The gay lifestyle is an unhealthy one. Does that affect military service?

A question that no one is asking, but someone should, is whether the peculiar excesses of the gay lifestyle affect the military’s readiness to serve.

Gay Lifestyle Gays in the Military[Content warning: Of necessity, this post talks about sex, especially gay sex. Some of it is graphic, some not.]

It seems, lately, as if the only news that the media sees fit to print has to do with people on the alt-sexuality spectrum. The latest outrage amongst Progressives is Trump order barring transgenders from serving in the military. This outrage, of course, is a bait-and-switch. You see, to this day, transgender troops are officially barred from the military.

Throughout the entirety of Obama’s presidency, transgender troops were officially barred. Then, in July 2016, Obama signed an order changing the policy. But he didn’t change it instantly. Instead, he ordered that the change be implemented one year from his order, so that it would happen on his successor’s watch. In other words, all the screaming and shouting and anger is because Trump has announced he’s going to retain the Obama era status quo. See? Bait-and-switch.

Obama’s transgender decision followed on the heels of his overnight conversion, once elected, to the belief that gay people ought to be able to serve openly in the military. I was opposed to allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

Despite my opposition, I don’t think I’m a homophobe. Instead, I believe that openly gay relationships, especially in frontline service, are dangerous for unit cohesion. I’m blindingly aware of the fact that the military exists to take young people who are physically and mentally fit and then to prepare them to fight. If two men in a combat unit are in an open relationship, that puts at issue the question of whether their loyalty is to each other or their unit.

Incidentally, I don’t believe women and men should be serving together when that service involves close quarters. Someone once described Navy ships as floating brothels. I know that’s an exaggeration, but the fact is that sexual relationships on ships are a huge problem:

Unintended pregnancy is a significant problem across the general population, but the Navy’s rate is higher.

In 2006, about 49 percent of all pregnancies in the United States were classified as unplanned, according to 2011 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Up to 65 percent of pregnancies in the military are self-reported as unplanned, according to a December report by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Committee on Health Care for Underserved Women.

Nearly three-fourths of all Navy pregnancies were unplanned, according to a recent parenthood survey conducted by the service. Of those, only 31 percent of the couples were using birth control at the time they conceived. With pregnancies involving enlisted servicewomen, 70 percent of the fathers were also in the military.

Youth, proximity, and stress = bad sexual decisions. And when life and death are at stake, the last thing you need is the volatility of sexual relationships, especially foolish ones.

My other problem is that the gay lifestyle is an unhealthy one. It’s a different kind of unhealthy from that associated with transgenderism. The latter sees extraordinarily high suicide rates, staggeringly expensive surgical procedures, and a lifetime commitment to dangerous hormonal medications. Take away the magic word “transgender,” and no person with these physical requirements would ever be a candidate for service in the military. An actively lived homosexual lifestyle has a different kind of unhealthiness, one that may also be antithetical to creating a tip-top fighting machine.

Since Obama’s executive order about openly gay service, both the military and the media have been mum about whether that policy has affected the military and, if so, what the effect is. One of the things that I’ve especially wondered is whether the excess that typically characterizes gay men’s sex has made an appearance in the military.

I’ve known for a long time about the multiplicity of partners gay men have. Back in 1981, I worked for two virologists who were on the frontline of research into the constellation of diseases that eventually coalesced into the single diagnosis of AIDS. When gay men started showing up with and dying from bizarre infections and cancers, their sexual habits inevitably came to the fore. That’s when I learned about nights of unbridled licentiousness, with men having dozens of anonymous partners in orgies — nights of excess made possible by drug use.

When AIDS went public, everyone eventually became aware of those orgies, especially because of their association with gay bathhouses. In San Francisco alone during the 1970s, there were 30 gay bathhouses. When San Francisco and Los Angeles attempted to close the bathhouses, legal battles raged about whether they could do so. The lower courts ruled in favor of leaving the bathhouses open; the California Supreme Court said the cities had the right to close them. By the time the Supreme Court ruled in 1988, though, the bathhouses had mostly folded as the first generation of AIDS sufferers and those fearing AIDS shunned them.

While the bathhouses may have closed, the orgies continued in homes and clubs. A new generation of gay men, who hadn’t been around to see the first appalling die-off of a generation of gay men (a time I remember vividly and with great sadness), decided to resume the excessive sexual activity that characterizes gay sex. And with new meds suppressing the AIDS virus, unprotected sex became a new thrill.

