In a rant published in The Daily Caller, Joe Rehyansky, a former District Attorney and member of the US Army, advocated for what amounts to corrective rape for lesbians in the military. You see, John Rehyansky is bored. Not only is he bored with his inability to remember the men he showered with in Vietnam because he wasn’t planning to sleep with them, he’s bored with “20 years of political blather about gays in the military.” That isn’t going to stop him from publishing though, because he’s solved everything: “Lesbians should be allowed to serve, gay men […] should not.”
His logic goes like this: gay men are turned on by the sight of other men and that is super gross — have you seen the Internet? So, gay men should not be allowed in the military.
With the gay men out of the way, then, the remaining straight dudes would have a shot at converting all the lesbians.
Here are only a few of the exciting, ground-breaking, nausea-inducing statements Rehyansky makes:
On sex: “Men by nature are more promiscuous than women.”
On gender essentialism: “It fell to men to swing through the trees and scour the caves in search of as many women as possible to subdue and impregnate — a tough job but someone had to do it.”
On consent: “How our ancient foremothers ever managed to establish any choice in the matter is utterly beyond me when one considers that they did not have access to Mace, police whistles, Lady Smith .38s, or domestic violence hotlines.”
On girl-on-girl: “Lesbians do not face the same pressures as straight women to “put out” for men. They therefore tend to develop long-term, monogamous, stable, and even permanent relationships.”
On gay men and legitimate science: “The unrefuted 1978 study by Bell and Weinberg indicated that 43% of gays had sex with 500 or more partners, and 28% had 1,000 or more partners.”
On AIDS: “Gays spread disease at a rate out of all proportion to their numbers in our population and should be excluded from the military.”
On demographics: “The percentage of gays in our male population is between 1% and 6%. […]The percentage of lesbians is estimated to be between 0.5% and 3%.” His excuse for the results of the Kinsey study that suggested 10% of the population was gay? “Most able-bodied American male heterosexuals were elsewhere, serving [in WWII].”
On careers for lesbians: “It is an open secret that they do well in the [military], especially in medical and administrative specialties.”
He concludes with a shower scene, suggesting that since men are turned on by “visual stimuli,” straight men should be “spared the indignity” of showering with gay men, just in case. But rather than leaving it at straightforward homophobia, Rehyansky suggests that if the Constitution guarantees access to abortions, it should “prevent unwilling heterosexual men from providing beefcake parades without their informed consent.”
Consent is a particularly interesting word choice, all things considered. According to Amanda Hess on TBD, The Daily Caller removed the article shortly after publication, and then republished it without the final paragraph, which read:
“My solution would get the distaff part of our homosexual population off our collective ‘Broke Back,’ thus giving straight male GIs a fair shot at converting lesbians and bringing them into the mainstream.”
As Hess notes, he actually said this.
What Rehyansky’s “argument” does, then, is take basically every idea anyone’s ever had about f*ucking lesbians straight whether or not they want it (answer: they don’t), combine that with a few comments about how gay men are disease-ridden and can’t control themselves while all lesbians have happy (but tragically penis-less) relationships and, as women, excel at administrative tasks, and pour the results into a grammatical wormhole with a homophobia meter set on blast. I am not sure why he wrote this. I am not sure why The Daily Caller published it. I can only assume they are planning to launch a campaign to have “conservative” and “asshole” appear as synonyms in the thesaurus. In any case, the result is laughably offensive.
what the fuck.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
brb, when my head stops exploding.
WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT EVEN.
again…. what the fuck !
When he talks about “the sight of those lithe naked bodies” do you think Mr. Rehyansky is sharing a treasured memory?
That was my thought, too. Like, I wouldn’t use the phrase “lithe naked bodies” to describe naked bodies I am TOTALLY NOT interested in looking at. Just saying.
THIS. Karofsky syndrome alert! Somebody’s deflecting.
I love that this is a name for that thing.
