How The Military Needs To Evolve When It Comes To Sex

How The Military Needs To Evolve When It Comes To Sex
FILE - This July 13, 2011, photo made available on the International Security Assistance Force's Flickr website shows the former Commander of International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Gen. Davis Petraeus, left, shaking hands with Paula Broadwell, co-author of his biography "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus." The affair between retired Army Gen. David Patraeus and author Paula Broadwell is but an extreme example of the love/hate history between biographers and their subjects. (AP Photo/ISAF, file)
FILE - This July 13, 2011, photo made available on the International Security Assistance Force's Flickr website shows the former Commander of International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Gen. Davis Petraeus, left, shaking hands with Paula Broadwell, co-author of his biography "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus." The affair between retired Army Gen. David Patraeus and author Paula Broadwell is but an extreme example of the love/hate history between biographers and their subjects. (AP Photo/ISAF, file)

Over the past year, the military has been forced to very publicly confront some of its rules about sex and secrecy. The conversation stemmed from both a progressive win for equal rights (the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell) and a shocking scandal (former CIA Director David Petraeus' extramarital affair). The long debate over Don't Ask Don't Tell and its repeal in September 2011 forced the military and the public to address why gay people wanting to serve should have to keep their sexuality secret. And now, with the increasingly mammoth Petraeus scandal, the public may be questioning a military law banning extramarital relations that many civilians were previously unaware of. The affair reportedly started in Petraeus' first two months at the CIA, but he met Paula Broadwell while he was in the military. And General John Allen, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, is now under investigation for exchanging "inappropriate" e-mails with Jill Kelley, the Florida woman who had a part in exposing the Petraeus affair.

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