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A storm in a hammock (Royal Australian Navy's sex scandal)
Herald Sun ^ | 8th July 2009 | Andrew Bolt

Posted on 07/07/2009 3:46:37 PM PDT by naturalman1975

THE navy is shocked - shocked! - that healthy young men cooped up on its ships look at the healthy young women by their side and want to, er, rock their boats.

In fact, so shocked is the navy, apparently run by old and devoutly Christian aesthetes who still undress in the dark, that four sailors from HMAS Success have been removed from their ship at Singapore.

Their crime? To have run a contest to sleep with the most women on board.

Yes, stifle your gasps. You've never seen anything so horrific since the last time you went to a disco or office party. Or last watched Channel Nine's sex-on-the-sea show, Sea Patrol.

Anyway, this contest had a few rules that's been deliciously eye-popping for the kind of people who love to drool and damn at the same time.

Sleeping with an officer or a lesbian won extra points, and the sailors kept score in a book known as the ledger, with dollar amounts written next to the name of each woman.

Which is where I start wondering where the navy got so old-fashioned, albeit in an almost refreshing way.

How many of these women actually slept with the bounty hunters?

None, I'd bet. In which case, why all this fuss?

Or is the answer "plenty"? And then we must ask: why haven't those women been sent home, too?

Doesn't this just confirm what rugby league star Matthew Johns found after the ABC outed him as a beast for having had group sex with a willing fan - that a woman's yes no longer means yes?

(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS:
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Well worth reading clicking on and reading the whole article.

I like Bolt - he's one of Australia's few prominent conservative columnists - and I think he makes a lot of sense here. However as a retired officer of the RAN, it is a disciplined service and what these sailors were reported as doing was prejudicial to that discipline and they should have known it wasn't appropriate. They deserve to be sanctioned for that, in my view - although they should be sanctioned for what they did, not because the media and certain politicians are trying to talk it up into something worse than it probably was.

1 posted on 07/07/2009 3:46:37 PM PDT by naturalman1975
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To: naturalman1975

The US Navy has similar issues, in spite of being, overall, a pretty successful military service. “Where did the babies come from?!? We told them not to have sex on the ship!!!”


2 posted on 07/07/2009 3:49:40 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("I blossom on the grave of God who died for me." ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar)
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To: naturalman1975
I've heard of high school and college guys running contests like this. Makes sense hormonal young adults cooped up on a ship would think of it.

I heard of several young women who joined the Army because they really, really liked sex with guys. Heard it from my fellow troops - do women think guys don't talk?

3 posted on 07/07/2009 3:51:24 PM PDT by colorado tanker ("Lastly, I'd like to apologize for America's disproportionate response to Pearl Harbor . . . ")
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To: naturalman1975
... subjected to an "equity and diversity health check"

What on earth does that mean?

4 posted on 07/07/2009 3:52:34 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("I blossom on the grave of God who died for me." ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar)
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To: naturalman1975

I was a reserve on North Island in Corona. Without fail, whenever a carrier returned at least one (oftentimes more) women came off preggers.

These were sometimes 10 month deployments.


5 posted on 07/07/2009 3:55:53 PM PDT by Retired Greyhound
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To: naturalman1975

First one o’ you suckahs sez he didn’t know sailors are heterosexual is gettin’ it right upside the head with my purse.


6 posted on 07/07/2009 3:57:37 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Tax-chick

Stories like these are why libertarian leaning retired military veterans like myself say “Bring back the paid company hookers.” Boys will be boys and it’s best to just deal with the fact and move on. My flame suit is on so flame away.

Or maybe we could just move to an all gay military and let them do what they do. It worked for the royal navy for centuries.


7 posted on 07/07/2009 3:57:46 PM PDT by Tailback
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To: naturalman1975
How many of these women actually slept with the bounty hunters?

None, I'd bet. In which case, why all this fuss?

Or is the answer "plenty"? And then we must ask: why haven't those women been sent home, too?

8 posted on 07/07/2009 4:03:19 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (If ten percent is good enough for Jesus, it ought to be good enough for Uncle Sam. --Ray Stevens)
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To: Billthedrill
First one o’ you suckahs sez he didn’t know sailors are heterosexual is gettin’ it right upside the head with my purse.

