Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
In a 2017 report that went widely unnoticed, a female captain in the Australian Army recommended a novel solution to combat stress: sex. More specifically, she wondered whether making sexual options, potentially including prostitution, available to soldiers in combat would help troops deal with downrange stress. You can read the report yourself here.
My understanding is that the original source of the article was in the Australian Army's official blog, but was pulled after it became, for reasons that are clear if you read the piece, extremely controversial.
Here's the thing: the author is not wrong. Well, not entirely, anyway.
As the article states, science shows that "sex helps satisfy personal, social and physical needs, reduces stress and is inextricably linked to physical and mental wellbeing." The thing is, the military brass doesn't see it that way.
Capitalism, is there anything it can't solve?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 05 2018, @03:46PM (2 children)
First, she doesn't tell the Army to run a brothel. What she DOES, is to point out that abstinence may contribute to psychological problems associated with combat.
She goes on to point out that the FFL runs brothels in combat zones. She also goes on to suggest that there might be other ways to alleviate soldier's sexual stress. Of course, there aren't a whole LOT of ways to release stress. A hetero male wants a female partner, a hetero female wants a male partner, bisexuals and gays generally want another living breathing partner.
I see nothing shocking or terribly controversial here. I mean, she didn't suggest that the army keeps a pen of children for pedos, or that it maintain a Bondage and Discipline pen. There is some room for debate whether the FFL is "traffikiing", but really, the same stuff goes on with civilian "entrepreneurs" - or "pimps". At least the Legion provides healthcare for the women who agree to the contracts they offer.
People are people. We all like to get laid now and then, and contracted prostitutes who are well cared for is a helluva lot better than some alternatives.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:16PM
Insert altar boy joke, or insight
Insert Army Cav joke, or insight
Although 90% kidding around there is about 10% truth to both insights such that you're gonna have whores sign up claiming they had no idea what they'd be doing even though everyone knew the rumors leading to big time lawsuit payouts and psych counseling decades later. And the second insight that there's already tons of army sex stereotypes / funny memes and having whores is just going to make things worse. Cav is the home of the Army's recreational Gay Chicken leagues, or at least it was, and likewise "everyone knows" that everyone at DLI and intel, especially the AIT schools, has an anime body pillow on their bunk back at the barracks. God only knows what kind of delicious memes are going to come from the implementation of military pleasure battalions, but I know they're gonna be great memes, thats for sure.
To some extent its funnier to speculate on the non-obvious side effects than to discuss the Military getting directly involved in the worlds oldest profession. Speaking of "the worlds oldest profession" I got a lot of laughs IRL at a financial services company by telling them I thought COBOL programmer was the worlds oldest profession. I was worried I'd kill one of the graybeards with that line because they were laughing so hard. Attitudes were different decades ago, one large difference is we'd probably be making fun of Java which is todays modern COBOL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @08:43PM
"This is a job for Jeff Gannon!"