Wars and Lechery

Part of the genesis of this post was a leftover image from the "Philippine Sea" writeup. I went looking for "WW2 Imperial Navy poster" and found this:

Which I thought was perfect; ships, flags, pretty pin-up girl...there you have your basic "Join the Navy, see the world and get laid" appeal that had probably been a central feature of every recruiter's spiel since the first Sumerian sergeant told lies to a bunch of dumb hicks straight off the farm.

The thing is...one of the other images Google showed me was this one:

Wrong country, right period, but...damn. Talk about a different way of looking at the whole "guns/girls" thing.

I find it hard to believe that even in 1944 an 18-year-old Japanese kid, male or female, had instincts much different than an American teenager. Different manners and mores, yes, but the hormones? Right in there pitching. Look at a picture of a pretty girl? He's thinking "I'd like to get next to that..." (and she's probably thinking "I'd like to be that so he will want to get next to me...").

But the WAVE practically radiates sex - she's a Petty pin-up, y'think..? - as opposed to the very G-rated patriotic Japanese gal in the IJN poster. No wonder so many other cultures think we're obsessed with our genitals.

Not that I think we really are - I think ALL humans spend tons of time thinking about putting Tab A into Slot B. Americans are just more upfront about it and it seems were were seventy years ago, too.

Mind you, the Japanese appear to have made up for lost time:

And that's pretty mild compared to the whole "tentacle rape" thing.

But that's a whole 'nother story.

Good Golly, Miss Molly

I wanted to mention the strange saga of Theresa Vail, Miss Kansas 2014, since I ran across it doing the "Miss America" post below.

Apparently one of the reactions to the Indian-American winner was from one "Todd Starnes", some sort of FOX radio shouter. One of the things he was honked off about was that “the liberal Miss America judges were not interested in a gun-toting, deer-hunting, military veteran.”, that is, Miss-Kansas-Vail.

And I have to say this; I loves me some SGT Vail for what has to be the nut graf of the 2014 Miss America competition, an explanation of why she had to sing some opera for her talent rather than her first choice; archery. "I'm singing by default..." she said, "...because there is a clause against projectile objects."

Yessss, Vail for the win..!

Other fun things I learned about the young woman from the Sunflower State:

I love the fact that Theresa is like a real-life Hermie the Gay Elf; her dream is to be a dentist. Okay, a U.S. Army orthodontist, but still...and she has a tatt on one shoulder of...wait for it...the Dental branch insignia.

(Now I may be prejudiced - probably because the dental tech who did my exit exam-and-cleaning at Gorgas Army Hospital in Panama turned the microwave dental-pick thingie up to "deep fat fry" and jangled every tooth-nerve so badly I nearly came out of the chair; she ended up finishing with a metal pick - but...DENTAC? I mean, the U.S. Army Dental Corps doesn't jump to mind when I think of the honor roll of military glory. But, hey, you go, sarge...)

And that's not her only tatt. She's the gal in the swimsuit photo from the Miss America article and you can see that she has that Reinhold Niebuhr "Serenity Prayer" inked down her right side:

I gotta tell you; the mere thought of letting some character with a needle stab that much ink into a place where I can barely stand to be tickled? Eeegah. You may wear too much eye makeup with your fatigues, SGT Vail, but you are harder-core than I will ever be.

Still. I keep coming back to the notion of Miss Kansas as the "real American" because she's a gun-totin', deer-huntin' troopie.

So I looked it up.

The number of U.S. women serving in the U.S. Army as of 2012: 76,694.

The approximate number of women in U.S of military age (between 18 and 49): 71,941,969

So the percentage of women capable of serving that are actually serving in the U.S. Army?

0.001066 or about 0.107% of the potential soldiers in the U.S. female population.

Assuming 53 contestants (50 states plus DC, PR, and USVI) the actual representative number of female soldiers in the Miss America pageant would have been a little more than half a person - 53/100ths of a woman.

So, no. SGT Vail is NOT the real "Miss America", who is probably a community college sophomore in Des Moines.

Whatever.

One last thing before I go.

