‘Always Go Overkill’
Posted on | May 21, 2016 | 11 Comments
Left to right: David Eisenhauer, Nicole Lovell, Natalie Keepers.
The murder of 13-year-old Nicole Lovell in January was a chilling reminder of the dangers of providing young people unrestricted Internet access. This was every parent’s worst nightmare come true:
Nicole’s mother said her daughter was the target of bullying at Blacksburg Middle School, had grappled with health problems and frequently poured her sadness out online, where she sought solace and drew the attention of young men. Authorities said that was where the vulnerable teen encountered [David] Eisenhauer, then 18.
The case against Eisenhauer and his accused accomplice Natalie Keepers is like a Criminal Minds episode. New details of the case emerged Friday:
Nicole Lovell slipped out her bedroom window on a cold January night, seeking the promise of a romantic walk in the woods. The 13-year-old grabbed her cellphone and her “Minions” blanket, nurturing a dream of running away with the trim Virginia Tech athlete she had met online.
The secret rendezvous with freshman David Eisenhauer was a ruse, police testified Friday, part of an elaborate plan he hatched with a close friend to kill the middle school student and keep his inappropriate relationship with her from becoming public. His friend Natalie Keepers also had a sinister motivation, a police detective testified, recounting how Keepers told police that she was a “sociopath-in-training” and that the secrecy and intrigue surrounding the murder plot gave her “the best feeling.”
Along a dark country road, in a swath of woods Eisenhauer and Keepers had scouted for the crime, police said, Eisenhauer stabbed the girl to death, blood staining the snow.
Detectives testified in a preliminary hearing Friday that the two Virginia Tech students believed they had planned a perfect crime. They shut off their cellphones; they hid the knife in the woods; they tossed Nicole’s belongings in a dumpster and a raging river; and they bathed her body with cleaning wipes before dumping it in North Carolina.
And they believed they would get away with it. Police said that Eisenhauer told Keepers that thousands of children go missing every year and are never found.
“It will never be traced,” Eisenhauer said in a text message to Keepers, according to police. “Always go overkill when your life is on the line.”
You can read the whole thing. Nicole Lovell’s killers were evil people, but there are a lot of evil people in the world, and predators use the Internet to stalk their prey. Warn your children of this danger.
In The Mailbox: 05.20.16
Posted on | May 20, 2016 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.20.16
— compiled by Wombat-socho
OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: High Sparrow Sanders And The Democrat Faith Militant Still Challenging Queen Hillary
Da Tech Guy: Just A Coincidence I’m Sure
Michelle Malkin: Lib Media’s Pet DREAMer Sentenced For Child Porn/Exploitation
Twitchy: The Reality Of Socialism Strikes Bernie Sanders As He Runs Low On Other Peoples’ Money
Shark Tank: Trump Bashes Clintons On NAFTA, TPP
RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Chicago 1968 Redux: Sanders Supporters Get Permits To Protest Democrat Convention In Philadelphia
American Thinker: My Country Was Of Thee
Don Surber: Facebeck
Jammie Wearing Fools: Dissent Is Forbidden – Portland Crackpots Ban “Climate Change-Denying” Material In Schools
Joe For America: Oregon Students Skip School In Protest Of Obama’s Boys In Girls Bathrooms Order
JustOneMinute: Is Google Kidding, Or Did Their Search Engines Fail?
Pamela Geller: Islamic Museum To Be Built With Sharia Funding On Site Of Failed Ground Zero Mosque
Shot In The Dark: Tricia Bishop – Let The Courage Of Your Convictions Guide You
STUMP: Around The Blogs – Mish And 538, Bury And Central States, Glennon And Chicago
The Jawa Report: Jihadi Love Gone Wrong
The Lonely Conservative: That Was Quick – Trump Already Backing Away From Potential SCOTUS List
The Quinton Report: Catholic School Graduation Speaker Is Planned Parenthood Supporter
This Ain’t Hell: House Wants 2.1% Raise For Military, Obama Threatens Veto
Weasel Zippers: Feds Order Colleges To Stop Criminal Record/School Discipline Checks Of Prospective Employees Because It “Discriminates Against Minorities”
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‘Unwanted Social Advances’
Posted on | May 20, 2016 | 23 Comments
While working on a long piece today, I stumbled onto one of those quotes that gets endlessly recycled on feminist Tumblr and, although I’d seen it often before, this time I was struck by what was wrong with it. This is from D.A. Clarke’s 1991 essay “Justice Is a Woman With a Sword”:
When a man makes unwanted social advances to a woman in, let’s say, a restaurant or theatre, and she eventually has to tell him loudly and angrily to get lost — she is the one who will be perceived as rude, hostile, aggressive, and obnoxious. His verbal aggression and invasiveness are accepted and expected, her rudeness or mere curtness in getting rid of him is noticed and condemned. . . .
