Which category is the most likely to commit sexual assault? If you answer (1) and (2), respectively, I respectfully suggest you are dead wrong.
(I, by the way, am a straight male who could probably be taken down in a fair fight by most of the women currently serving in the armed forces. But sometimes it does make sense to base policy decisions on general principles.)
Also, it’s almost absurdly simple to distinguish categories (1) and (2) from (3) and (4). The differences are, for the most part, obvious (especially in situations where total nudity is involved) and stable. (I’m aware there are borderline cases, but these are a distinct minority.) By contrast, (1) and (3) are actually on a continuum with (2) and (4), with a significant number of people falling somewhere in between the two extremes. Self-identification in one category or the other may be fluid, and may be at odds with how others would categorize an individual.
It seems to me the idea of avoiding rape or harassment is a red herring, anyway. How do straight guys keep from being raped at the YMCA, where gay men are famously present? They’ll avoid it the same way in the barracks. (And anyway, there’s way more to rape than “OMG that guy thinks I’m cute, I’m done for!”)
The bigger point, to me, is that while gender-segregated showers (two communal rooms, one for each gender) don’t really deny anyone equality of opportunity*, barring gays from the military to solve the perceived problem of sexually-attractive people being seen nude does.
The real reason we have gender-segregated showers is, near as I can tell, because when we started letting women join the military (or go to the same gym as men, etc.), we were, culturally, prudish enough that mixing genders when nudity was expected was unthinkable. And nowadays, that attitude has relaxed somewhat (“I can see her ankles!” has evolved to “I can see her boobs!”), but the inertia is there, and we still see gender-segregated showers and washrooms because people mostly prefer it that way.
Anyway, everybody gets to use the gym or join the army or whatever in the case of binary communal showers. So unless women start deciding this is “separate but equal” and the equivalent of water fountains for black people, it seems to mostly satisfy the situation. It has the added benefit that prudish people who can’t separate nudity from sexuality, particularly in the presence of the opposite gender (and that might be most of us) can be rather more comfortable in their happy, boobless (or dickless) status quo.
So basically, it’s cultural inertia. There are plenty of places in the world where, say, mixed-gendered saunas don’t catch any attention, and manage not to be sex cauldrons or rape-houses. For the moment, the dual shower rooms are mostly a question of culturally-sensitive human factors engineering (or architecture, I guess), that provide the minimum distortion of equality rights.
Thanks for your comment. I’m waiting to see if that post is worthy of a response from the OP.
- Yes, I am aware that it sometimes leaves transgendered people in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. And of course, there’s also the expense of building twice as many shower rooms as you need.
I was responding simply to this:
and am not addressing things (society’s approach to domestic violence, etc) beyond that scope.
My argument is that the two things are not comparable, and has nothing to do with the reasonableness of either position.
Because historically, women have been victimized (beaten physically, assaulted sexually, murdered, etc) by men far more frequently than the converse. If the situations were analogous, you could demonstrate that straight men have similarly been victimized by gay men throughout history.
I don’t know what basis you would have to assume that. Physical size and strength did not come into my argument.
Of course not. This is the Pit, I was not expecting to have to dig up cites.
Are you are seriously asserting that straight men are victimized by sexual harassment from gay men (in terms of frequency and impact) as much as women are victimized by sexual harassment from straight men? I know that it happens, but someone asserted an equivalency of experience here, so it needs to be shown not only that it happens once in a while, but that it happens with an equivalent impact.
We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the military.
I am not saying that women are necessarily justified in their apprehension. I am saying that (based on the collective social experience of women, and often the actual experience of individual women), women are MUCH MORE justified in their apprehension than straight men in the comparable situation would be.
Now that I have twice explained why I don’t think the two situations are comparable,* can you explain why you think they are?
*i.e. the socially and institutionally accepted fact that men and women have vastly different experiences of (and requirements for) privacy and safety, based on their gender.
I’m not arguing that society doesn’t make arbitrary decisions. I’m arguing that the logic that the military has (indirectly) presented is illogical, which, to my mind can be summarized as (1)people should be protected from sexual aggression, (2) men are not sexual threats to each other, and (3) therefore men can be naked with other men, but not with women. Unfortunately, point (2) is demonstrably false.
Of course, women are at more risk of sexual assault than men are - by and large, women are weaker, and, by and large, most men are straight. But if your goal is to protect people from sexual assault and harassment (or being looked at, which is the case of this OP), segregating genders is not going to achieve your goal. And if your goal is to protect people from sexual assault, ignoring the experiences of people who have been assaulted by their own gender is despicable. You have to provide protection to everyone.
However, I think that the larger point is that being glanced at in the shower is not sexual assault, and that segregating people on the basis of possible casual looks is overkill. I don’t object to separate showers for men and women, because it’s a cultural norm and, as such, it makes people more comfortable. I do object to excluding gays from activities (military or otherwise) because they might happen to see someone cute in the shower.