Four sailors, male sailors I should specify, have earnt the ire of the Navy and no less than Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard for trying to do the right thing by as many female sailors as possible. They've been sent home from HMAS Success in Singapore and are to be dealt with, so the Navy chiefs say, "swiftly and decisively". Castration?
There's nothing new about young fellows trying to bed, to use the word that has been favoured in reports about this matter, as many women as possible, although you might doubt that this is still the case as you look about you in Sydney at the salons and botox boutiques full of preening, pouting prancers.
There's nothing new, either, about young fellows making a contest of it, as these four young Navy sailors did. It seems that they assigned a dollar value to the various women on board their ship, in much the same way that the kudos varies for women everywhere, and that the most dollars went on female officers and lesbians, as you'd expect. The deal was, of course, to score as much as possible, and records were kept in a book called The Ledger. Could be the title of a great movie or mini series, eh!
As I write in my column in The Herald today, we had a few contests in my salad and single days. There was the first to score on the night, the race to a certain number for the month, the oldest, around the world, the old mother-daughter ... . Beer and status were always the winner's reward.
So what's the problem? Julia Gillard has urged that action be taken against the men she described as the perpetrators, the risk being, she says, that women may be deterred from seeking a Navy career. Might it be that such women would be worried they'd be willing to be bedded by a sailor?
Is it that the men are assumed to have led the female sailors to expect a relationship? Geez, men have been leading women into bed on the suggestion of a relationship for years, and one of the best ways to do this is to take them by the hand!
Is it that the men made a contest of it? Just as, I've pointed out, men have done so for eons. Hey, on their good days I associate with a number of society's male pillars who have what they call the 3G challenge, to bed three generations. Three generations of the one family is as treasured as poker's royal flush. Man must have a goal.
Would four women sailors have been sent home to Ms Gillard's fury if they'd been seducing as many men as possible? As many women as possible? Indeed, would the four male sailors have been sent home if they'd been giving the benefit of their manhood to as many other male sailors has possible?
Why is it that when we talk sex we talk men doing the sex, not women? Will the women who were an equal part of the sexual encounters on the HMAS Success be sent home for a swift and decisive and almost certainly sticky end?
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