‘Entangled in the Homosexual Web’

Posted on | May 18, 2016 | 52 Comments

“Homosexuality destroys a woman’s personal integrity. Little by little, she becomes more deeply entangled in the homosexual web. . . . She finds it easier to submit to homosexuality than to fight against it. . . .
“She slowly deteriorates in character, losing her power of will, and her integrity. Thus the deterioration and destruction of character and integrity are the end results of homosexuality.”
— U.S. Navy, “Indoctrination of WAVE Recruits on Subject of Homosexuality,” 1952, reprinted in The Lesbian Issue: Essays from Signs, edited by Estelle B. Freedman, et al. (1985)

Imagine yourself a young woman recruited into the Navy in 1952 — Harry Truman was president and American boys were fighting Communists in Korea — and finding that, as part of your basic training, you are lectured by two officers and a chaplain about the dangers of homosexuality.

“It is important that you understand the Navy’s policy toward homosexuality,” your unit officer explains:

“The policy of the Navy is quite positive in that all persons found guilty of so much as one single homosexual act while in the Naval service must be eliminated from the service. The ‘first timer’ or experimenter is just as liable to separation as the confirmed homosexual. . . . Under certain circumstances she will be given an undesirable discharge, commonly called a U.D. It means she has been discharged from the Navy as an undesirable, and her discharge papers will state that it is under conditions other than honorable and without satisfactory service. In certain circumstances she may face trial by General Court-Martial. . . .
“The families, parents, and friends of women who have been discharged from the Navy for homosexual acts, write tearful letters to the Navy Department in Washington, D.C., begging for relief from the type of discharge they have received. They claim the Navy has branded them as homosexuals, and because of this they find it difficult to earn a living, or find an acceptable young man for dating, companionship, or possible marriage. Actually, the Navy has not branded these women. They have branded and disgraced themselves, and no relief is possible. Women who engage in homosexual acts cannot and will not be tolerated by the United States Navy.”

This is part of a lengthy presentation, which is followed by a presentation by the medical officer, and then it’s the chaplain’s turn:

“Moral and ethical codes reaching far back into history are against any form of homosexuality. It is universally condemned by all religions. All nations who have given way to the practice of homosexuality have fallen and it is against the law of all civilized nations. The guilt associated with homosexuality is a barrier between the individual and God.
“The Creator has endowed the bodies of women with the noble mission of motherhood and bringing human life into the world. Any woman who violates this great trust by participating in homosexuality not only degrades herself socially but also destroys the purpose for which God created her.”

You can read the entirety of these presentations, which I have scanned in and uploaded to Scribd as a Word document:

Navy Lesbian Briefings 1952 by Robert Stacy McCain

These official presentations, which were part of every Navy woman’s training, were instituted in the wake of a scandal in Washington, historians Allan Berube and John D’Emilio explained in their article:

Early in 1950 a State Department official testified before the Senate that several dozen employees had been dismissed on charges of homosexuality. . . . A Senate investigation into the employment of “homosexuals and other sex perverts” painted a menacing picture of the infiltration of the federal government by “sexual deviants” whose presence threatened the moral welfare of the nation. The popular press kept the homosexual issue alive with reports of dismissals from government service and exposés of alleged homosexual “rings.” Scandal writers in stories with such titles as “Lesbians Prey on Weak Women” charged that there were cells of lesbians in the schools and in the military bent on seducing the innocent.
Rhetoric portraying sexual deviance as a threat to national security had its analogue in more repressive policies. . . . The military’s response to the “homosexual menace” was especially severe.

Far be it from me to say that the United States Senate was wrong about “sexual deviants” posing “a threat to national security.” How do you think America could have won the Cold War if something hadn’t been done to stop “homosexuals and other sex perverts” from infiltrating?

The 1952 training presentations to Navy women make for lively reading:

There are several techniques which may be used by the practicing homosexual to lure you into involvement in a homosexual act.
One of the most commonly used techniques is for the practicing homosexual to use friendship as a means to secure for herself a partner in her homosexual acts. . . . The practicing homosexual may begin her approach to you as a sympathetic, understanding and motherly person. At first she will present the same appearance as many of your friends. She will have many interests in common with you, but as time progresses you will be aware that she is developing this friendship as much as possible along romantic lines. . . . As time goes by, she may propose that you take a week-end trip with her to a near-by city, to sightsee or take in a show. This trip will involve sharing a hotel or motel room. When you are alone . . . she orders drinks . . . and more and more alcohol is consumed. Then follow the improper physical advances and a homosexual act is committed. . . .
If a homosexual makes an approach to you . . . stay away from her. If you have evidence of homosexual acts report them to the proper authorities.