I prefer to call it Ted Haggard Syndrome. It implies bathroom stalls and Gigolos, which makes everything more fun.
Not gonna lie, that line caught my eye as well…It made me think “wow that’s a really…descriptive way to describe a situation that disgusts you”.
umm…..ok then. that was. interesting?
Sadly, this man is from my hometown. He actually got fired from his job as a part time magistrate in April for inappropriate comments to a female inmate during a bond hearing.
Here’s the article about the sexual harassment case:
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_172480.asp
That’s it, I’m building a fort and not coming out until the stupid goes away. Everyone is invited. Bring pillows/blankets.
I’ll bring chocolate too. That should help.
I’ll bring liquor and beer. Somebody should probably bring food too. At this rate, we may be in there a long time.
I can be in charge of the food.! ‘Cause this is B.S.
Autostraddle goddesses, take note of this. There is a serious tendency to propose hunkerings down/sleepovers/slumber-parties/apocalyse bunkers in the comments.
OPEN THREAD TIME?!
i think we’re all sleepy and feel drawn to pajamas
How about International Have an Autostraddle Sleepover Day?
GREAT. another event i can’t participate in (yet).
I wasn’t able to participate in Meet an Autostraddler either, but still, it’s nice for people who can. I try to pretend that makes me feel less disappointed. :/
you are a better person
YES. This needs to happen.
I blame our innate lesbian camping urges.
i’ll bring buffy dvds!
It took reading this for me to fully get how crazy not allowing gays in the military is. I thought it was awful before, but he really highlights the insanity of it all (this reads like bad sci-fi). I feel like I just had some sort of mini-epiphany. Is this his implicit point? Some kind of reverse psychology to get us to support gay rights? I really hope so, because the only remaining option if not is that he has lost his marbles.
What in fucking hell? Where did he even come up with this shit? I can’t even…
My brain just threw up. Ughhhhhh, why do these people get platforms to speak from? It’s shit like this that makes one rethink the whole lesbian separatist thing.
Its like that video of the monkey scratching its but then smelling its fingers and falling off the branch… its a reminder of how we evolved, first we were like that guy, then we unevolved into monkeys, then we evolved into us. Either that or we just watch because its funny.
I think you’re giving this guy more credit than he deserves. I think he’s what the money is smelling on his finger.
*monkey
okay now : there was a lot of crazy-ass-exactly-what-the-fuck-was….who-the-fuck-is-this-guy-holy-shit-must-listen-to-PINK!-full-fucking-blast-until-my-ears-bleed-and-stomp-around-my-apartment-in-my-actually-worn-for-real-combat-boots-until………
wait a minute, us girls can still shower together though, right?
duh, lesbian sex isnt real amirite. and i like how straight women arent endangered by “predatorial” lesbians. lolz. i guess its because were too busy avoiding being impregnated by neanderthals we dont have time fo nunna dat
all i know is that this dude has never seen my girlfriend checking me out. now SHE’S predatory…
& I just read he says “Parent Nature” in the article. LIKE USING AWKWARDLY ALTERED GENDER-EQUAL PHRASES WILL GRANT YOU FORGIVENESS. Soz, rant over.
I think this guy, that lady who did witch craft in highschool and Sarah Palin should all get together and have a stupid off (like a dance off only we give them a topic and who ever comes up with the most idiotic or irrelevant statement wins).
This. Except that I don’t know if it would be entertaining as much as scary…
He makes me think of Joseph McCarthy for some reason…
If this man wants to implicitly compare himself to Jonathan Swift and/or start making outrageous claims about our human ancestors, he should probably start reading actual books.