Men commit the most outrageous harassments and insults against women simply because they can get away with it: they know they will not get hurt for saying and doing things that, between two men, would quickly lead to a fist fight or a stabbing. There are no consequences for abusing women.
Now, there are several things to notice here, beginning with the phrase “unwanted social advances.” What does this mean? Well, it could indicate anything from a jocular flirtation to genuine harassment, but the key word here is “unwanted.” How is a man supposed to know, prior to making “social advances,” whether his attentions are wanted or unwanted? Some guys are very bad at “reading signals” — they are socially awkward — and some guys who might otherwise be courteous and reserved become boisterously rude after three or four drinks.
What D.A Clarke seems to have in mind is the guy who can’t take a hint, who keeps pursuing a woman after she’s made it clear she’s not interested. Such behavior is rude, but is feminism merely about etiquette?
No, of course not. Her characterization of his behavior — “verbal aggression and invasiveness” — is followed by the assertion that this is “accepted and expected,” prompting the question, “By whom?”
Who accepts and expects this behavior? Don’t standards of what is considered acceptable behavior depend on the social context? That is to say, how a university student behaves in a graduate seminar may be completely different from how she behaves on spring break in Cabo San Lucas. The standards of behavior expected of a lawyer in a courtroom are different than the standards of behavior in New Orleans during Mardi Gras or Daytona Beach during Bike Week. Wherever you are and whatever the context, unpleasant situations of the sort D.A. Clarke seems to have in mind are most often caused by the guy who can’t take hint, who is also usually the guy who can’t deal with rejection.
This is why nightclubs have bouncers.
When I worked as a deejay in the nightclub business in the 1980s, part of my job was to keep an eye out for trouble so that I could alert the bouncers to trouble. Anyone who remembers the old Crystal Palace on Stewart Avenue in Atlanta knows what a rough crowd frequented that after-hours club, and the bouncers at the Crystal Palace were very rough men. If they had to escort somebody out the door, the unruly patron was likely to receive some brutal violence once the bouncers got him out in the parking lot. Those bouncers enjoyed violence, and they loved nothing so much as beating the hell out of some drunk who grabbed a girl.
So when D.A. Clarke asserts that men suffer “no consequences for abusing women,” my instinctive reaction is, “What planet is she living on?”
Where I come from, a fellow who committed “the most outrageous harassments and insults against women” was apt to get punched in the face, and he might even get shot to death. “An armed society is a polite society,” as Robert Heinlein said, and fellows don’t need to be warned to mind their manners too often, if the warning is sufficiently forceful.
You don’t need feminism to fix problems like that. You just need a pistol.
In The Mailbox: 05.19.16
Posted on | May 19, 2016 | 3 Comments
— compiled by Wombat-socho
OVER THE TRANSOM
Proof Positive: Newt Gingrich For VP?
Louder With Crowder: Debunking The Myth Of Karl Marx And Communism’s Great Successes
EBL: What Happened To EgyptAir MS804?
Da Tech Guy: The Little Sisters Stalemate
The Political Hat: American Bar Association Poised To Ban Expressions Of Thoughtcrime
Michelle Malkin: TSA’s Union Power Grab
Twitchy: Federal Judge Hammers Obama’s Deceptive, Ethically-Challenged DOJ Lawyers
Shark Tank: Rubio Wants To Hold Slumlords Responsible
RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Trump Blames Terrorism For Loss Of EgyptAir MS804, Gets Ripped By NYT, Then French & Egyptian Governments Warn of Terrorism As Likely Cause
American Thinker: What Does Fair Share (In Taxes) Mean?
