My first reaction was that life continues to be unfair and women simply should never allow themselves to get drunk and fall on someone's couch after a night of drinking; and that the accused was also drunk and acting with diminished responsibility.
My second thought was that my thinking is old-fashioned; and that if the two buddies out drinking had both been males and one had tried to digitally penetrate the other after a night of drinking, it would properly be viewed as a sexual assault. (This is one of the cases questioned above in which there was no DNA evidence because there was no ejacultion.)
Thirdly, good order demands that everyone in the service have equal justice; and if a woman was subjected to an unwanted sexual penetration, it is a crime against the person and should be reported and prosecuted. Any person, male or female, who is raped or sexually assaulted and the accused is found guilty, should have access to justice and should be reinstated without the negative "whistleblower" treatment.
However, as the parent of a son, I again question the entire premise that men and women should serve together in the military in extremely high-stress occupations involving extreme risk-taking personalities and where lives are on the line. In high-stress occupations such as this case, fighter pilots, a certain percentage of sexual misconduct is inevitable, and dealing with it is a huge waste of taxpayer investment.
On the other hand, various civilian occupations such as ER medicine or surgery, publishing (deadlines, deadlines!), show business, police work, etc often involve the same kind of stress, with similarly high risk-taking personalities involved; and the stories of sexual involvement in those fields are also frequent.
So I have come back around to the practical precaution women should take of not getting drunk with workmates. Life really isn't fair; and few of us would want males to be so completely gelded that a night of drinking would never, ever, ever lead to sexual fumbling around. I does not seem fair to me that sexual groping when both parties are drunk should end a guy's career. Serial offenders, coercive offenders, violent rapists — sure, get rid of them. But make the effort to weed them out before they become senior officers or the recipients of highly expensive training and experience.
Or without any evidence...
These cases all boil down to “he say/she say” where men are treated as guilty until proven innocent...
I am reminded of the Leftist mantra: “It’s not the facts of the case, it’s the seriousness of the charge”.
FAR too often, women use sexual “assault” as a weapon of advancement, agenda support, or plain simple hatred of men. Having seen it during my decades of military life, the only defense we had was avoid all contact with females - ALL contact, even during the course of duty; you spoke only to the guys to get things done, and only spoke to the girls if there was no way out of it.
Now of course, that practice was only done by the older greybeards like myself. The young guys too often let the little head take over for the big head. Even downrange in Iraq, there were “love shacks” springing up where trysts between the hormonally-challenged would meet and greet.
I remain unconvinced that sexual predation is the norm in these cases. Too often have I seen (and sat on boards) that it’s simply a case of gender politics. I am NOT saying that real assault never happens (I’ve sat on boards for that, too) - but womens’ motives aren’t so pure, either.
If it was followed by a punch-out.
I was in the military for 11 years before the birth of my second child at which time I threw in the towel. Never was I preyed upon, drunk and sloppy or in any danger. The others were perfect gentlemen.
I don’t know what happens, what goes on.
Part of the problem is the military not addressing what you have just said. They want every body to be buddies. that does not work between the sexes because of biology.
If a couple of normal guys go out drinking they are not going to be sexually interested in each other. Not so with a mixed group of men/women or homosexuals.