Why were the top brass at Navy headquarters so familiar with these “techniques” of the “practicing homosexual”? Maybe it’s because of all those “tearful letters” they got after “undesirables” were discharged. If this sounds like the plot of an old pulp novel, hey, it was 1952, OK?

It was during the medical officer’s presentation that Navy recruits got the psychiatric community’s view of homosexuality:

Generally speaking, homosexual activity is the manifestation of failure on the part of the individual to grow up sexually, which leads to personality disorders in adult life. This is true whether the individual be exclusively homosexual or only a “dabbler.” . . .
Several common misconceptions exist about homosexuality and it is these misconceptions which lead people into trouble. One such misconception is that it is easy to identify a practicing female homosexual by her masculine mannerisms and characteristics. This is not true. Many practicing homosexuals are quite feminine in appearance and some are outstandingly so. . . .
Another misconception is that those who engage in homosexuality are safe from acquiring venereal disease. This is also not true . . .
A third misconception is that homosexuals are born and not made. This idea leads to the beliefs, first, that an individual who is not born a homosexuality can participate in homosexual acts without danger and, second, that nothing can be done medically for the confirmed homosexual. Neither of these beliefs is true. Treatment is available for even the confirmed homosexual but this is not an obligation of the Navy Medical Corps. As to the other belief, repeated dabbling in homosexuality in late adolescence as well as in adulthood can and frequently does constitute the making of a homosexual. Some who start as “dabblers” or “experimenters” progress steadily to become exclusively homosexual in their behavior. Experimentation, therefore, aside from being an infringement on social as well as Navy standards, is dangerous in its own right.

Got that, you “dabblers”? Cease your “dabbling” immediately! As an American, heterosexuality is your patriotic duty. You’d better “grow up sexually” and meet “Navy standards,” because if you continue your adolescent “dabbling,” you might become a “confirmed homosexual.”

Remember: “Lesbians Prey on Weak Women” — this was once reported as news, so therefore it must be true — and these Navy briefings for recruits represented the official policy of the United States government.

There was a scientific consensus about homosexuality in 1952.

Just like global warming nowadays, really.

Category: Gays, History, Military, Sex Trouble

Comments

52 Responses to “‘Entangled in the Homosexual Web’”

SouthOhioGipper
May 18th, 2016 @ 8:01 am

Wow. This is a gem to wake up to. Now I’m not a fan of homosexuality but reading the medieval attitudes displayed in that document shocked even me.

Patriotic duty to be heterosexual. No wonder Trump exists.
Eric Ashley
May 18th, 2016 @ 8:30 am

But unlike globull worming, this is more factually based.

And as to infiltration, the KGB was bar none, the best at what they did. Its harder to win a war when many of your ‘allies’ are secretly on the other side.
RS
May 18th, 2016 @ 8:44 am

Marginally on topic: I have in my possession, a number of books given to my father as a young Navy ensign in WWII about the proper conduct of officers in relation to their subordinates, the U.S. Navy and the United States. It makes for fascinating reading, especially in light of the current administration’s efforts to destroy our military readiness.

What’s truly interesting is how enlightened military justice was compared to civilian justice at the time. Officers were counseled to be just, but to deploy mercy where warranted. It was a very Christian outlook emphasizing reconciliation and leaving permanent military judicial punishment as a last resort. I think that would surprise most readers of the 21st century.
Durasim
May 18th, 2016 @ 8:48 am

“Far be it from me to say that the United States Senate was wrong about “sexual deviants” posing “a threat to national security.””

Perhaps they were prescient enough to foresee disgruntled deviants of the “Bradley/Chelsea” Manning variety?
kilo6
May 18th, 2016 @ 9:03 am

See also: the “Cambridge Five” traitors (Philby, Blunt, Burgess, Maclean and Carincross), their connections to homosexuality and the group called “The Apostles” at Cambridge. This was the historical and factual basis for denying security clearances to homosexuals until Clinton changed the rules in about 1996. It also fits in with the MICE criteria (ie: reasons people commit acts of espionage summarized by- Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego). Anyone practicing sodomy used to be considered as a primary target for blackmail and being mentally unbalanced.
Far too big a topic for a comment section so I’ll stop blabbing
physicsnut
May 18th, 2016 @ 9:12 am

