I don’t know if it is everywhere, but in my infantry unit, heterosexual promiscuity is celebrated.  Of course, there is a double standard when it comes to heterosexual and homosexual male promiscuity.  Heterosexual men can sleep with many women and not be looked down upon.  But homosexual promiscuity is one of the evils that anti-gay groups warn people about. 

I was listening in to two other soldiers speak of an experience one had during his two week leave.  This young soldier decided to head to Europe with one of our sergeants instead of going home to visit his girlfriend.  This 22-year-old seemed to be a bit prude.  He was religious, with a set way of thinking about what is right and wrong.  The other soldier is a preacher back in the states.  The preacher is a good 15 years older than the other soldier, and I assume has more life experience to ‘preach’ from. 

On the trip, soldier ‘Prude’ had sex with two girls visiting from the US.  He even admitted that he would never have done something like that back in the States.  Not only did he have sex with them, but he collected their emails and Facebook information and continued to actively communicate with them. 

It turns out that Prude’s long-time girlfriend accessed both his email and Facebook account.  I told him he should pretend to be mad at her for invading his privacy.  I mean, how could he be with her if he couldn’t trust her?  Of course, this would be totally wrong and just an effort to turn the attention from him for a moment.  He decided to keep talking to her, to apologize, and to try to make amends.  In the end she didn’t take him back.  In the very end, she wasn’t being too faithful, either.

Soldier ‘Preacher” is married, but that doesn’t keep him from having sex here.  He has good looks and seems to know exactly what to say to get a woman to bed. I don’t know if his wife knows that he does these things here.  It might be one of those what happens in Iraq, stays in Iraq-type things. 

This is the activity that is the norm here.  I’ve heard rumors that homely women volunteer for deployments because it is so easy to find a man.  Even if these rumors are just misogynistic noise, this is the general attitude.

I had heard when I first arrived in south Iraq that there was some kind of bathhouse where gay men were meeting.  The rumor was that it was shut down – I don’t know much else about it.  Unfortunately, that is the only actual meeting place I have heard about for gays and it wasn’t for platonic activity.  With this kind of  limited access, how can gays ever live up to their evil, promiscuous ways?

Gay soldiers aren’t as lucky as our heterosexual counterparts.  There are fewer of us to go around.  If we are to be as promiscuous as a heterosexual soldier, we really have to try.  We can’t just talk our way into bed like the preacher - we have to use our technological resources. 

If a gay soldier has computer access, there are a few sites that might give our conservative friends something to complain about.  If it’s not blocked, Adam4Adam.com has a dedicated hookup site devoted to Iraq.  Gay.com has a good chat feature to help you keep in contact with local gays at home, though there aren’t many people using the service in Iraq.  There is also a yahoo group called DLSOLDIERS that has visitors from Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Although I don’t support cheating and am personally not into promiscuity, I believe that having access to other gays can be helpful during a deployment.  I have spoken to many gay soldiers all over Iraq through the use of these sites.  I will probably continue to talk to them when I am home and they are still serving.