Sigh.
Look, here’s the point I’m making - IF we assume that the military is obliged to offer a paid corp of prostitutes for heterosexual soldiers, and IF DADT is fully repealed, THEN we can expect that so long as 1 lesbian soldier exists who wants a lesbian prostitute, the military is likely to either have to find one, or else risk some sort of discrimination lawsuit. Do you think there wouldn’t be a lawsuit, with a whole clown car of lawyers rushing to take on the military?
No doubt you are correct.
Regards,
Shodan
Very American of you. It’s not even on the theoretical plan yet, and already the lawyers have been called in. But why do you assume the military should pay for the prostitutes? I certainly had no such thing in mind. The soldiers would have to pay for their own entertainment and the whores earn their own income. In addition it is clear that the military could never guarantee any soldier, heterosexual or lesbian, that there would be a girl ready to serve them, since this would require coercion, which is exactly that we want to avoid. But if there is a girl who believes there is a market for lesbian prostitution, and that she wants to serve this, then there should be no hindrance for her.
Aside from the famous Comfort Women of the Japanese army during WWII, a model I think we can all agree should not be re-implemented, are there any nations which have done something like this in modern history? Camp followers and prostitutes have followed armies since time immemorial, and it was often a way for the destroyed local villagers to make a little money off the armies which they weren’t fortunate enough to be able to get out of the way of. But an official, state-sponsored wing of the military? In addition to the questions of how to recruit for it, what would this arm of the military do during peacetime? What would a career path look like? What happens if the birth control fails and a servicewoman decides she wants to keep the baby? Is the serviceman on the hook for support? That only has to happen once for the program to suffer irreparable PR and political damage.
I think you might be able to make a good on-paper argument, maybe evoking the lessons learned from the Bui Doi of Vietnam. But once the first group of servicewomen(and to a lesser extent servicemen) ended their tour and suffered widespread discrimination in the private sector, the program would get a huge black eye. The wider US society isn’t ready to accept prostitutes as people instead of deviants, victims, or criminals. That would have to change before the arguable necessity of providing sexual outlets for troops becomes in any way practical. Outsourcing to the unfortunates of the country unlucky enough to be involved in the conflict is the way it’s been done historically and while there are problems with this, especially regarding the health and welfare of the service providers, I don’t see that changing. It’s easier to allow your troops to use the locals and then let them absorb the consequences than it is to send your own citizens, with legal rights you’re responsible for protecting into this kind of situation.
I could imagine a large scale development of a sex-drive suppressing drug for use during deployment before I could envision a brothel corps.
Enjoy,
Steven
What the fuck?
Then you need to ask a Moderator to change your thread title, because it’s deceptive. Should the military have its own brothel arm? absolutely implies it’s a funded branch of the military.
Nonsense. Elements of existing forces would be retasked on an interim basis to perform the new functions.
“It’s your day in the barrel.”
There were “brothels to the army” in France during WWI and I believe it was actually regulated and inspected by the armed forces.
ETA : Actually, it even lasted until the 50s, and there’s a wikipedia articleabout it.
It’s a business doing pleasure with you …=)
There was a long tradition of a ‘prostitutes corps’ historically, they were called 'camp followers’ and the women trailing after the armies served variously as prostitutes, laundrywomen untrained nurses, and merchants of whatever they could trade to make a few coins.
The idea of a comfort batallion has been covered in SF novels, in various formats. IIRC it is in the Piers Anthony series Bio of a Space Tyrant they have one character who is a spaceship’s ‘comfort woman’ and he discusses how it is handled so that she isn’t overworked. In Legions of Bronze by David Drake, the alien overlords of the enslaved Roman Legion have a military brothel aboard the ship.
I for one have no problem of an entirely volunteer group of civilian contractors being given a building/tent/whatever space to set up shop, with the ability to use military medical facilities and be treated fairly and above board. Beats the danger of surfing around out in town and possibly getting injured or killed by the locals.
I have come to understand that Americans in general are much more concerned about the legalistic aspects of different issues, whereas Europeans in general would be more concerned about the ideological aspects. I think it is a cultural difference. For instance I don’t consider potential lawsuits and lawyers descending on the military to be an issue at all, since if there is a problem with the laws standing in the way of what we wish to accomplish. Then we’ll just have to change the law. The law is out servant, not the other way round.