It’s different for men when women are involved. The reality is that women temper men’s sexuality. Sure, there are porn stars and other women who have sex “just like men,” and there’s the abysmal, depressing, misogynistic campus hook-up culture, but for the most part, men who want consensual sex with women have to slow down.

Women don’t want anonymous sex; they want a relationship. And as part of that relationship, and in response to their differing biology, women want foreplay, not just in bed, but starting long before then, with glances over dinner and linked hands when walking home. When the sex finally does begin, for women the connection is as important as the orgasm. If you rush the connection, you’ve got an unhappy woman.

Women are also more fastidious than men. Their senses of smell and touch are greater and their tolerance for bad smells and rough touches is correspondingly lower. While men may not mind a slimy build-up of myriad people’s bodily fluids, most women find that off-putting. After all, it’s the women, not the men, who complain about “wet spots” in the bed.

Women’s body rhythms also slow sex down. In a monogamous relationship, as women’s monthly cycles play themselves out, there will be times when women are not feeling sexy and also times when neither the woman or her partner will want to have sex.

Women also suffer more from garden-variety sexually transmitted diseases. It’s women who can become infertile because of chlamydia and gonorrhea. They’re also at risk of uterine cancer through genital warts. And of course, they can pass their STDs to any babies they have. These risks are in addition to all of the other grotesqueries, dangers, and inconveniences of SDTs. Given these high risk levels, it’s in women’s interest to promote monogamy for themselves and their partner.

The last difference between heterosexual sex and male homosexual sex is that the latter is physically brutal. Mother Nature set up a good system. When a young woman is properly wooed, her body becomes an inviting receptacle for a man. The parts fit together perfectly and nature provides the lubricant that paves the way.

Gay sex doesn’t have natural systems to make things work. Rather than plugging into a welcoming environment that is the genesis of human rebirth, gay men plug into the human body’s sewer pipe. (Heterosexuals do too, but it’s not their only option.) This is not meant to be a slam at anal sex, which is (a) hip now, especially for your teenage children; and (b) something consenting adults are free to do if they want it and it gives pleasure. Instead, it’s a slam on anal sex as practiced by significant numbers of gay men.

One gets an insight into the peculiarities of gay male sex by reading “Surviving Gay . . . Barely,” written by Joseph Sciambra, a born-again Catholic who gave up the gay lifestyle he practiced during the late 1980s and 1990s when it destroyed his body and disgusted his soul. In addition to writing about the obsessive sexual contacts in anonymous venues, Sciambra describes the way his body rebelled against the realities of anal sex (warning: graphic, indeed stomach-churning, physical descriptions ahead):

In gay porn, the denouement is always the anal sex act. As an inexperienced eighteen year old, I found the aspirations of gay men to be strikingly similar. For an encounter that did not at least include the possibility of anal intercourse seemed incidental and quick. Anal sex lent male homosexuality a certain amount of intimacy.

[snip]

The level of intimacy was intense or coldly distant depending upon position and eye-contact. I buried my face in a blanket and then dared to look into the face of the man on top of me. There was nothing reciprocal here. Fundamentally, it was a caricature of the marital act. But I wasn’t a woman, and I didn’t have a vagina. Nothing about my physiognomy could accommodate a penis; there was no natural lubrication and it hurt until I couldn’t feel anything. At times, the experience was stinging and fecal. In our wish to find a route into manhood, we become entrapped in a cruel return to the infantine and to the diaper.

[snip]

One day, I was overly zealous in my cleansing procedures and burned myself with the saline solutions. Friends recommended various home-brew enemas using water and baking soda. Another swore by water and aloe-vera; and the strangest recipe being water and instant coffee. A slightly older confidant who I implicitly trusted took me aside and we had a rather peculiar inversion of the father-son talk. He recommended a good proctologist and described his own trials with ineffective remedies such as various salves; he described in detail the pain he underwent from Vaseline applied to anal fissures.

Even just a once weekly regiment of laxatives and enemas dried out the already thin layer of skin that made up the lower colon. One after another, I caught a series of sexually-transmitted diseases: rectal gonorrhea and then rectal chlamydia. I broke out in a rash. Which, at first, barely alarmed me as sometimes the lubricants I used didn’t react well with my sensitive skin. Topical over-the-counter ointments proved useless and the painful blisters and sores appeared to be moving inside. For awhile, I continued to have anal sex. No one seemed to notice my slightly pock-marked behind within the darkened corridors of the San Francisco sex clubs. Only, the pain became intolerable and I visited a local clinic. I was put on a regiment of strong antibiotics.

