Wars have been fought over women; women have fought battles, been used and abused during war and men have done everything imaginable to get women to take care of their sexual needs during wars.
The most famous war fought over a woman is the Trojan war, fought over Helen of Troy about 1200 B.C. Paris, a handsome Greek youth was promised the most beautiful woman in the world by the Goddess Aphrodite. He went to Sparta where he won the heart of Helen. Unfortunately she was already married to Menelaus, but since Menelaus was away at the time, Helen ran off with Paris. To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition of 1000 ships under the command of Agamemnon, Menelaus' older brother. The war went on for over ten years and is covered in great heroic details in Homer's, Iliad.
The Peloponnesian war was a Civil war fought between Greeks over a woman, a prostitute who was abducted by Athenian youths. In retaliation, the Spartans abducted some Athenian prostitutes and the war was on. The war was brought to an end by the Greek wives and lovers on both sides, who after about 10 years of war had had enough. Aristophanes play Lysistrata, humorously has this as its theme.
About this same time, the Bible, relates some battles fought over women. In Genesis 34 we find not a war but a slaughter in Shechem. It is the story of Dinah, Jacob's daughter. Dinah went out to see what the new land her father settled in was like. Shechem, son of Hamor the prince of the land saw her and lay with her, a nice euphemism for having sexual intercourse with her. Unlike a lot of Bible-believing guys who, once they have sex with a girl, no longer wanted her, Shechem loved her and asked his father to get Dinah for him as a wife; a very honorable thing to do. When Hamor came to Dinah's father, Jacob, he explain the situation (that would have been something interesting to hear--your daughter seduced my son, or was it my son that seduced your daughter, at any rate, she's no longer a virgin, not that she was in the first place, so let's get them married.) Dinah's brothers, overheard and were really mad, but they didn't let on, because they were rather out numbered. Hamor suggested that not only should Shechem and Dinah get married, but that all of Jacob's sons marry his daughters. A united Israelite-Hivite tribe. Jacob and his sons deceitfully agreed, but the Israelites claimed to have a covenant with their god, which required all the males to be circumcised. That means, have the foreskins of their penises removed. (Actually, circumcision was an Egyptian religious practice which Abraham would have borrowed two generations before this time.) Most of you guys were probably circumcised as a baby, so you don't remember how it felt, and today they cut it off with a knife or clamp, but back then it was different. In fact they used a sharp stone, not a knife. It was a bloody mess, quite painful, and it took a long time to heal. The Hivites were circumcised, and taking advantage of their painful condition, two of Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi, attacked the Hivites and slew all the males in the city, including Shechem and his father. They not only took Dinah back, but they took "all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house". That's a nice way of saying they raped and pillaged everything that wasn't nailed down. That's real dirty fighting; shades of Islam to come.
Because the Bible makes Israel a "chosen people" ministers and historians portrayed the Canaanites as being barbaric, godless people. Archeology, however, is changing that. They were cultured, sophisticated, farmers, who had a beautiful written language, poetry and literature. It was the sheep herding Israelites who were in fact barbaric, had no written language, and obviously no respect for any other people. Their idea was to destroy farms so their sheep could have pastures.
Needless to say, after the Shechem slaughter, the Israelites, fearing retaliation, left that area in a hurry. The father, Israel, may have pretended to be upset, Levi was later given the priesthood over all of Israel. Who says, the Jewish god isn't fair.
Further on in the biblical narrative, when judges were ruling, Deborah, the prophetess, (yes, a Jewish woman prophet) judged Israel, and led them in one of their successful battles. It seems that the inconsiderate Canaanites wouldn't let the Israelites destroy their farms or take their land. Deborah told Barak, head of the army to go out and fight and the Lord would deliver them. Barak said to her in Judges 4, "If thou wilt go with me, then I will go, but if thou will not go with me, then I will not go." Doesn't sound like Barak gave much credence to the word of the Lord. She replied that she would go with him -- perhaps starting the tradition of women fighting in the Israeli army. Barak's armies wiped out most of the enemy, but their leader Sisera escaped. He came to the tent of a women named, Jael. She invited him in, fed him, made him comfortable (we can only imagine how) and when he fell asleep she took a tent nail and hammer and drove the nail through his temples pinning him to the ground, dead. The war wasn't fought over a woman, but Jael, a woman, was its hero.