Don Surber: Clinton Meltdown Is Two Months Early
Jammie Wearing Fools: New Poll Finds 90% Of Native Americans Not Offended By Redskins Name
Joe For America: Texas Tells Obama “You Can’t Blackmail Us With Your Thirty Pieces Of Silver”
JustOneMinute: Summer Of Love For Hillary
Pamela Geller: Devout ISIS Muslims Torturing Children To Death
Shot In The Dark: Creative Problem Solving
STUMP: Kentucky Update, And Trying Something New
The Jawa Report: Sandcrawler PSA – Don’t Be A Sucker For Communism
The Lonely Conservative: NY Health Insurers Request Huge Increases For 2017
The Quinton Report: Michael Graham Returns To DC
This Ain’t Hell: Christy Russell Sentenced For VA Fraud
Weasel Zippers: Google Doodle Honors Woman Who Praised Bin Laden As “One Of The People I Admire”
Megan McArdle: Why The TSA is So Terrible
Mark Steyn: The Chief Commissar Of Municipal Zoning
The Cult – Choice Of Weapon
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Mommy Blogger @JosiDenise Tells the Truth: Nobody’s Reading Your Fake Crap
Posted on | May 19, 2016 | 49 Comments
Josi Denise is a mother of three who has spent the past three years “building her brand” online as a mommy blogger. Apparently, moms never read books or magazines anymore. Everything is Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest. This creates opportunities for clever women to cash in by promoting products (and promoting themselves) on the Internet. But then she got tired of the fakeness and wrote a brutally honest takedown of the entire phenomenon of mommy blogging:
YOUR MOMMY BLOG F–KING SUCKS.
NOBODY IS READING YOUR S–T
I mean no one. Even the people you think are reading your shit? They aren’t really reading it. The other mommy bloggers sure as hell aren’t reading it. They are scanning it for keywords that they can use in the comments. “So cute! Yum! I have to try this!” They’ve been told, like you, that in order to grow your brand, you must read and comment on other similar-sized and similar-themed blogs. The people clicking on it from Pinterest aren’t reading it. They are looking for your recipe, or helpful tip promised in the clickbait, or before and after photo, then they might re-pin the image, then they are done. The people sharing it on Facebook? They aren’t reading it either. They just want to say whatever it is your headline says, but can’t find the words themselves. Your family? Nope. They are checking to make sure they don’t have double chins in the photos you post of them, and zoning in on paragraphs where their names are mentioned.
Why? Because your shit is boring. Nobody cares about your shampoo you bought at Walmart and how you’re so thankful the company decided to work with you. Nobody cares about anything you are saying because you aren’t telling an engaging story. You are not giving your readers anything they haven’t already heard. You are not being helpful, and you are not being interesting. If you are constantly writing about your pregnancy, your baby’s milestones, your religious devotion, your marriage bliss, or your love of wine and coffee…. are you saying anything new? Anything at all? Tell me something I haven’t heard before, that someone hasn’t said before. From a different perspective, or making a new point at the end at least if I have to suffer through a cliche story about your faceless, nameless kid.
You’re writing in an inauthentic voice about an unoriginal subject, worse if sprinkled with horrible grammar and spelling, and you are contributing nothing to the world but static noise.
Read the whole thing. (Via Motto. Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Ace of Spades has sometimes noted the “Internet Famous” syndrome, whereby people seek a simulacrum of actual fame by blogging, YouTube videos, etc. And while it is possible to exploit fame to get money, their motive is essentially narcissistic: “I want to be somebody!”
This is why every 19-year-old girl is posting selfies on her Tumblr. She is celebrating her own existence and seeking validation from online admirers, and this mentality seldom leads anywhere good. If she ends up working as a “camgirl” or being a “sugar baby” for old rich guys, at least there is the profit motive to explain that. What is more difficult to explain is why nobody warned her against seeking admiration this way.
Sometimes you need to step back from your life, examine what you’re doing and ask yourself why you’re doing it. “Money” is a good answer. There’s nothing wrong with writing for money. “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,” Samuel Johnson famously said, but who would want to get paid to lie? Why be a professional liar?
Sure, Hillary Clinton has made a career of it, but . . .
