While the issue of women in the millitary is has largely fallen of the radar recently, I find myself wondering about a certain argument that came up when I was trawling through old threads: Supposedly in a combat situation if a man sees a woman on his side getting injured there is a high risk of the man's instincts overwhelming him, making him reckless and putting at risk himself and everyone around him.
To me this makes some sense as what little I know about human behavior corroberates this prediction. However that same lack of knowledge has made me start to think that homosexuals would have the same problems in a millitary situation when seeing those of the same sex wounded.
This is confusing to for several reasons: First, not once do I remember seeing any of the proponants for keeping gays out of the millitary ever trundeling out this argument. Second, history has a rather famous example of the opposite being true: the Sacred Band of Thebes.
For those who dont know; the sacred band was a troop of soldiers in antiquity grouped together because they were gay with the idea that if they fought along side thier lover they would fight all the harder to keep thier lover safe. Apparantly they were very effective before getting destroyed by Alexander the Great's dad.
I suppose my question is if the sacred band was so effective why was the idea never used again? For that matter if inducing protective instincts was indeed so effective why arent the proponants for mixed sex combat groups using it as a leading argument?
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