Denmark had military brothels into the 50s. Apparently there has never been an actual decision to disband them, they just kinda petered out. Supposedly (according to a Danish Lieutenant colonel) other Western countries had field brothels into the 70s. But I don’t know which countries.
Well the problem is money. What a private earns is not enough to pay the sort of fees that would entice a lot of Americans to go to a war zone to become sell sex. What mgiht work is a company like BVlackwater having a sex services division that opens a licensed brothel on the base. They hire locally and screen for disease and stuff like that. I don’t know if You could make enough money pimping to the troops to make it worthwhile but thats the only system i can see anytime in the near future.
It is rumored that militaries tried this at one time by lacing military food with saltpeter, back when they thought saltpeter caused temporary impotence.
This would never work in the Muslim countries that so many troops are currently stationed in. They don’t have the same kind of tolerant attitude about sexuality that they have in other parts of the world. Any Muslim woman in Iraq or Afghanistan suspected of sleeping with an American serviceman would probably be killed for the “honor” of her family.
Actually they did. They set up a special barrack at the back of Dachau where the prisoners of the camp could go for “services” but all the men refused to go because they knew that those women were there against their will. The women had been pulled from several different concentration camps to go to Dachau. The Germans ended the program quickly.
Prostitution is as widespread in the Muslim world as everywhere else. Perhaps more so where other forms of relationships are difficult. Number-wise Iranian girls (often underage, and often sold) in Europe have been contenting with Russians for the last number of years. Albanian, and of course Bosnian, girls were also widely traded for a period.
Sounds strange. Why would they do that? But in any case, it is not the same, if as you say, the girls did not enter into it voluntary. Which is the whole premise.
Imagine the parade-ground drill in basic training . . .
Ain’t no use in goin’ down
1,2,3,4
A soldier shoots like a horny hound
1,2,3,4
Suck off
1, 2
Jack off
3,4
Shake it around!
1,2,3,4
1,2
3,4!
I dunno but I been told
1,2,3,4
Army cock has crabs and mold
1,2,3,4
Suck off
1, 2
Jack off
3,4
Shake it around!
1,2,3,4
1,2
3,4!
etc.
Yes, I was referring to the “Joy Division” that the Nazis set up in concentration camps. It probably is more famous for the music group than its unsuccessful implementation during WWII. But yes, you are correct, the women were coerced.
Rune, I agree that it would be more ethical and moral if the brothel workers are from the same country as the soldiers. However, this leads to two (insuperable?) problems:
Supply of American women willing to work as prostitutes, and willing to do so overseas, and willing to do so under the conditions of the military. I postulate this population of prostitutes just doesn’t exist. Many prostitutes are desperate because they are supporting their children; they surely can’t bring them along. Many prostitutes are desperate because they are supporting a drug dependency; surely we can’t let them consume meth and coke on a military base. Some prostitutes pick and choose among wealthy clients; they won’t have that luxury on base. I just don’t see that many people left.
Second problem is that people are drawn to the exotic. We all know that soldiers love to complain about standard issue military stuff. If the military-issue prostitutes are sanctioned, then the soldiers are just going to want something they can’t get at home and seek out illegal foreign prostitutes. I guess we could increase the enforcement and sanctions for out-of-network visits to prostitutes, but I can still see this being a problem.
Why are prostitutes so plentiful in war zones? Demand is part of it, but also because the local populace has been under so many stresses that the supply of impoverished, desperate women is naturally high. I agree that it would be morally preferable not to exploit this population, but I don’t know how we could do it.
The military has its own malls, grocery stores, and gas stations that military personnel still have to pay for. I could see a subsidized brothel becoming part of the PX/BX/NEX system, logistically. If prostitution ever lost its legal and social stigma I could see it happening quite easily on major posts. But I don’t see the military sending U.S. citizens into war zones to have sex. Anywhere that doesn’t have a base McDonald’s would likely not have a base whorehouse. And the McDonald’s are usually staffed by locals or dependents.
I leave it as an exercise for the imagination how well the proposal to put military dependents to work in a brothel would go over.
In France, the story was (maybe still is, for all I know, it was still told in the 80s) that bromide was mixed in the soldiers’ beverages.
The purple head?
Sounds like a great way to get your kids to stop complaining about bagging groceries at the commissary.
But I think the moral/ethical dimensions of the question are more interesting than the logistical ones. Especially since number one on the logistical checklist would be: “Completely change American culture and all attitudes towards sex.” There just isn’t a lot to discuss there.