First, the chief of the Air Force sexual assault prevention unit was arrested for sexual assault. Then the Pentagon released a report showing that sexual assault had jumped from 19,000 cases in 2010 to 26,000 in 2012. Now, we have the Air Force’s top commander, Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, saying that sexual assault happens all the time outside of the military and that it’s because of a “hookup mentality.” 20% of women report they had been sexually assaulted,
“before they came into the military…. So they come in from a society where this occurs…. Some of it is the hookup mentality of junior high even and high school students now, which my children can tell you about from watching their friends and being frustrated by it.”
It’s nice to know that this general moonlights as a cultural anthropologist who studies his own children. Maybe his kids can testify as expert witnesses and explain how sexual encounters between consenting adults is responsible for sexual assault and rape. I feel so much better knowing that military high ups have such a nuanced understanding of their institution’s rampant and systemic rape and sexual assault.
katiehalper.com 