I’d recommend “Sex, Time, and Power” by Leonard Shlain, M.D. In it, the author proposes that female sexuality is indeed among the most powerful forces on the planet, so powerful, in fact, that our foremothers were the first sentient beings to conceive of the concept of time due to making the connection between their cycles and pregnancy terms and the moon phases, thus expanding our consciousness from “present” to “future” and “past.” And also that we only allowed men to have sex with us because they brought home meat and therefore iron from the hunt, a crucial, life-critical element that we bled out every month. I.e. women had the original control and men have been desperately trying to get it back ever since. Good read.
The “men were out hunting and gathering”?? Hello, the men hunted, the women gathered, idiot.
People like this don’t believe in “human ancestors” prior to Adam and Eve. Acknowledging anything B.C. means accepting a world not ruled by patriarchy.
I’m definitely adding your read to my list. One of my favorites is “When God Was a Woman” by Merlin Stone.
It really WOULD be unacceptable if people starting viewing men as SEX OBJECTS. There would be no one left to say inappropriate things about women!
Just to reiterate: What the Fuck!?
It’s clear that Joe Rehyansky didn’t just fall out of the Stupid Tree..he also hit EVERY branch on the way down!
Chiming in with another “what the fuck?”
They are seriously suggesting that 28% of 1 to 6 % of males had had sex with more than 1000 people. That means saying 0.5% of the population had sex with 500% of the population right. How can you have 500% of anything anyways?? Ohh wait, that just means everybody would have to had had sex with 5 gay men in their life to make this statistic possible. Lesbians (and douchebags aka the guy that said that) included.
math-five!
Yes! Or….it COULD mean that all those straight guys are fucking dudes too! Woah!
“They are seriously suggesting that 28% of 1 to 6 % of males had had sex with more than 1000 people. That means saying 0.5% of the population had sex with 500% of the population right.”
Not unless the population of the US at that time was 200 people. I admire your fortitude and agree that the very idea is ridiculous. BUT the population of the US was around 223 million. 1 percent of that is still 2 million people; 6 percent of that is 12 million people. One-third of those people is between 666k and 4 million people – the latter figure is the population of my whole country. Even assuming that the 28% of people who supposedly had sex with 1000 other people were all having sex with each other and never anyone from the other 72%, in a population size of 4 million it is sort of doable.
But it’s ridiculous to think that it was in many people’s actual means to do this even if they wanted to. 1000 people is 2 different partners a week for 10 years, no repeats and only christmas and thanksgiving weeks off. Spread those 4 million people out over the whole of the USA and you’re looking at someone working up some serious air miles to collect their 1000, even if you give them a starting point somewhere like NYC.
My point here is, it’s conceivable that people could do this, but it’s inconceivable that 28% of gay men actually did. (TO ME. I wasn’t alive in 1978.) Possibly if like, 28% of people in your survey were, like, 22, and going through a seriously non-dry spell, and then you like averaged it out – just assumed that they were going to have sex with, say, one different person a week for twenty years, instead of actually asking them. But I’m not here to figure out other people’s screwed up methodology, so.
Haha, I know my math is wrong at considering a population of 100 people, but since I was too lazy to look up the actual population of the US, I intended the math as a joke. But still, I don’t believe there is any way to make those numbers work except by, as you mentioned, travelling the country back and forth. (considering people have some kind of judgement when it come to sex)
Considering people will just sleep with everyone they meet, it works just fine : If we take a city with 1 000 000 people, 5000 males would have had to have have sex with more then 1000 people (which kinda make the number possible right there, since the number theoretical of sexaolics is greater then the numbers of their imaginary partners.) But the time limit:
“1000 people is 2 different partners a week for 10 years”
Is the most ridiculous part of that statistic.
So, either someone made this study up, or men have a tendency of overestimating.
Another things that bugs me is the “1 to 6 percent” do they mean the result of the study showed a 3% of gayness with an error margin of 3% (19 times on 20) or that they just guessed it??
“But the time limit:
“1000 people is 2 different partners a week for 10 years”
Is the most ridiculous part of that statistic.
So, either someone made this study up, or men have a tendency of overestimating.”