Well, these guys deploy on ships too! It could be them!

Semper Fi,

TS

9 posted on 07/07/2009 4:05:59 PM PDT by The Shrew (www.wintersoldier.com; www.tstrs.com; The Truth Shall Set You Free!)
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To: naturalman1975
The navy hasn't even said whether the sailors' bets were paid out.

Snort !!!

10 posted on 07/07/2009 4:16:43 PM PDT by Popman (Joe Biden REALLY can't be Vice President, can he ?)
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To: Tailback
Or maybe we could just move to an all gay military and let them do what they do. It worked for the royal navy for centuries.

A clear front runner for stupidest post of the day.

11 posted on 07/07/2009 4:21:10 PM PDT by Jacquerie (That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.)
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To: naturalman1975

12 posted on 07/07/2009 4:34:58 PM PDT by AndrewB (FUBO)
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To: naturalman1975
And yet this woman is smiling...

13 posted on 07/07/2009 4:38:27 PM PDT by AndrewB (FUBO)
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To: naturalman1975

In 1991 one of the submarine tenders in Norfolk was given orders to prepare for deployment to the gulf. For those that don’t know, sub tenders are normally concreted to the pier and the crews have been integrated for decades since they are not combat vessels. Surprisingly, 300 women on board got pregnant. The captain, preparing to deploy to a war zone, was suddenly down 10% of his crew.

The sailors of the age of sail had it right. Women have no place on ocean going warships. The captain of a military ship has more important things to worry about than who is sleeping with who, who has an STD, who got pregnant, who filed sexual harassment charges.

And if you have women filling the shore billets in the Navy, as they used to in the nuclear power program, it means that the men must go from sea command to sea command with fewer shore duties available. Quality of life goes down. Retention rates go down. Morale goes down.


14 posted on 07/07/2009 4:52:39 PM PDT by Pan_Yan (All gray areas are fabrications.)
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To: Tailback

I’m fine with your first statement.

The second one, not so much.


15 posted on 07/07/2009 4:54:28 PM PDT by Pan_Yan (All gray areas are fabrications.)
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To: Billthedrill
When Bubba Happy Pants took office in 1993 seven crewmen of the USS Hammerhead came out of the closet, including one of the officers. You didn't see a single enlisted man with a Hammerhead ball cap on for the next year. The wore their dog dishes, ‘Navy’ ball caps, or ball caps from other boats. They then had a flood, a radioactive leak and a collision. There is a reason sailors tend to be superstitious. Some boats are cursed.
16 posted on 07/07/2009 5:00:44 PM PDT by Pan_Yan (All gray areas are fabrications.)
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To: naturalman1975

Now, without these comments intended to fuel the fires over “gays” in the military, my sense of it believes that before women were common aboard ship, this sort of thing, in a different manner, was not totally absent among some members of the all male fleet, and, at that time, no was “shocked” to the point of wanting to make a public stink about it (what happened in the Navy stayed in the Navy?).

And that is what really gets me now - how, why, on what hypocritical, ignorant, foolish basis is any one in command “shocked”?

We can be morally “shocked” either way. But as far as the institution goes, for it to be shocked can only mean too many in command walk around, intentionally, with blinders on until a crisis publicly reveals that’s what their doing; and until the crisis abates and they go back to doing it. We can argue whether or not wearing the blinders temporarily, or even ultimately, aids morale; I just think that no matter what the institutional “shock” is a farce.


17 posted on 07/07/2009 5:06:07 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Jacquerie
A clear front runner for stupidest post of the day.

"Rum, buggery, and the lash."
18 posted on 07/07/2009 8:17:34 PM PDT by Tailback
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To: AndrewB

She’s a MAN BABY!


19 posted on 07/07/2009 8:20:14 PM PDT by Tailback
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To: Tailback

Knowing Commander Daetz, she’d probably take that as a compliment. She’s spent her career breaking the gender barriers - first woman to command an RAN ship among other things and worthy of respect.


20 posted on 07/07/2009 8:47:39 PM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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