Josi Denise found herself in an existential crisis because she realized that the work-to-reward incentive ratio in mommy blogging is insane, and that writing the truth is always better than “building your brand” by creating a phony public image as a marketing strategy. Then she published an angry rant about her ex-husband not paying child support, and when that went viral — because people actually want to read the truth — she realized how fake her online image was. Mommy blogging is a cult in much the same way modern feminism is a cult, and one of the emotional incentives a cult provides its members is the sense of belonging. The cult is Us, and the outside world is Them, and everything Eric Hoffer wrote about The True Believer applies to such a situation. Inside a cult, the only people who matter are Us, and your identity as one of Us requires you to buy into whatever ideology defines the cult. If you are not willing to constantly prove your loyalty to Us, you might be exiled and ostracized from the cult, becoming one of Them — and this, to the cult member, is a fate worse than death.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg chose the death penalty rather than to cooperate with the FBI and expose their Communist spy network. This is an extreme analogy, but the basic psychology is the same. Marxism is much worse than mommy blogging, but whenever we see people acting irrationally in order to demonstrate their loyalty to a cult and its ideology, we always find the psychology of The True Believer in operation.
Motherhood is a wonderful vocation, and if a mom can be home with her children, earning money by blogging, this is wonderful, too. Thank God for capitalism, which makes this possible through technological innovation. If companies are willing to pay mommy bloggers to promote their products, this is also wonderful, and as long as you’re honest about what your doing, why not? Nothing wrong with honest capitalism.
Better to be a mommy blogger than a Commie blogger.
Just tell the truth, and don’t buy into a cult mentality.
Guys: Leave @Jindi Alone
Posted on | May 18, 2016 | 37 Comments
Jindi Mehat (@jindi on Twitter) is a radical feminist and digital project manager for the Vancouver-based web services firm YellowPencil.com.
Ms. Mehat despises liberal feminists:
Liberal feminists stop debate by crying “choice” when radical feminists unpack the context and impacts of choices — especially choices that reinforce male supremacy. . . .
Unquestioningly celebrating “choice” helps women feel good about themselves while they avoid confronting the system of patriarchy and even, in some cases, uphold it. It allows them to earn the benefits society gives women who don’t challenge male supremacy while comforting themselves with the idea that their behavior — no matter how problematic — is feminist.
There are real and dangerous consequences when women do misogyny while thinking they’re doing feminism. Convinced they’re on the side of women without critically examining the behaviour they are supporting and beginning the real work of feminism, they lash out in anger at radical feminists who ask them to consider that they might actually not be on women’s side. . . . Instead of directing their anger at patriarchy and male entitlement, third wavers pile on radical feminists who dare ask the difficult questions that need to be answered if we are to bring about actual change.
Got that? Real feminism is inherently radical — it’s about “confronting the system of patriarchy,” to “challenge male supremacy,” directing “anger at patriarchy and male entitlement . . . to bring about actual change.”
On this, Ms. Mehat and I are in complete agreement. The difference is, Ms. Mehat thinks radical feminists, by virtue of being “on the side of women,” are going to bring about an egalitarian utopia, whereas I recognize radical feminism as a dangerous Death Cult Ideology.
Radical feminism is akin to the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Khmer Rouge, Jonestown, the Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate and every other doomstruck paranoid kook squad you’d care to name. The radical feminist worldview flourishes on university campuses, where tenured professors teach it to rich girls spending Daddy’s money to get their Women’s Studies degrees. Subsidized by taxpayers, the university campus is a bubble of make-believe where feminist gender theory — the social construction of the gender binary within the heterosexual matrix — is protected from criticism by speech codes, and where its practitioners can avoid contact with the facts of human life as it exists in the real world.
"Welcome to Gender Studies.
Oppression. Privilege. Rape culture.
Yadda yadda yadda. Here's your diploma.
Congratulations. Now, go be angry."— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) May 17, 2016
Everywhere she looks, the radical feminist perceives herself threatened by the sinister forces of patriarchy — misogyny, objectification, heteronormativity, male privilege, rape culture, etc. — and views men with paranoid suspicion. Her hostility toward “the system” feeds paranoid delusions of persecution. She lashes out at male scapegoats with constant accusations of “sexism,” convinced that she is always being unjustly victimized by oppression. The only way a man can avoid offending her is to avoid her altogether. Never talk to a feminist. Unfortunately, some guys think they can be exceptions to the rule and these “Male Feminists” are always causing trouble. Men know nothing, the feminist believes, and therefore he has nothing to say that she needs to hear.
Jindi Mehat hates “Good Guys”:
One of the most frustrating parts of talking with men about sexism is the amazing ability so many of them have to remain absolutely convinced that they are “Good Guys” while they behave in ways that reveal their sexist beliefs.
You know these guys. They are the ones who tell sexist jokes and then chastise you for objecting because “it’s just a joke.” They are the ones who constantly interrupt and dismiss women but definitely aren’t sexist because they “love women.” . . .