However, women have more often been the victim in war rather than the heroes. Again in Judges: 19-24, we find a rather gory story. A Levite - that is a descendent of Jacob's son, Levi, who lead the Shechem massacre a few generations before - was traveling with his concubine from her father's house back to his own. Since it was a long trip, they stopped in a little town, Gibeah, which was largely inhabited by another Israelite tribe, the Benjaminites. A little old man invited them to lodge for the night. While they were there, the men of the city banged on the door and said, "Bring forth the man that came into thine house that we may know him." In Biblical terms, to "know" someone, meant to have sex with him. (But it has a far deeper meaning.) These men didn't just want to introduce themselves and have a neighborly chat. The old man was aware of their sexual desires and answered, "Nay, my brethren, nay I pray you, do not so wickedly, seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly. Behold here is my daughter, a maiden and his concubine, them I will bring out now and humble you them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you; but unto this man do not so vile a thing".
Can you imagine that, a father offering his virgin daughter to be gang raped (euphemistically called humbled) rather than have a strangers take his chances at a homosexual encounter?
So the man, showing typical Biblical class, shoves his concubine out the door (the daughter stayed at home) "and they knew her (that euphemism again) and abused her all the night until the morning and when the dawn began to spring, they let her go". The woman crawls back to the house. In the morning the Levite goes out after a good night's sleep and sees her lying on the doorstep and says, as if nothing happened, "Up, and let us be going", but she didn't answer because she was dead.
His reaction? "He took a knife and laid hold on his concubine and divided her together with her bones into 12 pieces and sent her to all the coasts of Israel. You may recall that there are 12 tribes of Israelites, so each got a piece, -- a different kind of piece than the Benjaminites in Gibeah had already gotten that night. Well, when the other tribes heard about this, they held a big meeting a Mizpah and asked the Benjaminites to deliver the men of Gibeah who had done the dastardly deed, but they refused. So it was war (another war over a woman). The rest of the tribes went against the Benjaminites and wiped them out, 25,000 men. They also agreed that they would not give their daughters to any Benjaminites for wives. But that presented a problem for the Israelites, they didn't want one of their tribes to die out. They came up with this equally gory solution.
One group of Israelites had not joined the others to fight the Benjaminites, so Israelites descended on this groups and killed all the people, men, married women and children "utterly destroy every women that had lain by a man", but saved the virgins. In fact that is the, "Law of the Bible". Deuteronomy 21:10-14 gives permission to take only the beautiful women, which the conquering man can keep as a wife - but not an ordinary wife, because if he gets tired of her he can let her go. However, in the justice of the Jewish god, he can't sell her - how merciful.
That's one way to encourage women to not have sex. Stay a virgin so you won't get killed. Anyway, only 400 virgins were spared and were given to the Benjaminites for wives. If you can believe the Bible which was written a thousand years after the supposed event.
That has generally been the role of women in war. They have either been killed, or if pretty enough, raped and taken captive. Not much of a choice either way.
In ancient times the rewards for the soldier was to be able to rape, pillage and plunder as their pay. The captive women were divided among the warriors who survived the battles. Warriors who didn't survive were also promised women in the hereafter in many religions and cultures.
In early Germany, warriors who died on the field of battle would be greeted in the hereafter by maidens called Valkyreis who would carry them off to Valhalla where they would be waited on by lovely ladies to satisfy their every pleasure. In Islam, the Moslem soldier can throw himself into battle with great fervor because, should he dies in a holy war, his spirit will go immediately to heaven where his every need and care will be given by the 72 heavenly sexual (virgin) angels called "houris" with luscious brown eyes, who will grant him an eternity of pleasure.
With that incentive, death to the fanatical Moslem is far more appealing then the poverty and sexual restrictions the religion imposes in this world. What does Christianity have to offer its fallen soldiers? To sit around as sexless angels playing harps. And what devout Christian man doesn,t prefer hymns and harps over sex?
For the most part, soldiers throughout history didn't wait to capture women in order to have sex. Most armies took women with them. The historian-general, Xenophone, said that all Asiatic races carried their women to the battlefield since they maintained the women's presence increased the warrior's lust for battle, compelling them to defend their dearest possession to the limit of their strength. That seems reasonable. A soldier would fight harder if his wife and children were right there within reach of the enemy, not home thousands of miles away. Plato in his Symposium expressed it this way, "And if there were only some other way of contriving that a state or army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonor, and emulating one another in honor, and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest at such a time. Love would inspire him".
