As the military tries to find its balance about soldiers’ internet use, I wonder what effect it’s having on romance, marriage, sex. I hope those lovers are still able to reach across distance and be together as much as it’s possible to do — email, IM, webcam, Skype, teledildonics — probably too much to hope for that the soldiers have the bandwidth for 3-D worlds …
I sense a future column on this topic … thanks W for the insight!
1 response so far ↓
1 LarrySDonald // May 16, 2007 at 11:32 am
I was once called in to fix up a pcmcia card for a guy just heading over to Iraq just as the proverbial excrement was hitting the fan over there. I ended up sorting out her families networking as well and generally giving the geek treatment as anyone might putting our healing hands on the keyboard. Almost as an afterthought, I mentioned some of my IM ids, saying if they’d like whatever is current including the more NSFW variety, give a yell. This was right at the start and they did indeed yell, but only for about a year before it was “too monitored, I think we gotta stop”.
This is crazy IMO. I’m not that gungho about having people fighting in the first place, but if you do morale is key. Access to unlimited porn, cam to home in private, virtual worlds, pros, etc is the bargain of all bargains in boosting morale and it’s restricted for the similar word with the last e replaced with an s. There is a whole culture of thinking “real” soldiers should be able to cope without sex, good food, alcohol, movies, etc. This may be good practice at home, but providing all of them, sex in particular, makes things flow an awful lot smoother and troops perform an awful lot better, longer and with less complaint. There is a big difference between coming back from a hard mission to a pair of big macs and a cam session with your sweetheart or a bit of porn then to come back to yet another MRE and perhaps a quick jack in the bushes hoping no one notices. Lots of morale boost per cost to be had for sure.