The American media really hates video games huh

[Use_Imagination_here]

But a whole third? Really?
Or does the army not believe in birth control?

Well it doesn't hand out birth control in war zones, no. You can't tell soldiers they will receive administrative punishment for violating regulations and then promptly hand them birth control, it sends a really mixed message. Some soldiers bring their own birth control, but when you're gone for a year at a time you tend to run out. Lots of soldiers just play the odds and lose.

As for losing a third of your unit strength, that is exactly what happened to my team. Our teams were six people. Two operators, two LOS radio people, a cable dog and an NCO. Within six months of our second deployment, we lost an operator and a radio person to pregnancy. They also pulled our cable dog and assigned him to another team that had lost two to pregnancy and one to enemy action. We spent nearly our whole deployment in Afghanistan at half strength and then 2/3rds for our whole time in Iraq.

This is just anecdotal stuff of course, but it wasn't exactly rare in mixed units, especially those where a lot of the MOS' take nearly a year to complete just the AIT portion of training.

Just give the soldiers birth control. A mixed signal could hardly be described as anywhere near the magnitude of a problem like losing a good percentage of your troops to pregnancy.

There's people out there who are dying because of this and they're worried about sending a mixed signal? Isn't NOT losing
your troopers infinitely more important than not losing face for sending a mixed message over banning something that the soldiers are doing anyway?.

There isn't a force on the planet that can stop a bunch of young people stashed together with little to do and immense stress from fucking. Do you know how many condoms are used in the Olympics? A good deal over one hundred fucking thousand. It's not just about pressure. It's about evolution. In those exact circumstances, where these people are constantly under fire, every instinct is telling them to reproduce. Because they might die soon, and this might be the only chance. They're basically asking the soldiers to constantly repress extremely powerful instincts, while under immense pressure and fear and expecting it to work.

Except they aren't expecting it to work, because it isn't, so why are they doing it? Why continue punishing these relationships and not giving access to birth control when all it cause is problems?

 

[Gorrath]

Just give the soldiers birth control. A mixed signal could hardly be described as anywhere near the magnitude of a problem like losing a good percentage of your troops to pregnancy.

There's people out there who are dying because of this and they're worried about sending a mixed signal? Isn't NOT losing
your troopers infinitely more important than not losing face for sending a mixed message over banning something that the soldiers are doing anyway?.

There isn't a force on the planet that can stop a bunch of young people stashed together with little to do and immense stress from fucking. Do you know how many condoms are used in the Olympics? A good deal over one hundred fucking thousand. It's not just about pressure. It's about evolution. In those exact circumstances, where these people are constantly under fire, every instinct is telling them to reproduce. Because they might die soon, and this might be the only chance. They're basically asking the soldiers to constantly repress extremely powerful instincts, while under immense pressure and fear and expecting it to work.

Except they aren't expecting it to work, because it isn't, so why are they doing it? Why continue punishing these relationships and not giving access to birth control when all it cause is problems?

I agree with you about the force of sexual desire being something that the Army can't control no matter what the rules are and I will always argue on the side of making policy descisions based on an understanding of bilogy and the nature of people instead of trying to force them to act in ways that they aren't biologically programmed to. But I do not think the military is going to budge on the birth control issue, first and foremost because even if you do use birth control there's no guarantee you won't get pregnant anyway.

I know what many leaders in the army would like to do is prevent further male/female integration in units, especially combat ones, precisely because of this issue. Despite the problems caused by said integration, it seems progressives see the issue as being no different from that of integration in civilian life and they don't seem to want to acknowledge that there are greater issues at stake in this debate. I am sympathetic to their position, as I am an egalitarian (or feminist, depending on which version of feminist ideals we are using), but we can't simply ignore very valid problems associated with integration.

Pregnancy issues aren't the only reasons why they ban sexual relationships either. They also do it because it can disrupt unit cohesion when two soldiers are romantic with one another. Issues of jealousy, shifting romantic or sexual interest to new partners, STD transmission, leaders fraternizing with their subordinates, and mental stress and anguish involved in seeing a romantic interest killed or maimed all factor into the Army's reasoning behind this rule. All of these issues are why many make the case that the best way to help the problem is to simply not have integration at all in mission essential units. But while that might be effective, it absolutely will limit the career paths of female soldiers, denying them access to both training and leadership roles necessary to achieve promotion. It is a difficult state of affairs with no easy answers.

 

[Gorrath]

Thats interesting, you rarely hear of that view point. It makes a lot of sense too with women trying to protect their jobs and such (I assume it is usually women claimed rape but I could be wrong).

I don't have statistics for the rate of females vs males who make false claims of sexual assault in order to cover up romantic relationships, so I can't weigh in on that. What I can say is that it isn't always females that do this. I have heard of homosexual soldiers making similar claims about the nature of their relationship with another male soldier when the relationship came to light. It is doubly damning for them because, until recently, there existed the don't ask don't tell policy. Once they found out that you were not only in a romantic relationship, but that you were also homosexual, it could become very appealing to claim that there is no romantic relationship and that it was simply sexual assault or rape.

 

[aba1]

Thats interesting, you rarely hear of that view point. It makes a lot of sense too with women trying to protect their jobs and such (I assume it is usually women claimed rape but I could be wrong).