Early armies not only took their wives with them, but they also took women for entertainment. Female harp and lute players lead the Lydian army into battle, a little different from the American fife and drum players. In the Trojan war, Agamemnon took his concubine Chyseai, along with many other women to camp with him. It is interesting that though all the other military leaders are mentioned as to lady friends, Menelaus, Helen's aggrieved husband had no slave girls, an appropriate gesture, according to Aristotle who says, "the hero who began a war on account of his wife must not give offense by consorting with other women".
Anciently warriors returning from battle would first go to the temple of the Goddess to cleanse themselves from the blood of battle before they returned to society. The temple rituals of the Goddess have always been sexual. Sex in our religion is looked upon as something wholesome and goddess given, a pathway back to the divine. This is in stark contrast to the Jew, Christian and Moslems who in order to give power to their male priests, killed off priestess of the Goddess and perverted sex into something sinful and dirty.
As the High Priestess of the Goddess, my calling is the same as it was anciently, to purify men that they may eventually return to the Gods and Goddesses. This particularly necessary for warriors returning from battle.
Anciently, the warriors knew the Laws of their Goddess, and the necessity of purification. Armies anciently did not destroy temples or kill the priestesses or priests, but revered them as chosen by Gods whom the warriors did not know. That changed with the Jews who sought to destroy every person who worshiped a God other than their god. This was carried over to the Christians and Muslims.
There were no priestesses from the founding of the United States, until 1986, so America was not under the Laws of The Goddess. However, when the government rejected The Priestess and The Goddess in 1990, it came under the Law of Violence, and America,s returning warriors, who have fought to establish Islam over The Goddess, have no path to purification. They return home with an unknown dread and an indiscernible guilt for offenses about which they know nothing, but for which they feel condemnation, and over 8,000 of those veterans commit suicide each year. It is their only way out, as their leaders prefer their death to sanctification through sexual rituals with a Priestess.
Moving on in history, Alexander the Great's soldiers were accompanied by a large number of women, which was quite different from what his father, Philip of Macedonia allow. Apparently Alexander and his men adopted the habit from Eastern people they conquered, and liked the custom.
Roman soldiers were forbidden to marry. It was a disgrace for a Roman woman to enter an army camp. The Romans were quite upset by Cleopatra following her lover Mark Anthony into battles, but she was The High Priestess of the Goddess, and she was also a great general. She did not follow Roman rules.
However, not being able to marry didn't mean Roman solders were going without sex. It was no disgrace for non Roman women to have sex with soldiers. The historian Livius in 172 B.C. records that a mission came to Rome to report that Spanish women had given birth to over 4000 children begotten by Roman solders and they petitioned the government for a city in which to live. The soldiers had obviously been pretty busy consorting with the local populace.
The Moslem women during the Gulf war, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not so receptive. Being beheaded for having sex, or getting 60 lashes for showing an arm or leg is enough to make anyone want to be sexless.
During WWII American soldiers were welcomed warmly by the people of Europe. The French were very receptive to liberating American troops. Our G.I.s were cheered along the streets and invited into homes and the women's beds. In the Philippines the local people were friendly to G.I's. and kept up morale.
No such fraternization existed from the time of Operation Desert Storm. The Saudi government actually tried to force American women military personal to wear veils. The Saudi government was pointedly told that our women are treated the same as men, and if the Saudi people don't like it we would take all our troops out of their country. Faced with enforcing Islamic law and facing Saddam Husain, they decided that Allah was less formidable.
However, The United States government has allowed its troops to be subject to very demoralizing religious restrictions to fit Islamic traditions. American soldiers are not permitted to wear their own religious symbols, no crosses, Stars of David or such things. Not even Chaplains. There was no outcry from American Christians or Jews over their men and women having to live Islamic religious law. After all it kept the soldiers from drinking, having sex or even looking at a woman who would dare to expose her legs. In other words, Islamic law is not much different from Fundamentalist Christian morality.