It’s like these men keep a list of the most abhorrent, misogynistic behaviour possible and, as long as they don’ t regularly do those things, believe they can confidently declare themselves Good Guys and wash their hands of this whole sexism business, while continuing to behave in ways that harm women. These self-identified Good Guys are convinced they needn’t bother with silly things like listening to what women say about the impacts their behaviour has on us, or working to challenge the messages they’ve absorbed that allow their problematic behaviour to continue.
Ms. Mehat offers a list of 25 questions for “Good Guys,” including:
1) Do you get annoyed when women aren’t as nice or quiet as you think we should be instead of recognizing how the expectation that women are nicer and quieter than men is harmful? . . .
4) Do you interrupt women when we’re speaking? . . .
11) Do you stare at women you find attractive, instead of considering how threatening this feels to most women? . . .
18) Do you think a woman you’re in a sexual relationship with should have sex with you even if she doesn’t want to?
19) Do you pout or try to convince her if she doesn’t? . . .
24) Do you think it’s women’s responsibility to make sure you understand sexism?
You can read the whole thing, but you get the idea here. What Ms. Mehat implies is that women should be rude to men and men should never notice their rudeness; that once a woman starts talking, a man’s job is to shut up until she’s finished lecturing him; that men should never so much as look at an attractive woman; that men should never have sex with women, nor even think about having sex with women, never mind trying to convince a woman to have sex with him; and that men should understand all these rules without women having to explain them.
In summarizing her argument, Ms. Mehat asserts that “the behaviours that define masculinity are inherently misogynistic ones” — i.e., to be masculine is to hate women. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Guys, do you see why I keep saying never talk to a feminist?
When a woman tells you, “I am a feminist,” what she is actually saying is:
- Shut up,
- Go away,
and - Leave me alone.
If a guy is in a room and Jindi Mehat walks in, this is his cue to walk out of the room — quietly, without making eye contact. If possible, men should never go anywhere near Vancouver, rather than risk the chance of an accidental encounter with Jindi Mehat. You have been warned.
Translation: "I am a feminist because men don't like me. If men like you, then you are not a feminist." pic.twitter.com/lwlIEYQz59
— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) May 18, 2016
Feminists hate men, marriage and motherhood,
but the one thing feminists hate the most is
when somebody tells the truth about feminism.— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) May 18, 2016
In The Mailbox: 05.18.16
Posted on | May 18, 2016 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.18.16
— compiled by Wombat-socho
OVER THE TRANSOM
Proof Positive: A Game Of Crones
EBL: California Condors
Da Tech Guy: Are You Kidding Me? Donald Trump And The Willing Blindness of Michael Choen & The Boston Globe
The Political Hat: The Unlibertarian Libertarians
Michelle Malkin: My Memo To Elon Musk On B1 Cheap Labor Visa Racket
Twitchy: Priorities! Chicago “Is Broke And Crime Is Soaring” While Rahm Emanuel Focuses on THIS?
Shark Tank: Angry Alan Grayson Website Launches
RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: The Sick Mind Of Noam Chomsky
American Thinker: Another Racial Attack Ruled A Hoax In College Town
Don Surber: The Electoral College Likely Won’t Matter
Jammie Wearing Fools: Man “Representing Himself As A Woman” Enters Womens’ Department Store Dressing Room
Joe For America: Obama’s National Security Adviser Who Manipulated Iran Deal Won’t Testify?
JustOneMinute: Knife Attack, Police Shooting In Manhattan
Pamela Geller: Texas Governor Refuses Obama’s Request To Lift State Sanctions On Iran
Protein Wisdom: Orange Is The New Black
Shot In The Dark: Philosophical Question
STUMP: Detroit Resurrected By Nathan Bomey – A Review
The Jawa Report: Primary Results – Oregon & Kentucky
The Lonely Conservative: The Venezuelan Health Care Crisis, Brought To You By Socialism
The Quinton Report: Rapper Involved In SC Waffle House Fight
This Ain’t Hell: Bergdahl’s Court-martial Postponed Until After Inauguration
Weasel Zippers: Drama Queen Barbara Boxer Says She “Feared For Her Safety” After Being Booed By Sandernistas
Megan McArdle: You’re Gonna Need A License For That
Mark Steyn: Priority Boarding On The Lolita Express
‘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.
