Pentagon Asks Troops How Gross It Would Be To Shower With A Gay Person

By on July 14, 2010 in News 32

PentagonAlex Pareene writes on Salon.com:

The Pentagon is surveying 400,000 active troops on how they would handle a potential repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” It is kind of a mess.

Some gay rights groups are concerned that the gay and lesbian service members could inadvertently out themselves by filling it out. The survey is sorta-mostly anonymous, but the Defense Department will not provide immunity to anyone outed. On the other hand, if LGBT service members don’t fill it out, the results could be weighted in favor of semi-anonymous homophobia.

As for the content of the survey? Well, it’s got questions like this:

“If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you are assigned to bathroom facilities with an open bay shower that someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian Service member also used, which are you most likely to do? Mark 1.”

  • “Take no action;
  • “Use the shower at a different time than the Service member I thought to be gay or lesbian;
  • “Discuss how we expect each other to behave and conduct ourselves;
  • “Talk to a chaplain, mentor, or leader about how to handle the situation;
  • “Talk to a leader to see if I had other options;
  • “Something else;
  • “Don’t know.”

Read More: Salon.com

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  • EcstasyOfApostasy

    If this country weren't so backward and insane, then this survey would probably be used to judge just how homophobic your common service member is so that they can then receive counseling and training on how to be more tolerant and handle being around homosexuals without freaking out.

    Unfortunately, since we -do- live in a country that's backward and insane, they'll most likely use the info gained from the survey to push gays deeper into the closet.

    • GoodDoktorBad

      Soldiers need to be more sensitive to others? Go figure……

    • cerebralcaustic

      >..they can then receive counseling and training on how to be more tolerant and handle being around homosexuals without freaking out.

      Funny how often the “tolerance” idea seems to cut only one way. Do gay pride parade participants have “counseling and training to be more tolerant” of middle class Christians?

      I'm not religious, BTW. But it's telling how “sensitivity” and “tolerance” can be so insensitive and intolerant.

      • http://www.thecarnivalnoir.com Haystack

        What makes you so sure that middle class Christians don't march in gay pride parades?

        • Conniedobbs

          I know a ton of them. Most of them are white too.

          I love people who claim that is intolerant for others to not like the fact that others are intolerant of intolerance. It's also very hard to explain. Caustic, you're an ASSHOLE. You know you are an ASSHOLE. A huge fucking ASSHOLE, and I'd wager you're probably proud of being an ASSHOLE. If me calling you an ASSHOLE is being intolerant, then lump me in with yourself as an ASSHOLE. Because seriously, gay people don't give a fuck about you being an ASSHOLE until you're being an ASSHOLE to them. So, yeah, if you're going to be an ASSHOLE, then suck it up and take it when people are an ASSHOLE right back to you.

          ASSHOLE.

      • Andrew

        That's one of the most sophomoric arguments ever. (Not that I'm blaming you for making it up, just for parroting it. Sophomoric arguments are endemic to the American right.) It's hypocritical to not be tolerant of intolerance towards oneself? I bet you don't make the same argument regarding Muslims.

        You know what else is funny? How so-called “peace” officers shoot at armed criminals. It's telling how their opposition to gunfire seems to cut only one way.

      • 5by5

        cerebralcaustic: Funny how often the “tolerance” idea seems to cut only one way. Do gay pride parade participants have “counseling and training to be more tolerant” of middle class Christians?

        How many gay people do you see running around beating up Christians in parking lots? Just saying, trying to turn the victimizer into the victim? Lame. As with all other instances of this discussion, replace the word “gay” with the word “black” and see how ridiculous the questions sounds. For instance, what if you were to say something like, “Do blacks have 'counseling and training to be more tolerant' of middle class white people?”

        (Also, what's with the middle class part of your statement? Total non sequitor there.)

    • http://www.thecarnivalnoir.com Haystack

      Right. It's not the gay people who are “undermining unit cohesion,” it's the bigots. If you can't work with a fellow soldier simply because of their sexual orientation, you're the one who ought to be discharged.

  • http://www.xenex.org/ xen

    Well, it is a known fact that homosexuals cannot contain their lust and have to have sex with any member of the same sex they see, at least in the fantasies of these politicians.

    • http://www.thecarnivalnoir.com Haystack

      That's because the politicians in question are themselves secretly burning with gay lust they cannot contain.

    • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

      Nobody fucks up being gay like conservatives…cripes…if the only way to be gay were to live like them…closeted, in fear and full of self loathing…no one would do it!

  • Hadrian999

    maybe we should expect members of our professional armed forces too behave like professionals not 12 year olds in gym class

  • GoodDoktorBad

    Don't ask, don't tell. Look but don't touch. Mind your own business. Goes for straits and gays…….
    Get over it, your body probably isn't that great anyway……

  • A bad joke

    Funny how I never got asked about these “surveys” while I was on active duty. I mean, 5 years, plenty of time right? Line Infantry unit, they might want to have asked us.

    How do I feel? I showered with people I knew for a fact were gay. Its called being grown.

    • Hadrian999

      when i was in iraq in the infantry we were happy just to get a shower

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    “If another dude's penis was totally, like, all up in your face and shit, would you:

    A: Ignore it like a fag.
    B: Suck it like a fag.
    C: Quit like a fag.
    D: Complain like a fag.
    E: Kill fags like a closet fag.”