This Christian, anti sex attitude originated with the fall of the Roman Empire, when two factors operated to influence sex in war. First, the invading Germanic tribes not only destroyed Roman rule but they brought their wives and children with them. The Germans, unlike the Greeks and Romans, demanded chastity in women and adultery was punished, according to, Tacitus, in his Germanian, "Sheared of her hair, naked, in the presence of her relatives, the women is thrown from the house by her husband, whipped and chased by him through the entire village". That is the first record of this type of punishment which has been continued down to modern times.
The second influence working against sex in war was Christianity which considered sex under all conditions, even in marriage, to be a sin. A soldier was expected to lead a virtuous, chaste life. Eve, the first woman was considered to have brought death into the world through disobeying their god and introducing Adam to sex. All women were as dangerous as Eve and to be avoided at all costs. The Church encouraged the belief that the fall of Rome was a result of the sexual permissiveness of the people. But Rome survived quite well under pagan rulers. It took 250 years of complete Christian control of the Empire for Rome to fall to the barbarians.
Despite very strict Christian attitude towards sex, the Holy Crusades were notable for having many women and prostitutes accompanying them; 3000 prostitutes with the First Crusade. In the Second Crusade, King Louis VII of France took his wife, Eleanor, with him. She spent many nights with many Knights and made the crusade thoroughly enjoyable for herself and her army. She was a remarkable women. Her Grandfather, who was one of the last "Sons of The Goddess" knew she would be one of the great rulers of the time and gave her his inheritance. He founded the Troubadours as an Order of Knights who would keep the spirit of their oppressed religion alive and sing cryptic praises to their Goddess and to Eleanor. The Priesthood of The Goddess was carried on in another line in Southern France during this period, though Her High Priestess was not able to practice openly. Eleanor and the Troubadours openly supported this "heresy" as the Christians called the religion, and was close to the 503 High Priestess in my linage, who was of a ruling family in an adjacent Provence, but Eleanor is not listed in my linage of the Priesthood. Eleanor along with her daughter, Marie, established the Courts of Love, from which we get the term "courtship" and established the code of chivalry which has lasted in ever diminishing form to our present day. She divorced the King of France when she was 30 and married Duke Henry of England, who with her help, became Henry II king of England. Later she left Henry, and with her sons, Richard the Lion Hearted and John, battled Henry and placed Richard on the throne. After Richard's death, when she was 80 years old, she lead the army which defended her Provence of Aquitane, until her son John could come to her aid. It was only after Eleanor's death that the Popes were able to eliminate any outward vestiges of the Goddess religion in Southern France. But that was only done by the slaughter of over two million Frenchmen. Historians have said, "the people prayed to Mary, but would rather have an Eleanor of Aquitaine".
A Turkish writer, Made ad Kin, mentioned women fighting in the crusades on both sides. "A great and rich woman also came to the sea, she had 500 horsemen, horses, grooms, equipment and war supplies; she had to pay her people's expenses; this woman rode with us and participated in the attacks. (Rather unusual behavior for a women in a Moslem area. Perhaps Moslems were more liberal back in those days or would overlook their usual restrictions to get help in war.) In the enemy army, that is the crusaders, there also were women on horseback, in armor and steel helmets who fought man-wise; they hurled themselves into the thick of the battle by the side of the men, and only the ornaments on their feet betrayed the women; they hoped to be doing service to their God, trusting in his aid; Praise be to Allah who disappointed them. (Here we have the Moslem god Allah winning out over the Christian god of the Crusaders) On the day of the battle, we found many strong women in garments similar to those of the horsemen. This was discovered only after they were stripped and plundered."
That is typically what happened to women in war, they were stripped and plundered, during and after the battle. Sometimes a woman couldn't ever escape when dead.
The Greek Hero,Achilles had sex with the Amazon warrior, Penthselia, because even in death, she was too beautiful to withstand. Raping and plundering was not limited to ancient days. In WWII, the Germans were noted for their vicious treatment of French and Belgium women. I will quote only a few of the many incidents recounted in an article "Violation of Women in War" by the noted historian Arnold Toynbee. "In a village between Rebais and Coulommiers the body of a woman was found by British troops. She had been stabled between the breasts, states a British corporal and was quite dead. The priest said she had been violated. In the market place of Gemblous a Belgian despatch rider saw the body of a woman pinned to the door of a house by a sword driven through her chest. The body was naked and the breasts had been cut off. 24 civilian were massacred at Marachiene. A girl of 17 who had cried "Vove l'Angleterr": mistaking the Germans for British troops. This girls body was seen two days later lying in a field. It was quite naked, and the breast was cut and covered with blood. On the road from Fosse to Vitrival, a fugitive Belgian soldier saw a party of civilian refugee, overtaken by 24 Germans, a soldier approached one of the women, intending to violate her and she pushed him away. He at once struck the woman in the breast with his bayonet. I saw her fall. Some of the man's comrades laughed as he showed them the bayonet dripping with blood."
