CAN I KISS YOU? NO, NEVER MIND. I’D BETTER NOT. I COULD WIND UP IN A HEAP OF TROUBLE: Stephen Green pointed out yesterday that the Pentagon has spent $697,627 on “Can I Kiss You” training. I strongly suspect that is just a small sliver of what the Pentagon spends on the prevention of what it calls “unwanted sexual contact.”
In 2013, the military released the results of its 2012 Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members, which purported to show a large uptick in “unwanted sexual contact.” Those results, however, were utterly unscientific and almost certainly wrong (as I described at length in my individual Commissioner Statement in the Commission on Civil Rights’ Report on Sexual Assault in the Military).
Nevertheless, on June 4, 2013, in a regrettable spectacle, the Senate Armed Services Committee conducted a hearing at which some of the military’s highest-ranking officers were berated about the survey results. It was not the first such hearing. Congress has held at least 10 such hearings over the years. At the June 4, 2013 hearing, a supplicating Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno attempted to reassure the panel by testifying, “Two weeks ago, I told my commanders that combating sexual assault and sexual harassment within the ranks is our No. 1 priority.”
No doubt preventing sexual misconduct is important. Still, I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t make me feel safe and warm to think the military’s top priority is the prevention of sexual misconduct. How about a little perspective?