// just saw these at Federalist yesterday – gay spills the beans on sex addicts

http://thefederalist.com/2016/05/16/loveless-narcissistic-sex-addicts-a-gay-man-critiques-his-community/

http://thefederalist.com/2014/06/23/how-the-trans-agenda-seeks-to-redefine-everyone/
GruntOfMonteCristo
May 18th, 2016 @ 9:42 am

Look, I’m no gay hater, but I have been on the receiving end of several such ‘techniques’ used by gay predators in work environments, and so has my wife AND kids. One of my sons, in particular, suffered lasting harm from one most despicable and extended advance by a much older predator whom he initially admired. So, please Robert, don’t compare these outdated but ACCURATE descriptions to the farce of global warming. The only reason they are not accepted today by the APA is because of directed and sustained homosexual activism in the 1970s to which they caved.
CrustyB
May 18th, 2016 @ 10:00 am

The Chicago History Museum has a political agenda of promoting the homosexual agenda. For years they’ve been pushing the idea that homosexuals built this city, that they constructed all the bridges, dug the canals, and won all the wars single-handedly.

“When you think of Chicago, you think of four things: Oprah, Michael Jordan, Al Capone and Gay House Music” one advertisement once proclaimed. They may as well call it the Chicago Homosexual Museum.
Fail Burton
May 18th, 2016 @ 10:51 am

Keel haul those lesbians and then whip them. That’s how I make 86 dollars an hour as the second mate on an all-lesbian ship-of-the-line. I just bought a nice gray dildo with my vast hoard of Spanish dubloons. Arrrrrrrrrrr!
JackAfter6
May 18th, 2016 @ 11:12 am

The destruction of our social order proceeds apace. While America was throwing lives and money at communist uprising around the world, the Soviets were investing in social warfare. Sadly for the Soviets their own socialist economy was not a viable one, thus they eventually bankrupted and fell. The social warfare waged by the Soviets did not however cease just because the USSR fell. The destruction continues and can only end in with a Sodom and Gomorrah like rain of hellfire. (which could be nukes?)
robertstacymccain
May 18th, 2016 @ 11:40 am

“It takes two to tango.”

Being homosexual all by yourself is no more fun than being heterosexual all by yourself and, therefore, some element of pursuit must be involved in the search for sexual partners.

“Misery loves company.”

Unhappy people are always looking for someone to share their unhappiness. When I was about 15, I remember a gay guy named Tim Norris (we were both on the staff of the high school literary magazine) who insisted that I must be gay. This was back in the waning days of the Freudian consensus where talk of “latent homosexual tendencies” was still fashionable, and somehow Tim — in between bragging about being spoiled by his rich older boyfriend in Atlanta — thought himself fit to diagnose me as “repressed” or whatever, based on nothing but his own prejudice.

Haven’t heard whatever happened to Tim Norris, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he long ago died of AIDS, as did at least one other staff member of the student literary magazine.

Weird the way some people want to lecture us constantly about “stereotypes,” but why was it that as a boy with creative ability — art, music, drama, dance, literature — I was so constantly the target of suspicion as being homosexual by homosexuals themselves? Yet when I denied this imputation, they justify their own prejudice by telling me that my heterosexuality is some sort of illusion, that I must have some “repressed” or “latent” gay tendency, and therefore they are actually right about me?

This is what is implied in the accusation of “homophobia” — gay people think that anyone who says “no” to them must be secretly harboring homosexual attractions that we are afraid of, so that our “no” is actually proof that we want to say “yes.” So many ridiculous rationalizations and projections are involved with that line of thinking that it is impossible to untangle them all. Well, if Tim Norris is still alive, maybe he can explain himself, but I don’t expect to hear from him.
Durasim
May 18th, 2016 @ 12:35 pm

“gay people think that anyone who says “no” to them must be secretly harboring homosexual attractions that we are afraid of, so that our “no” is actually proof that we want to say “yes.”

It seems that the principle of “no means no” was only meant as an injunction against male to female heterosexual solicitations. (That was before the “affirmative consent” standard which established that even “yes” means “no”)

However, for the “diverse” sexual rainbow members, it seems that “no means yes” is still a permissible, operative assumption during lecherous pursuits.
Art Deco
May 18th, 2016 @ 12:35 pm

Some chap oversharing to you in small town Georgia ca. 1975? Nothing like that where I grew up.

