He takes direct aim at General Merrill McPeak, who opposed the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in a New York Times Op-Ed. Rudnick, taking the point of view of a secretly gay soldier, makes the satirical argument that all the pent-up paranoia and sexual tension from keeping it under wraps turns him into an absolute killing machine. In a homoerotic passage that must be intended to make McPeak as uncomfortable as possible if he reads the piece, Rudnick says before he goes into battle he pictures himself "rubbing sunblock all over the luscious, leathery hide of General McPeak, and the adrenaline rockets through my veins, and by the time I leave the Green Zone I’m ready to kill anything that moves, and then make savage, passionate love to its corpse. I’m at what I like to call my sensual, combat-ready McPeak."
Rudnick later writes that he is afraid if he is allowed to serve openly, he will lose that frantic intensity, because the biggest excitement he'll have is deciding to paint his and his partner's apartment cerulean.
He also goes after the traditional "unit cohesion" argument, again launching into an absurd homoerotic binge: "I live for unit cohesion. Just the sound of the words makes me tingle with manly aggression. Whenever I see my unit, or anyone’s unit, all I want to do is cohere. I embrace my unit, with both hands, and I draw it to me, again and again, in a vigorous manly embrace..."
In the end, Rudnick proposes that the manliest war of all would be in the original Olympic style - all-male, completely naked. Women, like open-gay males "should stay home, while we defend them."
Rudnick is seeking to demonstrate the absurdity of the philosophy behind Don't Ask Don't Tell by exaggerating the fears of its proponents. Some people probably do believe that gay men have no control over their sexual desires and literally would resort to necrophilia simply to satisfy themselves. They think that straight men could not serve with gay men because the gay men would always be trying to "cohere" a little too closely (when in fact, wouldn't a gay man in love with his fellow soldier be more likely to make the kind of sacrifice we always praise?). They think that because gay men are stereotyped as liking musicals, they cannot be capable soldiers.
Yet somehow, women are allowed to serve in the military, with straight men. Shouldn't those women be afraid of being raped by a straight soldier even more than a straight soldier being raped by a gay one? The whole intellectual exercise is ridiculous.
The fact is that soldiers having to keep their sexuality a secret are not better soldiers because of the pent-up intensity. They have to carry that extra burden on top of all the other sacrifices they are asked to make.
And if all the homoeroticism makes General McPeak uncomfortable? Well, he asked for it.
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