Originally Posted by
Timelord
Oh, I absolutely believe them.
My question is about whether this is a relatively recent aberration or did it always happen and I just missed it?
It always happened. What changed (over many, many decades) was the willingness of the services to accept that this was just "boys being boys" and realize it was actually rape, sexual assault and coercion. There was no point in reporting it to a system that was full of individuals who saw no problem with those type of behaviors. Until the Officers and SNCOs in command and leadership positions understood that everybody in their units deserved to be treated with the same respect and professionalism, regardless of gender, this behavior went unchecked. For all the doubters out there, it took years of applying a systematic training approach to professional conduct before the knuckle dragging misogynists became fully ostracized (clearly not in all cases). We might all claim to have been been faultless in this respect, but at some point over the years I'm sure that most of us witnessed acts of aggression and coercion without comment.