Late last week, Trump got digitally curb-stomped for a tweet he had posted in 2013 regarding sexual assault in the military. The Republican presidential nominee wrote, “26,000 unreported [sic] sexual assault in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?”
When confronted about the tweet during an interview with NBC, Trump stood by his words and the avalanche of commenters decimated Twitter into rubble.
About three years ago, the Pentagon reported a 43 per cent increase in sexual assaults. This meant that from 2012 to 2013, female soldiers were 15 times more likely to be raped by a comrade then killed in battle. People were offended by Trump’s statement, because the understood implication is that Trump is blaming women for the increase in sexual assaults. Even a whiff of victim blaming is a felony here in the court of public opinion.
Trump is a controversial, button-pushing egomaniac, but I believe in free speech more than his orange glow, so tweet on, Donald. Plus, he might have a point here: the American military isn’t ready to be co-ed.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Hear me out.
I’m following this election religiously. Considering I can’t legally vote for another few years, this seems kind of pointless, but I’m just preparing myself. It’s called assimilation. I asked for a handgun for Christmas. I even drive like an asshole now!
Trump is a hype man. He can rile a crowd like Kurt Angle dominating the ring during the Ultimate SmackDown. He’s also a bit of a psychopath, and a uniquely American one at that.
He rambles. He flies off the cuff. It’s part of his so-called charm, but it often leaves him misunderstood. In a very specific way, I can kind of relate. I am not good at speaking on the spot. I prefer to find the right words with writing. Trump’s ego won’t give him a minute to second-guess himself. When you are a megalomaniac, the world should always just know what you mean. And they are the stupid ones if they fail to see your point.
I know I’m going to sound a little Ann Coulter here, but in defense of Trump’s statement, he is not blaming women for the injustices they have suffered in the military. He is pointing out the barbarity in human nature.
I knew this guy who served in Iraq. Let’s call him Devon. He was there a long, long time. During one tour, he remembers a female psychologist being flown in to help some of the soldiers with mental issues and conduct general evaluations. Devon was one of the soldiers who had to meet the psychologist at her helicopter and escort her to base. When the plane landed, he said this overwhelming animalistic feeling swept over.
“When she stepped off the helicopter, it was like we could smell female,” he said. “It was wild. It had been so long and we could all feel her presence. It was basic, like hunger.”
Devon and his comrades had been taught by their mothers, sisters and society at large, that sexual assault and rape are wrong. They were nothing but gentleman to this psychologist, but that week, they were fighting their primal senses harder than they fought the Iraqis.
“Rape is a sexual expression of the will-to-power, which nature plants in all of us and which civilization rose to contain,” wrote Camille Paglia in Sexual Personne. “Therefore the rapist is a man with too little socialization rather than too much. World-wide evidence is overwhelming that whenever social controls are weakened, as in war or mob rule, even civilized men behave in uncivilized ways, among which is the barbarity of rape.”
There’s this bird called the great-tailed grackle that is native to Texas. Last March, my band and I were sitting with a reporter doing an interview when I saw a female fly down and perch next to us. Suddenly, a larger male grackle swooped down and mounted her, trying to hump the bird. The female screeched, struggled and flew off. The male waited for a moment before flying to the next female and trying his hand at rape once again.
Contrary to what some might think, society has not harmed us women, but has in fact helped. Society is what allowed us to gain intellectual and economic power. Capitalism helped create the modern independent woman and gave her choices. The primal and basic evolutionary realities of life are what have been our greatest hurdle. To quote Paglia, “Sex can not be understood because nature can not be understood.”
Animalistic urges exist within all of us, and societies that do a good job of instilling values that force us to question these urges are invariably safer places. If a society has done a poor job of instilling a basic respect for women, if it celebrates aggression and violence and mocks empathy, well guess what? That’s not a place you’re going to want to hang out at 3am on a Saturday night.
The high rate of sexual assaults in the American military suggests there is something deeply wrong with the values of the society that created its members. The military is a cross-section of American society after all, and the pressure and stress soldiers endure only exacerbates any underlying societal defects. It is a microcosm of America itself, with its flaws amplified by the horrific nature of war.
Globally, the US ranks 14 in world with 27.3 rapes per 100,000, according to the UN’s crime stats. Canada is way down the list at No. 97 with 1.7 rapes per 100,000.
It would be nice if women could serve alongside men in the American military, but clearly America isn’t there yet and I don’t think we will be for a long time. (I suggest watching The Invisible War, an award-winning documentary about the aftermath of brutal sexual assault cases in the US military.) Trump wasn’t passing the fault onto women and saying they should get out of the military and go back to the kitchen. By saying women are at higher risk, he was nodding to Mother Nature, pointing his tiny orange hand at the great-tailed grackle and saying, “We have risen above this behaviour, but never forget, that is what we came from.”
