Rape in the New Age Military, Date Rape and The New Woman

New Hampshire Lake, Obadiah Youngblood

"Every ethical analysis begins with an attempt to establish the facts."

--Professor, Rev. Donald Colenback

Two cases reported together in the New York Times (3/21/14) have been resolved: In one case with the dismissal from the United States Naval Academy of a midshipman, who faced 30 years in prison for rape,and, in the second case, with the reprimand of a general, who also faced a lengthy prison sentence, but will not serve prison time, although he will be drummed out of the service at a reduced rank.

Nobody was pleased with the disposition of either case. All parties felt aggrieved, ostensibly. 

Senator Kristen Gillibrand said, "How we got here was yet another example of a completely broken military justice system." 
The defense lawyer for the midshipman commented after the verdict, "The system is broken. It's broken in many different directions."
Jamie Barnett, a lawyer for the general's accuser described the general's sentence as "a travesty" and compared it to "getting sent to the principal's office for a stern talking to." She added, "Now the Army has to face the reality that this is likely to happen again and the victims will be less likely to come forward."

A Yale Law School professor said, "This will ratchet up concern that there is a first-class justice for some and steerage for the rest."

What we have here, the Phantom would hope we can all agree is:
1. Circumstances which are new over the past half century, in that women and men are now mixed physically in ways which would have scandalized and flabbergasted Americans of the 1950's and 1960's. Women now live in dorm rooms next door to those of men in college. Women now serve in the Army side by side with men, in combat and  behind the lines. 

2. A relatively new attitude held by women, and  a new attitude is now widely held  about women with respect to their sexuality. Women are no long expected to be virgin on their wedding night. Women are expected to have sex in their teen age years. It is not a slander to suggest a woman likes to have casual sex, for a "romp" to relieve tension, for pleasure, to understand herself, to understand the world, to get to know a particular man better, to experience life in its richest dimensions. The prevailing assumption, if one can judge from testimony like "I Love My Rifle More Than You" by Kayla Williams, is that every woman has had sex, will have more, but it is her right to decide who with and when, and no pressure ought to be applied, and certainly sex should not be ordered by a superior officer as a perk of rank.

To cope with this new world in which women regularly put themselves in "compromising" positions which would have horrified their grandmothers and which might elicit from their mothers the reaction: Well, what did you expect would happen, when you go to a boy's room with a bottle of gin?"

Against this backdrop, institutions have tried to dream up ways to cope with the new freedom they have provided women:  At Brown University every freshman signs a pledge, among the hundreds of papers he signs during freshman week, which says he will not "take advantage" of a girl who is in no position to make a decision about whether or not she wants to have sex, which is to say, too drunk to know what she is doing. In a famous case,  a third year student, on his way to a promising career in engineering, was expelled because he found a naked girl in his bed in his fraternity house and had sex with her. The facts of that case were murky. Apparently, the next morning she exchanged phone numbers with him and it was only when she got back to her dorm room and faced a withering reaction from her friends, she decided she had been raped.

In the case of the female Naval Academy student, which had been in trial for two years, the accuser admitted she had gone to an off campus "toga and yoga" party, where Navy football players wore only a sheets (togas) and she arrived drunk, and in fact, could not recall whether or not she had had sex with the midshipman she eventually accused, but after word got out about her sexual participation that night, she could not walk past a table in the cafeteria without hearing snickers. She accused first one midshipman, then another, saying she had blacked out and could not recall exactly who or what happened. At least, that's what the Times tells us.

So where does that leave us?  Apparently, the new code is that if a woman arrives in a bar, at a fraternity party, where the participants are semi nude, and the setting is one of a ritual of fore play, it is the responsibility of the males present to protect women from themselves, to become their stewards and to escort them home to safety.  Now, that would be an officer and a gentleman. 

Where could we expect to find one?

The basic problem with accusation of sexual violation is the male will always claim, "She wanted it," and the female accuser will deny that was her state of mind at the time,  and she refused but was over-powered and violated.

How do we solve this contradiction?  One attempt, at Brown, was to organize "teach ins" where actors showed how the road to sexual intercourse should proceed in campus rooms, with the boy asking the girl at each stage, "I am now going to remove your bra. Is that okay with you? Do you feel alright about that." And so the road to intercourse becomes a sequence of requests and permissions granted, rather like passing security stations at a military installation. The whole exercise of educating the masses sounds like something out of Kafka, or the early days of the Soviet state, where "re-education" was supposed to create a new, morally superior person.

But what do you do when alcohol is mixed into the brew?  Then you have the accuser saying, "I don't care what he says I said; I was too drunk to know what I am saying."

What do you do with an accuser who says she cannot recall the events she is accusing her attacker of having wrought--but she heard about them later?

And what do we do when a specific case, involving two individuals is judged not just on their differing views, their own conflicting memories, but as an example of a policy failure, condemned by politicians, who may feel strongly about the issue, but, who are not looking at the case as a set of specific circumstances with individuals, but as a flag to wave?

As the subplot in the "House of Cards" explores, this is a deep, dark swamp. One thing fiction can do is to present in great detail a welter of conflicting "facts."  In the case of Underwood's wife, she was date raped at Harvard her freshman year, but did not report it, although it was a devastating experience. She simply did not want to be known thenceforth as "that girl who was raped." She exacts her revenge, years later, by accusing her abuser on national TV, which provokes a move to end his career in the Marines, and which brings forth other women, who say he raped them, too. 

But Mrs. Underwood, it is clear, is no Anna ("Downton Abbey") whose rape was a clear a case of overwhelming assault and horror, and who feels "ruined"  despoiled, and unworthy of sleeping with her own husband, or, perhaps, disgusted by the whole prospect of sex, now that it has been corrupted. Ms. Underwood, is a woman who has sexual appetites she doesn't conceal, for her photographer boyfriend, for her Secret Service agent. Does that mean she was not violated, as a college student. On the contrary, it suggests the credibility of her story: She does not deny her own desires, but she claims absolute dominion over with whom she exercises them.

But what of the woman who drinks herself past resistance, then walks into an orgy? Can she claim rape?

It is curious that through all his years of training, the Phantom never heard a complaint  or a case of any nurse accusing a doctor of rape. In those days, there was a sort of rank discrepancy--nurses were female and doctors male and nurses took orders from doctors about patient care, so, in many ways, the doctors were the superior officers.  There was lots of pressure, life and death struggles, and long hours, fatigue and some parties and some after hours (not on call) drinking. So, in a sense, all that was like what we now see in the military--men working side by side with women, with men in positions of authority.  There were sexual escapades in on call rooms, in various places throughout the hospital, where beds were easily available. But, for some reason, little in the way of aggrieved parties.

If the military could figure out what made the hospitals work that way, maybe they could find a path which would work for them.