What the hell is it with today’s young men? If you’re in the Air Force you’re supposed to be an Officer and a Gentleman, not a rapist! The real number is probably higher than that since alot of sex crimes go unreported.
It’ll be interesting to see the results of the surveys at Army and Navy. Personally, I think it’s got to be a cultural oddity of the Air Force and not endemic to any specific academy. I’d like to hope so anyway.
And don’t be too quick to blame just the men. At USMA, the only people who are allowed behind a closed door in the barracks with women are other women, after all. I can offer one story of a Navy middie spending a semester with our comapny. She told me all about her one roommate at Annapolis who was all about “go straight when we graduate” (her words). Nothing ever happened, but it’s not too hard to imagine a percentage point or two falling that way.
Not to downplay this, but the definition of assault in the survey included unwanted touching. I’m assuming that could be a slap on the butt or someone who’s just a bit touchy-feely and rubs a woman’s shoulders, gives an unwanted hug, etc.
The survey also said that 11 percent of senior female cadets and 3 percent of freshman female cadets reported having been the victim of rape or attempted rape since enrolling at the academy.
I was just flipping through channels and saw Three’s Company.
Two chicks talking:
Chick A: “When will men realize that No means No!”
Chick B: “That’s right… except when it means maybe.”
giggle
And people wonder where the miscommunication occurs.
An interesting conclusion to be drawn from a crappy sitcom probably written by a white male. Sheesh.
The survey also said that 11 percent of senior female cadets and 3 percent of freshman female cadets reported having been the victim of rape or attempted rape since enrolling at the academy.
This is bad. Very bad.
It appears we’d all be safer if the Air Force was replaced with killer robots :(
What’s wrong with the culture at the Air Force?
Also, these people are 18 BEFORE they get to the Academy… that was plenty old enough for most of us to learn not to be criminals.
EDIT: How much negative impact can a malignant Air Force culture have on these people, they’re legally adults before they get to this place!
Man, I suck at trolling.
For what it’s worth, polls of civilian women tend to show rather high numbers on this too.
I just realized that Koontz hasn’t shown up, after all, last time he talked about rape, it was absolutely batshit loony stuff. I’m sure he could roll together rape aka “involuntary injecting of inpregnable women with sperm” and military culture to an absolutely kooky theory.
What does this mean Mathew? Were they really gay women who were going to wait unti they graduated to stop having homosexual relations? And how would this result in a change of percentage point or two? I guess you’re talking about a GPA here? I am so surprised homosexual relations is part of any curriculum, much less in the military. :)
I only ask becasue I was able to (sort of) comprehend the ducks, but this is throwing me.
LUG - lesbian until graduation - is a phenomenon that’s been around for a while.
I could say a few choice words about male culture in general and military culture in particular, but I seem to have lost my ability to write anything longer than short forum posts :(
Do you have Kalle envy?
Do you have Kalle envy?[/quote]
I have 20 pages of subversive feminist propaganda to write before Sunday evening, and do I have any inspiration? Not really. Bah!
Do you have Kalle envy?[/quote]
Doesn’t everyone. :D
I don’t think it’s a generation specific problem; I’d be willing to wager that a coed military academy 25 or 50 years ago, if such a thing could have even existed, would have been at least as unpleasant.
[quote=“Lizard_King”]
I don’t think it’s a generation specific problem; I’d be willing to wager that a coed military academy 25 or 50 years ago, if such a thing could have even existed, would have been at least as unpleasant.[/quote]
I’m not so sure about that. I’m not sure what would have happened 25 to 50 years ago, but I do think today’s society is treating this differently than it would have been handled 25-50 years ago. I think you have two competing trends.
First, a sense of personal honor is something that is sorely lacking in today’s society. I teach at a university with an honor code, and sadly, many of today’s youth couldn’t care less about being honorable. An honor code at a non-military academy just doesn’t work very well anymore in my opinion. Now it’s possible that it never worked, but I really do believe that virtues have changed and that unfortunately honor, honesty, duty, and chivalry are not valued as much as they were. I would hope that those virtues are still valued at the military academies, but perhaps not.
The second trend though is greater acceptance of women in what was formerly a man’s world. From what I’ve read about the subject (which is admittedly not that much) women are now largely accepted at Annapolis and West Point. Meanwhile the Air Force Academy has goons (including instructors) running around with baseball caps with the acronyms AFABB (or something like that) which apparently stands for “Air Force Academy before there were Bitches”. Boy that’s enlightened. Some people are trying to make the academy as hostile as possible for women. The weird part is that I would have thought that women would have done the best and been accepted the most at the AFA. Physical strength is important in many Army positions, but I would have thought that it was much less relevant in the Air Force.
I’m assuming sooner or later these problems will go away. Consider for example how hard women had to fight for the right to vote. Nowadays, however, it’s impossible to imagine women not being able to vote – just thinking about it boggles the mind – of course women should be able to vote.
I don’t know what to think about all this. Let me just throw out a hypothetical.
Two undergrads talk. The male says, “I want to see the Friday night movie at the Student Union. Are you going?”
Female says,“That sounds like fun.”
Male: “Want to go with me?”
Female: “Sure.”
They go to the movie, have a good time, and afterwards the male embraces the female and kisses her, and doesn’t break off the kiss. The female, perhaps surprised a bit, is passive. The male then gropes her and squeezes her breast. The female has done nothing to encourage this besides being passive.
Is this an assault?
Lets say the female likes the male but doesn’t like being groped at this point. Lets say she doesn’t know what to do, so does nothing, and after a few moments the male begins to undo her pants. She hasn’t agreed to this. Is this attempt at sex an attempted rape?