    I love that the Pentagon imagines that some pathetic study will allow them to hold off the tide of people realizing that gay or not gay shouldn't mean jack. Aside from Uganda and a few other antiquated dirtholes run by fundamentalist cavemen, the rest of the world has figured out that outside of a bedroom gay counts for nothing, means nothing, and isn't a reason to freak out.

    Anyone who spends their days and nights worrying over whether 'the gay guy' will somehow transform them into a panting man-bitch…is a panting man-bitch.

    • Hadrian999

      you should have seen the half ass psych surveys we had to take after deployment,
      there was always an obvious correct answer and every “wrong” answer was punished.
      the culture of the military is sadly one of CYA and cut loose anyone that has a problem.

      • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

        Trust…I understand. My brother got bit in the ass by a squabble with someone else in his unit…not over the gay issue, but over an injury to his 1 year old daughter after being babysat by the guy and his wife. (Specifically, our dad 'the Colonel' showing up to pick her up and finding a huge red hand print on her face.)

        The brass wanted the whole issue buried and pressed my bro to drop the whole thing and ignore it for the sake of unit cohesion. My bro pressed civilian charges anyway, and got blacklisted, had his weapon taken away and got characterized as a potential loose cannon. The painful truth is that he disobeyed an illegal 'request'/'order' to drop a civilian issue.

        I'm not mellow like he is. Every asshat involved in railroading him deserves to be hunted down and curb stomped to death after suitable begging and screaming time has been allowed…especially the douchebag that somehow imagined slapping a one year old hard enough to leave a lasting palm print on her face is somehow explainable as a sane act. (On the bright side, because of our dads connections and personal history in service, the other guys career was ruined. Even if he stays in 50 years, he'll never make it past Toilet Scrubber Second Class.)

        Your words ring especially true, cause we've seen that attitude in action up close and personal.

        • Hadrian999

          things like that are a major part of why i left the service, too much back room good ol boy garbage.
          one guy can be a total screw up and get away with it if he has the right friends another guy can mess up on little thing but without the right connections he gets crucified.

  • justagirl

    if he's extremely hairy, ask him if you can use him as a loofah. (feels so good).

  • lovesausage

    I think all soldiers and cops are gay, not that there is anything wrong with that. They just need to admit it to each other and let the love in.

    • Hadrian999

      when i was in the service there was one guy i knew was gay.
      when I “caught” him he was terrified, didn't matter to me and i didn't tell anyone
      but seeing someone so terrified about being who they was an eye opener.
      are we such a monstrous people that people have to live in such fear, it's a sad state of affairs.

  • perniciousknid

    Why don't they ask the troops how gross it would be to shower with a neo-nazi? There's more than a few of them in the military and I don't think they get screened out the same way. If at all.

    • oman28

      Unless you assume like I do that all neo nazis are gay ?

      • Brooklynbound

        Please…if most of you had been in the military you'd know these types of surveys are reviewed by a dozen people in the chain of command and then put through the bureaucratic meat grinder until it comes out the obvious sausage. There was no intent – good or bad – in this survey. It's just an example of SNAFU.

  • Gregory

    This brings to light a big problem with raising homosexuality to the status of another gender classification. Let me splain. If I'm a straight guy, which I am…but I could be a bit more butch, I mean I do use my wife's hair conditioner sometimes and I eat with napkins…but if I'm a straight guy then what the hell am I doing sharing a restroom or a shower, etc with a gay man? I mean…okay, you're a homosexual, fine. But if I'm pummeling the porcelain I don't want to worry about the guy in the urinal next to me checking out my vuvuzela. The unlogic of allowing homosexuals to use restrooms and showers, etc with people of the same gender is staggering. Why don't we just put question marks over all the restroom signs and just let men and women use the same facilities? Because women don't want men in their restrooms and men want women in their restrooms but can't because of women's suffrage. But a woman in a man's restroom = a gay man in a man's restroom.

    This makes perfect sense…but unfortunately homosexuals and other alternate genders have a kneejerk reaction to any thing that even smells like discrimination. Well, look…discrimination is not an ugly word. I discriminated this morning by choosing oatmeal over Pop Tarts(tm). We discriminate every second of the day we're conscious and if you're into lucid dreaming…you can be at it 24/7.

    If the GLBT demographic wants the world to take them seriously…then they should have their own Gay and Lesbian and Bi-Sexual and Transgender restrooms along with the Straight restrooms.

    The argument ends here…right?

    fiat lux

  • styng

    Isn’t this similar to asking women if it would be okay for the guys to shower with them?

  • styng

    Isn't this similar to asking women if it would be okay for the guys to shower with them?

  • Guest

    so then it should be perfectly ok for the straight men to shower with the women? I can contain my lust, fantasies ect etc.

  • Guest

    so then it should be perfectly ok for the straight men to shower with the women? I can contain my lust, fantasies ect etc.

  • allubarbosa

    If you were to say something like, “Do blacks are” more tolerant of advice and training “white middle class people

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  • Anonymous

    If you were to say something like, “Do blacks are” more tolerant of advice and training “white middle class people