Military culture and sexual issues: The sex-stress phenomenon

Abstract

Introduction

Sex abuse within the military has long been an open-secret afflicting both male and female veterans whose etiology is often attributed to character deficits (personality disorders or paraphilic disorders). Few studies look at the sex-stress phenomenon as a feature of military life itself and the role this plays in sex abuse within the military milieu. While much attention is focused on US forces, this problem in endemic within military cultures per se. The recent sex abuse scandal involving the French military in the Central African Republic illustrates the pervasiveness of the problem.

Objectives/aims

To explore the psycho-cultural mechanisms of stress and its sexual expression and how certain scenarios within the military milieu exacerbates this impulse-control reaction. To address the relationship of the availability of sex-release options – without and/or without the military population (and how increased enlistment of women has changed the nature of the target population in today's military).

Methods

Look at the problem historically (from WWII – present) with particular illustrations. Evaluate common (often failed) approaches to addressing the problem, including the fallacy that superior officer know best how to handle these cases. Explain the psycho/physiology of the sex-stress phenomenon – mechanism of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-gonad axis. Look at the relationship between sex-trauma and suicides among veterans.

Results/conclusions

Offer a viable assessment/diagnostic of sexual problems within the military culture along with a treatment model that offers both psychotherapeutic (cognitive-behavioral protocols…) as well as identifying acute clinical symptoms that may respond to psychotropic medications.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.