A White Pages search turns up fourteen listings for a Timothy Norris in Georgia estimated to be in your age group or with no age estimate. Of course, White Pages picks up a man in Wayne County, N.Y. I’m sure died in 1994.
Jeanette Victoria ?????????
May 18th, 2016 @ 12:37 pm

In the late 60’s my best friend in High School and Jr College was a homosexual who had a MUCH older man as a lover. I remember them telling me I must be a lesbian, (was it my Harley-Davidson I wonder?) Latter when I became a psych nurse the lesbians and homosexual at work all insisted that I must be one of them.

They are all dead now either by violence or disease.
Art Deco
May 18th, 2016 @ 12:43 pm

Small point: Burgess and Blunt were homosexuals. Maclean was more bisexual. Philby was not either.
Durasim
May 18th, 2016 @ 12:48 pm

With the increasing compulsory celebration of homosexuality, transsexualism, etc., one would think such persons would be less prone to being blackmail today. But you never know.

As for being mentally unbalanced, yeah, that’s still a good bet. I’m sure the darling “Bradley/Chelsea” shemale claimed all sorts of mental illness and psychological anguish while begging the court-martial for leniency.

Though whatever legitimate psychiatric conditions “Bradley/Chelsea” may have had, I think his/her biggest motives for breaching national security was simply pride and ego. “Bradley/Chelsea” was a low-ranking, repeated failure who wanted to be important and did so by striking back at the military and our country by doing damage.

The fact that he/she was even permitted to join and remain in our military is testament to its deterioration and dire status.
Art Deco
May 18th, 2016 @ 12:55 pm

His father Brian Manning turned his life around in the Navy and thought the military might be able to do the same for his impossible son.

You read biographical sketches of Bradley Manning and it hits you that his metier since early adolescence has been to irritate people and make trouble. The law ought to deal with him quite harshly.
CruisingTroll
May 18th, 2016 @ 12:56 pm

There’s no need for him to “explain himself.” It’s as plain as the nose on your face. If he could convince you that you were homosexual, then he figured wango-tango you and he will be getting the jollies on. Duh.
CruisingTroll
May 18th, 2016 @ 12:58 pm

I am surprised, given the intertwining of radical feminism and lesbian ideology, that RSM would advance this “Reefer Madness is propaganda” like argument. And disappointed.
Eric Ashley
May 18th, 2016 @ 1:08 pm

Al Capone…check.
Miracle Mile
The Loop
Daley and Massive Vote Fraud giving election to JFK
Windy City
Navy Pier
Not as bad as New Orleans in being corrupt.
Daniel O'Brien
May 18th, 2016 @ 1:51 pm

I believe the thinking today is that Gay homosexuality is inbred trait, but Lesbian homosexuality is a choice, according to the experts (Gaymafia, RadFem) in each side respectively.
Francis W. Porretto
May 18th, 2016 @ 3:02 pm

There was a scientific consensus about homosexuality in 1952.

Scientific? Perhaps not. But there was a consensus. And it may have been wrong in part…but I submit that the last four decades have provided ample evidence from which to conclude that it was not totally wrong.
Art Deco
May 18th, 2016 @ 3:54 pm

There was a social consensus that homosexuality was a disorder, a consensus the mental health trade did not challenge. They elaborated upon that consensus in their own idiom.

What’s happened in the intervening years is that the mental health trade grew more insistent that it should instruct the plebs on what they should value and what they should not.
Art Deco
May 18th, 2016 @ 3:57 pm

Inbred? No. Among identical twins, discordance is at least as common as concordant homosexuality (some studies say 3x as common). It isn’t heritable in any straightforward way (and given its effect on fecundity, you’d expect it would have been bred out by now). That it is present in one ID twin and commonly not the other also suggests that exposure to agents in vitro is not a controlling influence.
M. Thompson
May 18th, 2016 @ 3:58 pm

Nice parody of the spam.
Art Deco
May 18th, 2016 @ 4:01 pm

Daley and Massive Vote Fraud giving election to JFK

Illinois electoral votes would not have been enough to swing the election to Nixon and the Daley machine would have only had to steal a few thousand votes in Illinois because the state was closely divided.
RS
May 18th, 2016 @ 4:16 pm

It is learned behavior, taught by mentally ill adults who try to convince impressionable young people that their differences amount to a sexual lifestyle. See, e.g. the increase in LGBT “clubs” in public schools overseen by homosexual faculty whose ostensible purpose is to provide a “safe space” for confused teens to be “supported.”
Elmer The Jones
May 18th, 2016 @ 4:51 pm

Lesbianism was rampant among female troops when I was in the Army 40 years ago but nobody really cared.