When a French family went to hide in a cellar. they were there assassinated under atrocious circumstances. The two women were violated. When the children shrieked, one of them had its head cut off, two others one arm and the mother one of her breasts. His article goes on for page after page of atrocities. Why didn't Americans hear of them? Reports of German treatment of women was often suppressed because (and this may seem unbelievable to you) they were considered to be obscene. We can't even get accurate information on sexual atrocities because of the moralistic prudes in authority. Yet these same atrocities are being committed by Muslims today, and the most graphic expression of what is happening to women is they were "raped" or "tortured." Anything more would offend Christian sensitivity or not be politically correct.
During the middle ages strict rules against women in camp were instituted and fierce penalties for violations were inflicted, not just beating but often the cutting off of the nose. A short story, The Golden Venus gives a description of the hunger for women of a warrior in the middle ages. "It was a time when we were all starving, worse than dogs. Our blood seethed and the pupils of our eyes widened as though we had been drinking poison. We were not ravenous for food, we were not short of it; from term to term, together with our pay, the Duke sent a fine herd of cattle--we were hungry for women. For five months we have been devastating the peripheries of mutinous cities; everything has been laid waste and the inhabitants huddled themselves together in well barricaded towns impregnable to the cavalry. When we rode under the barricades we saw women like apparitions from another world looking down at us from the battlements... Behind us was desolation; before us terror. But nowhere within this periphery were there women. Gladly would we have thrown our entire pay into their laps if they all come. The land was doubly desolate without them."
Though that was written about soldiers feelings hundreds of years ago, that hunger was echoed in modern times, though in a lighter vain, during WWII. American Solders were known to be the best equipped soldiers in the world. The American military was famous for supplying its men with the mostest and the bestest of materials. A list of things they had with them reads: two caps, field jacket, shirt, blouse, necktie, fatigues, blouse and trousers, boot trousers, uniforms summer cotton, raincoat, tent, undershirt, drawers, handkerchief, first aid pouch, canteen cover cartridge bet, back carrier, haversack, mess kit, toilet kit, socks, towel, helmet, steel, entrenching tool, bayonet, cup, canteen, rifle, blanket, shoes. What was missing was the item men considered most necessary for their well being. This was humorously portrayed in the Rogers and Hammerstein's Musical South Pacific, "We've got sunlight on the sand, we've got moonlight on the trees, we've got mangoes and bananas we can pick right off the trees, we've got volley ball and ping pong and a lot of dandy games. What ain't we got? We ain't got dames!"
Lacking women in the flesh, soldiers substituted pinups. They were plastered all over their huts, lockers, anywhere there was an inch of space, even inside their helmets. The most popular pinup of WWII was Betty Grable. Almost as popular were the Vargas girls-the drawings of sexy girls who appeared in Esquire magazine. Esquire was very much supportive of the War effort and shipped tons of magazine to soldiers at the front. Many of the Vargas girls drawings were designed to boost morale. However, the puritanical Postmaster General Frank Walker, a very devote Catholic did not see them that way. The Post Office banned Esquire from the mails. As early as 1865 Congress banned obscene materials from the mails to stop off-color literature being sent to soldiers at the front during the Civil War. In 1873 Congress passed the Comstock Act which prohibited mailing any lewd, obscene, lascivious matter or information on contraception. Then in 1879 Congress authorized the U S. Post Office to divide mail into 4 classes. It was solely up to the Post Office to decide what magazines could qualify for the cheaper 2nd class rate. The Post Office became a censor, telling magazines to change their content or not get cheap rates and thus go out of business. Many magazines caved into the Post Office censorship. Esquire at first gave in and changed a lot of its material, but restrictions became more frequent and more ludicrous and picky-picky. Postal Officials objected to all the pictures in the 1947 Vargas girl calendar. They objected to the Dec. calendar showing a girl putting on a WAAC uniform. These war pictures were designed to boost soldier moral. Esquire put out many items designed for G.I.s, Vargas girl playing cars, date books, postcards, jig saw puzzles etc. At the army's request Esquire supplied copies for miliary hospitals and for soldiers in isolated posts. These were printed on special lightweight paper as paper was scarce and carried the statement, "These copies are supplied with compliments of Esquire for the exclusive use of the armed forces". With all this good will towards G.I.s the Post Office was still censoring Vargas (photo) girl pin ups in transparent looking military outfits. How did the G.I.'s feel about this? Here is a letter from one of them, "We would like to know who in hell got the bright idea of banning pictures from your most popular Esquire. After all those men in Africa, the Aleutians, Italy, etc, have done for those so called spiritually minded human beings back in the States, they should have consideration to a certain extent about this matter. You won't find one barracks overseas that haven't got an Esquire Pin Up Girl. I, for one, have close to fifteen of them, and none of them seems to demoralize me in the least. Those pictures are very much on the clean and healthy side and it gives us guys a good ideas of what we're fighting for. What will these ignorant specimens think up next?"