[snip]

After years of intermediate bottoming, I was plagued with bleeding and protruding hemorrhoids. I attempted to treat them with store-bought medications and suppositories. One day, I was to meet some friends for dinner, when, unbeknownst to me, a huge growing oily stain developed on the seat of my pants. Everyone knew what was going on and said nothing, yet it was humiliating.

[snip]

For instance, smell was always a problem during anal sex, and someone suggested a product like “Spring Rain” from Summer’s Eve. It worked for awhile, and then the pain became excruciating. The PH-balance of my rectum was like the green water of an abandoned mosquito infested algae filled swimming pool in Arizona. A related constant preoccupation was the possibility of a so called “accident” during sex. I heard stories retold, invariably delivered in a semi-comical manner, about a lazy bottom who didn’t take the necessary precautions. Years later, when I was having condomless sex with a boyfriend, I unexpectedly noticed a terrible burning sensation. I withdrew my penis and discovered that it was covered in fecal matter.

[snip]

Repeatedly, I became plagued with a series of anal yeast infections. I always hoped it was something else. Only, to seek medical help once it was almost too late. The pain was unbearable. The relentless itching and scratching made the skin red and enflamed. There was a constant burning secretion that dripped out from my body and further irritated the surrounding tissue. Oftentimes, while the antibiotics had time to work, I wore female maxi-pads on the inside back of my underwear. At first I was ashamed until a friend told me about his lover, a man who I thought the near epitome of brutish manliness. Although currently an exclusive top, as a serious bodybuilder, he had to wear adult diapers to the gym because the exertion caused him to spontaneously defecate.

There’s more, because Sciambra has an enormous amount to say about the incredible physical toll that gay sex takes on the body. I think his post is well worth reading, because it will round out readers’ understanding about a hidden sidelight of an important public debate. Naysayers will point to the fact that he’s just a self-loathing homosexual and should be disregarded. That’s as may be but the important point is that this argument doesn’t challenge the accuracy of Sciambra descriptions of gay sex.

Gay sex is physically destructive. While a horny heterosexual man in the military may be a walking collection of STDs thanks to his contact with the prostitutes who cluster around the military (as they have done since time immemorial), his bodily integrity will remain intact. He won’t have fecal incontinence, rectal bleeding, prolapsed rectums, mountainous hemorrhoids, etc. And given that his job is to fight, that bodily integrity is good enough for the military.

Do all gay men behave as Sciambra did during the height of his gay lifestyle? Of course not. But the reality is a that a statistically significant portion of men without women can and do have innumerable sexual contacts with equally innumerable men, many of whom are strangers, and this is true even in stable gay partnerships. I can’t tell you how many gay men I’ve known over the years who had a stable emotional relationship that still saw both men engaging in orgies. Large numbers of men are not sexually monogamous, even if they find comfort in the emotional intimacy of one special person.

All of the above explains my ambivalence about gays, something that shows up in my posts. I’ve known and been friends with many wonderful gay men over the years. I don’t care about their sexual orientation. I greatly appreciate it when they’re politically conservative, especially because it takes so much courage to be so. If gay men embrace my values, yay! And it’s even better if they embrace traditional middle class monogamy — even if that monogamy takes place in the context of serial monogamous relationships, kind of like women and dating.

My problems begin with things such as the gay push to pretend that their sexual practices are functionally the same as heterosexual practices, which they’re not. And with the gay push to claim that gay marriage is precisely like straight marriage, which it’s not. And with the gay push to claim that there’s no difference for a child being raised in a heterosexual or a homosexual home, which is untrue. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t fantastic gay parents, or that all heterosexual parents are good (they’re not). But it’s stupid and dishonest to claim that gay parenting, good or bad, is the same as straight parenting, good or bad, and then to refuse to engage in data-driven studies about the differences in such parenting, good or bad.

And finally, given the realities of gay sexuality, I have a problem with using our military as a social justice experiment. I’m glad that Trump ended the transgender experiment before it started and I’d certainly like to know if open LGBT service has had an effect on our military and, if so, what that effect has been.