THE FEW, THE PROUD, THE PORN STARS

Breaking scandal in today’s Los Angeles Times about a bunch of marines earning extra money by appearing in porn videos and magazines, catering mainly to gay men. Posing naked is a criminal offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Top brass are hyper-ventilating. Not a huge scandal to my mind. Soldiers have always misbehaved. But what’s interesting to me is the light it sheds on the military’s alleged fear of homosexuals. These guys are happy to pose naked in front of cameras for anonymous gay guys’ pleasure but are freaked if someone openly gay is in the same unit. Can we say: cognitive dissonance? The truth is most servicemembers are not scared of other servicemembers’ sexual attraction, as long as it doesn’t get expressed on duty. These guys aren’t afraid of Saddam Hussein. You think they can’t function because a gay guy is in the bunk below? Not in a million years. The military gay ban, abandoned in every other NATO country bar Turkey without the slightest effect on morale or competence, is hanging by the thread of its own incoherence in the U.S. military. Pity it takes marines posing in gay porn to make this more than obvious.