From the Department of Sheer Stupidity:

I made the mistake of listening to NPR again this morning. The reporting was full of "rape" tales of what went on between the army officers and the women soldiers who say they were "raped" at Aberdeen Proving Ground. I can only use quotes around the word "rape," because what the news reports were telling me is that what happened was actually consensual sex, but the definition of "rape" is in the process of being shifted so that "rape" now includes consensual sex--if it is politicized because the man was a superior and the woman in an inferior position, of say, drill sargeant and soldier.

Simpson, the drill sargeant in question, could get life in prison for a single "rape" conviction.

What happened, apparently, was intimidation and the women giving in to intimidation, having sex with the sargeant, and then later claiming it was "rape." The reports indicate that the women felt there was absolutely nothing they could do except to give in to the sargeant's demand for sex.

Hellfire, this blackmailing/intimidation thing is as old as the hills. What's different now is that the current generation of women don't seem to have the backbone or self-respect necessary to say NO and mean it. Their fate, it seems to me, unless they can find the backbone or character, is to fall over backwards and spread for every Tom, Dick and Harry who intimidates them. Now this indeed is a fate worse than death ....

This is feminism's fatal flaw, as it is currently defined. Instead of fostering strong, proud, intelligent women, it has fostered a generation of lily-livered, weak and stupid women whose only recourse to the vissicitudes of life is to claim victimhood--and of course, they have to give in to the vissicitudes (rape, getting beat up, intimidation, whatever) before they can claim that victimhood as their crown of glory.

Is it fair that the drill sargeant used coercion or threats? Hell no. But coersion and threatening behavior is a fact of life, it is reality, and it cannot be ignored to suit political correctness. We can pretend that it does not exist or insist that it shouldn't exist, but it will always exist. What is a woman's best bet? To have some strategies at hand so when she is coerced or intimidated she can deal straightforwardly with the problem at hand and not end up a victim? Or to simply wimp out and give in and whine about it later?

In reality, part of the human sexual dance is coersion and persuasion -- even the most wonderful gentle forms of giving flowers, writing love poems, etc. is persuasion, if not precisely coersion. What man and what woman hasn't used any number of techniques to either get what they want or get out of what they don't want? To pretend, for the sake of political correctness, that this is not so, that our sexuality is a totally rational, aboveboard process is sheer stupidity.

None of these women said NO to the sargeant's intimidation and none of the women even reported him. All of them just gave in, accepting the sex, if not desiring it. Essentially, they gave this sargeant all the power he needed to do whatever he wanted. Lest this seem a blanket approval of "boys will be boys" allow me to say that any boy trying to be a boy around a girl that don't want him too should get a boot in his balls as a reminder why he shouldn't, and a baseball bat up his butt should he succeed. This is not to excuse males, but bending over backwards to excuse females for their part in this game makes not one whit of sense either.

In an AP report about this case, the women involved have said the following:

"I didn't feel I had a choice." Another said Simpson (the drill sargeant) was too well-liked: "People looked on him like a demigod, I saw the evil ... He is a devil with angel wings." Another: "I felt like I was a puppet and I had strings attached to me in a marionette way telling me what I should do."(This last from a woman who stayed overnight at Simpson's apartment twice.)

Don't know about you, but I don't feel very confident in our Army with soldiers like these women. This whole story shows a damn good reason why women shouldn't be in the Armed Forces, at least not as soldiers. I have no doubt that women can be good fighters when the need arises. That has been proven time and again down through history. But this mixing of the sexes in the Armed Forces, from the stories I've been hearing, seems to lead only to pregnancy and "sexual harassament" and "rape." I am absolutely certain that I would rather have my country defended by males filled to the gills with testosterone than by pregnant women or "rape" victims who whine a lot.

This might seem a pretty harsh condemnation of these female soldiers. Good. It is entirely meant to be. I've been raped and I know what it entails. I've been sexually harassed by a boss, and I know what that entails. I have a good deal of compassion for all people who live through these experiences and a load of sorrow for those who die in the process.

However, these wimpy women make me angry indeed. To call these sex acts "rape" when they gave in without even an ounce of fight or protest before, during, or after, really boils my blood. And it should boil the blood of every woman or man who has ever really been raped. These women, their worldviews created by the victimology of feminism, are not victims of real rape. If they are vicitms at all, it is of feminism, political correctness, and their own lack of backbone.

© Patricia Neill, 1997

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