I don't have statistics for the rate of females vs males who make false claims of sexual assault in order to cover up romantic relationships, so I can't weigh in on that. What I can say is that it isn't always females that do this. I have heard of homosexual soldiers making similar claims about the nature of their relationship with another male soldier when the relationship came to light. It is doubly damning for them because, until recently, there existed the don't ask don't tell policy. Once they found out that you were not only in a romantic relationship, but that you were also homosexual, it could become very appealing to claim that there is no romantic relationship and that it was simply sexual assault or rape.

Obviously you can't say only women do it I just know statistically women are significantly more likely too since very few men admit to being raped to begin with let alone pressing charges. Either way it is interesting considering it from this point of view and I have to imagine it would be very very tricky grounds with homosexuals which is another great point worth thinking about that isn't really thought about.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Just give the soldiers birth control. A mixed signal could hardly be described as anywhere near the magnitude of a problem like losing a good percentage of your troops to pregnancy.

There's people out there who are dying because of this and they're worried about sending a mixed signal? Isn't NOT losing
your troopers infinitely more important than not losing face for sending a mixed message over banning something that the soldiers are doing anyway?.

There isn't a force on the planet that can stop a bunch of young people stashed together with little to do and immense stress from fucking. Do you know how many condoms are used in the Olympics? A good deal over one hundred fucking thousand. It's not just about pressure. It's about evolution. In those exact circumstances, where these people are constantly under fire, every instinct is telling them to reproduce. Because they might die soon, and this might be the only chance. They're basically asking the soldiers to constantly repress extremely powerful instincts, while under immense pressure and fear and expecting it to work.

Except they aren't expecting it to work, because it isn't, so why are they doing it? Why continue punishing these relationships and not giving access to birth control when all it cause is problems?

I agree with you about the force of sexual desire being something that the Army can't control no matter what the rules are and I will always argue on the side of making policy descisions based on an understanding of bilogy and the nature of people instead of trying to force them to act in ways that they aren't biologically programmed to. But I do not think the military is going to budge on the birth control issue, first and foremost because even if you do use birth control there's no guarantee you won't get pregnant anyway.

I know what many leaders in the army would like to do is prevent further male/female integration in units, especially combat ones, precisely because of this issue. Despite the problems caused by said integration, it seems progressives see the issue as being no different from that of integration in civilian life and they don't seem to want to acknowledge that there are greater issues at stake in this debate. I am sympathetic to their position, as I am an egalitarian (or feminist, depending on which version of feminist ideals we are using), but we can't simply ignore very valid problems associated with integration.

Pregnancy issues aren't the only reasons why they ban sexual relationships either. They also do it because it can disrupt unit cohesion when two soldiers are romantic with one another. Issues of jealousy, shifting romantic or sexual interest to new partners, STD transmission, leaders fraternizing with their subordinates, and mental stress and anguish involved in seeing a romantic interest killed or maimed all factor into the Army's reasoning behind this rule. All of these issues are why many make the case that the best way to help the problem is to simply not have integration at all in mission essential units. But while that might be effective, it absolutely will limit the career paths of female soldiers, denying them access to both training and leadership roles necessary to achieve promotion. It is a difficult state of affairs with no easy answers.

I'm not saying allow relationships. Just birth control. "It may not work" is a horrible, irrational reason. Yeah it will facilitate relationships and send a mixed message but if it saves people from being shipped back home after all that time and money on training it's worth it.

And yeah that does sound like a hard problem. Maybe the military should start working on something that will suppress people's sexual urges temporarily without being harmful.

Aaaand we've managed to derail the thread.

 

[Gorrath]

I'm not saying allow relationships. Just birth control. "It may not work" is a horrible, irrational reason. Yeah it will facilitate relationships and send a mixed message but if it saves people from being shipped back home after all that time and money on training it's worth it.

And yeah that does sound like a hard problem. Maybe the military should start working on something that will suppress people's sexual urges temporarily without being harmful.

Aaaand we've managed to derail the thread.

Well, I admit I've been off topic since the word go on this one. There seemed to be a good discussion to be had about this particular topic even though it does not relate to the points in the original thread. I'd have to go back and re-read things to even figure out how I ended up discussing this, which is probably a bad sign. I should have probably started a new thread to discuss this issue instead of muddying things up here. Still, your viewpoints and those of other people who have responded to me have been valuable and appreciated.

 

[OneCatch]

Moral crusaders of all countries hate vidya games. The actual reason for the (unexistent) rise of crime, violence and melting of the Arctic is: video games, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, "we've moved away from god" and "the government is behind it all", usually coupled with aliens.

I wouldn't say 'all' countries. It's mainly you guys and then a couple of trashy British papers. I don't think they're having this debate in France or Germany or Sweden or wherever. I could be wrong, though.
Try saying something bad happened because 'we moved away from God' in Britain though and you'll get laughed out of the building...

Oh, Germany has the violent video game debate in spades. They ban stuff all the time for excessive violence, literally since Doom. Not sure about elsewhere though.

 

[Dryk]

Wait wait wait... so the media is claiming that a game in which you pretend to be a soldier, drove real soldiers to commit crimes? WHAT?