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The Lonely Solder - Monologues

Some statistics, compiled by Helen Benedict, on females in the military:

• 30% are raped.
• 71% are sexually assaulted.
• 90% are sexually harassed.

While I myself am a pro-peace advocate who cringes at giant amounts of money being poured into warfare, I realize that the military has been around since the birth of nations.  The two are, unfortunately, disastrously, murderously, combined.  But my rant on nationalism is a separate.

This is for the soldiers who volunteer to support an ideal.  Their image is a romantic one: they are banded together against an unpredictable array of car bombs and an invisible enemy.  Amid endless controversy, particularly over the occupation of Iraq, they live in service of an ideology in which they believe.  That they would die for.

And many have.

The Lonely Solder

At the same time, let’s be real.

Aside from all the political mash-ups that have fairly destroyed US foreign relations, the military has been catching a lot of flak recently regarding torture of prisoners.  What about torture of their own?

Imagine being raped, being absolutely invaded, by someone on your side.  You report the vile incident to your superior officers.  They respond that if you make an official accusation, you could likewise be charged with leaving your weapon unattended in a combat zone.  The penalty for this could be discharge.  Are you sure you want to sacrifice your career for this altercation?

Imagine being told that the only reason you, a female, were summoned to Iraq was because there are ” no prostitutes like in Vietnam”.  You’re there essentially to be a human body bag.  You are the “bitch, ho, or dyke” onto which your male counterparts can spew aggression, both verbally and physically.

What makes Helen Benedict’s book scarier, is that it is compiled all from females from within our military.  This does not include any sexual assaults done towards the countless Iraqi civilians who have even less recourse besides, perhaps, the groups that might be labeled as “extremist”.

The war from within the military rages. What must the soldiers think, as they are being held down and abused, as they are subjected to unwarranted searches into their sexual lives?

They signed up to fight for an ideal.  Instead, these marginalized United States soldiers seem to be fighting for air.

Hyper-gender, rape and Pam Jones

There was once a boy named Carl. He was regularly taunted at school.  His mother visited the school, sat in on classes.  The taunting continued.  Carl ended his life of 11 years with an electrical cord.

There is a bar in downtown Phoenix. There is one television in the small pub.  It’s a split screen view of the outside, due to the frequency of gay-bashings in the area.

There is a LA-based rapper named Pam Jones. She was held at gunpoint by several individuals, beaten and raped.  People laughed.

It’s frightening.  It’s maddening.  It’s incredibly, deeply, sad that this is permissible.

Hyper-gender: displaying or enacting an extreme form of stereotypical gender-based paradigms in an online setting.

Rape has been a form of pop-entertainment long before SVU and Seth Rogen. And unfortunately, they do know what they do.

Beatings, tauntings, rapes haven’t transferred from the real world to the web.  They’ve been translated.  Drunk on anonymity, trolls have an outlet to let loose even the degradations they wouldn’t have in face-to-face social situations.

As absolutely maddening the comments in the above link is, I’ve got to believe there’s humanity in them, regardless that they post in arbitrary message boards just to add in a racist slur against a rape victim.

Our system is not lift as you rise.  Our system is race to the bottom.  And by “not losing”, by being the “special interest” group that’s not on the bottom, you win.

So let’s all laugh at Krayzie and his racist, sexist slurs, because it makes us feel better about being politically, economically, sub-par…?

A big ball of bigotry is rolling towards you.  Do you side step it, ride it like a wave?  It’s an issue of momentum.

And elsewhere, rape is legalized.

One of the most controversial articles stipulates the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires."

Thanks to the wonderfully organized and on-the-ball blogging at The Sauda Voice I’ve just learned that the Afghan president has legalized the rape of Shiite wives.

“Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.”

Full AP article here.