Esquire decided to fight back. The case eventually went to court which ruled in favor of Esquire. Justice William O. Douglas said that the material was not obscene or lewd and not prosecutable criminally, so the Post Office could not by denying cheap mail rates virtually force a magazine it considered of poor taste or morally offensive out of business. G.I.'s got to keep their pinups.
Fundamental religionist always try one way or another to force their morals on the rest of society. In the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan our men cannot have girlie magazine because it was said this offended the Moslems. Well, tough, we should have told them if you want our defense stop taking offense. We should be standing up for our service men's and women's privileges to morale boosters and not cow-tow to any imposed restrictions. But since the fundamentalist Christians at home approve of the Moslem restriction our men are getting the shaft.
What was done in the armed forces for the sex life of soldiers? The soldier has three choices, renounce sex totally, masturbate or have homosexual activities. None of these lead to a return to a healthy sex life after the war, nor are they very good for a solders's morale during war. The sex life of the American soldier was described by endocrinologist Dr. Harry Benjamin writing in 1943, "It is almost like sex life in prison only the iron bars are replace by bars of Morality". Not much improvement has been made in almost fifty years.
The hunger for women was not confined to soldiers in battle. It was echoed much later by the dramatist, Ernst Toller of Berlin who spoke at the Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform which met in Vienna in 1931. He spoke from first hand experience as a prisoner in war. "The terrible monotony of prison life changes educated, healthy and normal men into homosexual and otherwise perverted wretches. Not one of the numerous prisoners has, after being release, regained his former sexual balance. Depressions, impotency, sleeplessness, ruined marriages, loneliness, disgust with life, all sorts of anomalies are the results of prison life." He made the observation that young love hungry men suffered more from lack of sexual life than the older men who formerly had regular sexual connections. "The most harmless and distinctly most practiced form of sexual satisfaction in all war prison camps was masturbation, and the suspicious creaking of beds during the night, to which we gradually became accustomed, proved the frequency of the substitution act which was practiced with fervor. The sex hunger in camps led not only to warm friendships with strongly erotic tendencies, but also often enough to distinct homosexual intercourse." He also observed that many men began to fear impotency. He concluded that, "because of all this unnatural sexual abstinence among young war prisoners, many prisoners at the end of the war can no longer find their way to a natural love life".
What are we doing for our soldiers in the wars to establish Islam, to enable them to return home to a healthy love life? Should our government force our boys to live Islamic law. Should the sexual release provided by nude pictures or films be prohibited? I don't think so. And as The High Priestess of The Goddess, I looked forward with anticipation of all our young men coming home after the First Gulf War. Because we look at war differently than the Christians, it is our beliefs that those who go to war must be cleansed of their sins and transgressions associated with battle and being close to it. This necessitates soldiers going through the rituals with a priestess - having vaginal intercourse with her. Unfortunately, I was hauled off to jail as our soldiers were being brought home, so I was not able to go through the rituals with any of them. Nor was I able to go through the rituals in the decades after that. Sorry boys, thousands of you lost out embracing the religion of The Goddess and Her Priestess. You also lost out on a great piece of ass.
During the buildup of Desert Shield, American service personnel were not even allowed to celebrate Christmas. That has changed a little, but the calibrations are now more just very low-keyed observants. But then Christmas really isn't a Christian holiday anyway.