Yeah, I agree – I can see how you could keep that up for maybe a year, if you were really committed, but after that … no. On the other hand, what I should have said in my original comment is that it’s all very well to come up with stats about numbers of people gay men slept with, but it kind of is useless if you’re not willing to look at *why*? Even assuming that the statistic is false but represents a grain of truth – a small percentage of gay men were having a lot of casual sex but no relationships – it’s just so frustrating that these things never bother to say “maybe because society at the time wouldn’t tolerate two men together so people weren’t too keen on relationships.” well w/e, assholes, I guess.
“Another things that bugs me is the “1 to 6 percent” do they mean the result of the study showed a 3% of gayness with an error margin of 3% (19 times on 20) or that they just guessed it??”
Good question! I could go look the study up, but then I think I’d have spent 300% more time than this deserves (although since this thing deserves none of my time and I already gave it some, that’s already true. Sort of. damn that zero.)
Anyone else feel like screaming into a pillow?
LOL. Is it bad that my only reaction was laughter? I mean this “article” is just so absolutely asinine, it’s unreal.
This can’t be real.
I feel like David after dentist.
Someone needs to introduce something besides church pamphlets to this guy. Thank you for spotlighting November’s Fool. Can’t wait to see who December is going to be.
I’m too baffled by this man’s idiocy to be offended/angry/sad. Also, Pink is on the radio.
I guess I don’t have to say it, but this really pissed me off! Heck, he’s living proof that people who talk more know less. Whatever cr@p he’s saying is probably due to some unresolved childhood issues. I guess I should pity him, we all should. NO H8 ladies and gents.. xoxoxoxoxo
Typical of a man. Conquer what’s not yours, a penis is all it takes. Obviously we (actually: they!) haven’t made it very far from the caves.
Hold on. This is the kind of stuff we get accused of doing all the time. Let’s not fall into that man-hating trap.
There are some men who think like this, yes. But to claim that it’s all of them, or even the majority? I’m skeptical.
What is this I don’t even
43% of gays have 500+ partners??? I am SO. FAR. BEHIND.
(That’s what everyone’s freaking out about in this otherwise balanced, well-researched, unoffensive, and completely not at all scary in its portrayal of rape as our natural state article, right?)
Heterosexuals are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO classy.
I would love to tell this gentleman to get the fuck out of my gender.
This is so full of fail that my brain cannot begin to comprehend it all. I think this is what happens when someone makes domestic policy decisions based on porn…
Guys, I promise you will forget all about John Rehyansky and his rape-culture-promoting wackness if you only gaze at the TBD staff bio picture of Amanda Hess: http://www.tbd.com/staff/amanda-hess/
Yeah, I told you so.
that worked! thanks Daisy
I have been putting off reading this shit until now. Barf.
My least favorite of many favorite lines? “Let’s remember that we’re not talking about a significant fraction of our population.”
Um. Excuse me?
i’m so glad rehyansky opened my eyes…now i know the real reason why all my buddies are friends with me.
i’m currently sitting in a one room trailer in iraq trying to wrap my head around the undeniable bullshit i just read. “what the fuck?” isn’t even a viable sentiment for the anger and confusion i feel right now. when has a long term relationship EVER hurt anyone? corrective rape? what kind of doped-up, acid-laced ensure is he drinking!? i can’t even leave a proper reply because of the thumping headache this article has given me. “The unrefuted 1978 study by Bell and Weinberg indicated that 43% of gays had sex with 500 or more partners, and 28% had 1,000 or more partners.” i can’t even TALK to 500 hundred girls before i stutter and bail out. you know what, i’m done. i’m gonna go to bed and act like i never read this because i still have a 12 hour shift NOT working in a medical or administrative field (i work with bombs, gay, i know) as the only female on shift. and if i so much as hear the words “corrective” and “rape” anywhere in the same sentence, there will be an ass-kicking heard round iraq.
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