Our new Miss America got in a little bit of trouble because she, or one of her pals, was caught calling Miss America 2013 "fat as shit". Now I wasn't kidding when I called MA 2013 "queenly"; on the television Sunday Ms. Hagan filled out her white gown quite nicely.

But...fat? You make the call - here she is with a pal of hers in Hawaii this spring; Miss America is on the left in the black bikini:

Fat?

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Except...by the standards of the Misses America, the standards that all the women that were up there doing the bachelorette-party-dance on Sunday night seemed to be held to, the standards of Hollywood glamor and fashion photography and diet schemes and Barbies...well...maybe that is fat.

And that seems to me immensely sad.

I like you, but not That Way

Syrbal posted something the other day that got me thinking about this.

Isn't it odd how many of my gender seem to have a problem making friends with women?

If mean, I get that us het guys want to get into your pants. We're like that from about the time our testicles descend until about five minutes after clinical death. Most of us. Fortunately for everyone concerned most of us learn early on that shoving our noses in your crotch like a demented Pekinese is both counterproductive for the Fleshly-congress Project and demeaning for everyone involved, so we stop. The few that persist, well...there are still prisons, or Catholic parishes, enough for them, I suppose.

The thing that has always seemed rather strange to me, though, is how many guys seem to have a problem with the idea of seeing a woman (or women in general) as "someone-which-I-like-and-enjoy-being-around-but-whom-I-do-not-fuck". Like I say; I get that we want to have sex with you. But what seems to me both silly and wasteful is the notion that we only want to have sex with you.



As Syrbal notes in her post, this sort of "woman-as-animatronic-love-doll" thing is especially noticeable in the armed services. I saw the same thing she did; a LOT of the guys I knew who were the typical sorts of guys in the services saw women in general as a sort of life-support system for a vagina. Most of my buddies in the service didn’t have female friends; they had women they fucked (or, more charitably, girlfriends and wives), and their male pals.

A lot of them didn’t seem like they LIKED their wives and girlfriends a whole lot; they didn’t do things with them all that much other than things they had to do – kid-care stuff, household things.

That seems...well, sort of foolish. I typically like women, both as individuals and as a gender. There are women who are assholes just as there are men who are assholes, but there are as many likeable women out there as men and they enjoy the additional facet of being not-men; they have a perspective on life that I lack and that is valuable and interesting in and of itself.

One of the things that makes my bride so delightful is that she has all sorts of enjoyments and interests and I share many of them. One of my deepest regrets is that my deteriorating hip makes it impossible for us to exercise together; that was always a great pleasure. She never looked half so strong and beautiful as when she was whipping my ass on the squash court.

Yet there seems to be a ridiculously large number of my fellow guys out there who have a hard time with the idea that a woman can be a pal, or a comrade, or a co-worker, or a boss, or just a friend or acquaintance or someone who shares something with you; a burning hatred of conservative politics, say, or a love of soccer or Star Wars or birding or roller derby.



So it seems that not seeking out or having women friends makes our guy lives less pleasant and less interesting. And I don't get it. Why the hell should that be? Guys, any idea? Gals, any suspicions? What's the deal with this?

From The Forehead of Zeus

I want to invite everyone here to visit our friend Labrys for a trip in the U.S. Army M7TARDIS to Ft. Maclellan, Alabama for Women's Army Corps Basic Training, 1974.

"I hate running, I hate hot weather. So how on earth did I end up in Women's Army Corps Basic Training in Ft. McClellan, Alabama in August of 1974? I would have done most anything to get the hell out of Kansas. My father laughed and said "So my little girl is joining the Whore Corps."

As much as there is very little that remains of the Army I knew, Labrys brings to life an Army that literally no longer exists except in memory, and does it with her usual frank brilliance.

I can't recommend her post too highly, both for her subject as well as her writing. What better way to begin the Memorial Day remembrance? Go; read. You won't regret it.

And don't forget to ask her to keep going - she remembers another place and time that have almost vanished; the U.S. Army, Europe in the Seventies, and the Bavarian glories of Flint Kaserne. Hoch, hoch, Labrys!