When I enlisted and went for a physical they lined us up and a doctor walked along the recruits shoving his finger up our asses.

When I was discharged they did it again. I figured it must be to find out if you engaged in anal sex and whether you should be permitted to re-enlist.

With our new openly gay Army secretary they will probably drop that time-honored tradition. Probably will also order troops to stop using the popular “butt buddy” insult when addressing comrades, along with other homo-erotic put-downs. The Black Gentlemen will also have to stop referring to everyone as “Bitch”.
Wombat_socho
May 18th, 2016 @ 5:18 pm

Well played, sir!
CPAguy
May 18th, 2016 @ 5:18 pm

Hilarious article, RSM.

When I get some $, I am going to have to send you some $.
Wombat_socho
May 18th, 2016 @ 5:20 pm

The 1950s were hardly medieval.
CPAguy
May 18th, 2016 @ 5:25 pm

I’m not sure that was what he was going for.
Adobe_Walls
May 18th, 2016 @ 6:22 pm

Used to be a great decade to be born in.
Adobe_Walls
May 18th, 2016 @ 6:40 pm

Shot at dawn. Hands bound, blindfolded in front of an adobe wall.
Daniel O'Brien
May 18th, 2016 @ 7:52 pm

You took me a bit too literally. That is the arguments by those camps. Oh, you can’t hate me for something that I was born with: Gaymafia. RadFem: heterosexuality is a patriarchal invention and lesbianism is the natural state of a woman. So that leaves normal people in the quandary: is it nature or nurture? These opposite camps take the side they need to move their agenda along.
robertstacymccain
May 18th, 2016 @ 8:59 pm

Bingo. In the 21st century we must approve every sexual activity except normal sexual activity.
Daniel Freeman
May 18th, 2016 @ 10:28 pm

They’ve “progressed” to accusing other gays of prejudice for rejecting them for being HIV+. If that isn’t enough to convince someone that outrage is a tactic…

ETA: That is per BigGaySteve. To be clear.
Daniel Freeman
May 18th, 2016 @ 10:41 pm

I took it the opposite way, as endorsement. Consider the possibility that he’s exercising strategic ambiguity. It’s a good technique.
JosephBleau
May 20th, 2016 @ 4:53 pm

And I bet you didn’t even want to get them started on the “non-binary gender queer” problem.
Quartermaster
May 20th, 2016 @ 6:26 pm

Strange. They checked for hernias and a couple other things, but never checked my prostate. perhaps, such things weren’t a concern with 17 yo kids stupid enough to join the Navy, or they looked for other signs that you were queer. Didn’t do it when I got out either.
Quartermaster
May 20th, 2016 @ 6:32 pm

Probably not nukes. In prophecy nukes seem to be in view in Ezekial chapters 38 &39, but not otherwise. It’s pretty apparent that the Nukes in Ezekial don’t destroy the world.

There will be a cleansing as dealt with in 2 Peter 3:10. God doesn’t need nukes to do it either.
Quartermaster
May 20th, 2016 @ 6:34 pm

I do remember news anchors smiling when they announced Chicago election returns. Even the biased news media had a problem believing them.
Quartermaster
May 20th, 2016 @ 6:39 pm

I find a concrete wall to be just as acceptable.
Quartermaster
May 20th, 2016 @ 6:42 pm

The military was a very different world then as compared to now. Curtis LeMay, for example, had the opportunity to make very good money as a civilian pilot, but decided to stay with the USAAF. One of his reasons was that he could go into any bank under US jurisdiction and on his signature alone, take out a loan commensurate with his salary – commissioned officers were trusted implicitly. It has been many years since that has been the case.
Quartermaster
May 20th, 2016 @ 6:43 pm

The best since I was born in that decade. The rest of y’all are just benighted.
Quartermaster
May 20th, 2016 @ 6:44 pm

That’s not why Trump exists.
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Elmer The Jones
May 21st, 2016 @ 9:37 am

It was at the enlistment station in Cincinnati circa 1975. I am sure they processed all branches. You were lucky to be in a kinder, gentler Navy, probably post-Village People.
FMJRA 2.0: Pink Cadillac : The Other McCain
May 21st, 2016 @ 9:02 pm

[…] ‘Entangled in the Homosexual Web’ Batshit Crazy News […]
Quartermaster
May 22nd, 2016 @ 12:41 am

Hmmmm. Was Elmer a troll? Didn’t seem like it to me.