Of all the idiocy we're forced to endure on the issue of gays in the military, probably the most ridiculous and insulting argument centers on the barracks showers: there have been op-eds a-plenty, and reams of congressional testimony about those poor, shy, straight troops who are petrified that some big, bad gay is going to get a glimpse of their junk in the john. Not even that anyone's going to do anything with it, but that someone is going to see it!  Well, all I've got to say is, it must be awfully special.  I mean, what are we, twelve year-olds?

It'd be laughable if "The Shower Argument" weren't THE MAJOR ROADBLOCK to repealing DADT.  In fact, it seems to have been the idée fixe of the man who originally came up with the policy, Professor Charles Moskos, who told Lingua Franca magazine, "Fuck unit cohesion. I don't care about that ... I should not be forced to shower with a woman. I should not be forced to shower with a gay [man]."

As retired Rear Admiral Al Steinman (the most senior military officer to self-identify as gay) has said, the argument is more or less moot:

In fact, under DADT, gays have been in the showers with their heterosexual counterparts; they've shared the same barracks, berthing spaces, workspaces, foxholes, humvees, tanks, tents, and every other situation where privacy is comprised and the enforced togetherness of the military prevails. Has there been a problem? Not so far as I can tell. The instances of same-sex harrassment are extremely rare.

...If one accepts that argument,... it would seem necessary to reject the previous arguments that "discomfort" in the presence of gays justifies DADT.

And yet, even straight allies of gay servicemen, opponents of DADT, keep hammering at The Shower Argument, legitimizing it by treating it as a serious reason to ruin careers and destroy lives.  Take this piece in the New York Times yesterday, written by a well-meaning Marine:

For months I lived with 12 other American advisers on an Iraqi outpost. There was a single pipe shower next to a hole that masqueraded as a sewer. But the reality of combat dominated personality quirks — nobody wondered about sexual orientation.  Most military jobs are office-based and provide sufficient individual privacy. Even in Iraq many of our fighting forces are comfortably housed with compartmentalized showers.

What is the straight obsession with group showers?  Methinks the ladies doth protest way too much.  We had group showers all through high school, in my dorm and gym in college, and in several of my gyms since, and showering was never all that.  Maybe I've just seen too many men naked to pay any mind to the pimply-assed schlub with the psoriasis showering next to me, whether he identifies as straight or gay.  The argument that all it takes is a dick to be an object of gay desire is another fantasy of obviously desperate homophobes. 

It remains inconceivable to me that "Prudes' rights," as Moskos has called them (or "homophobes' rights" as they're more rightly called), continue to trump civil rights for the rest of us.  The fact that we take The Shower Argument seriously enough to legitimize it with endless discussion in our newspapers and heated congressional hearings is an insult to the adults in the room. 

As Steinman says:

Reducing the issue of whether gays should be allowed to serve openly to a question of sharing shower spaces seems, to me anyway, most unprofessional. It basically implies that because some straight guys are uncomfortable with the potential for having to share a shower with a gay guy, that tens of thousands of capable, qualified, patriotic Americans cannot serve their country openly and honestly. It assumes that all gay guys want to ogle, touch, fondle or whatever their peers. And it assumes all straight guys think of gay guys in that way. In the words of former Army Ranger Brian Hughes, this insults the professionalism of both the gay soldier and the straight soldier.

It's time for the adults to intervene, and for those afraid to shower with 'em to man up.