by Christopher Stone

Created on: February 07, 2010   Last Updated: February 08, 2010

As a former marine, I experienced a situation unlike any situation I had ever dealt with before and I feel I must tell it now.

I served during the time when don't ask don't tell was accepted by most everyone and the policy was not a big issue at the time.

One night at Parris Island, South Carolina, I was taking a shower after a long day of drill when I was approached by another recruit and after talking a short while this recruit bluntly made a pass at me. Now everyone must understand that the pass that was made did not hurt me in any way and the recruit did not violate my space,  however I became very uncomfortable shortly after turning him down explaining that I was heterosexual and had no interest in a same sex relationship.

I began to think about how I had felt prior to the incident and I felt privacy had been violated the same as a woman's privacy would be invaded if she were propositioned by a man while she and the man were both naked. I must believe the whole situation would not have bothered  me  had  I  not  been naked.  What is the reason behind his and hers showers in the marines? the answer to this question is not so simple as "one is a man and one is a woman", it is a answer of sexuality.

 I know there are many people who say "well there are gay people in the service and you likely have been naked in the showers with some before" this is most likely true I do not disagree, however I was not aware of it at the time and therefore my feeling's were protected.

There is a part of this true incident that I cannot go into because of the nature of man. all I will say is we as humans all know what happens to a male when he is excited about sex and this also happened during the incident, which made the whole thing worse.

I am not sure if I handled the incident correctly or not, but from that point on I felt uneasy in the showers when I should have felt quite okay,

The recruit that propositioned me turned out to be a good marine, and there were no more incidents, though I found myself making sure I was not in the shower with him again to avoid any further incidents.

Civilians do not understand military life, in the military one is told when, where,  how, and what to do all the time. meaning that a person in the military does not have the choice to bath in private as civilians do. I would like to know if those people saying we should have open sexuality in the military were in the same situation as military personnel would feel the same about open sexuality,

If sexuality should be open in the military  then why not have men, women, and gay personel all shower and bathe together? as I said before the reason the military has both men and women facilities is because of sexuality.

I would agree to have open sexuality in the military if each group was not forced to do the most intimate of things with each other, I mean lets face it , you have never and will likely never see a man and a woman pinned down in a foxhole, or removing their clothes and sleeping together to survive, so why should we force heterosexual people to cross that line with homosexual people

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