Is this what men who are queasy about lifting DADT really worried about — that men will be assaulted with abandon as too many women who are serving their nation, with the perpetrators going largely unpunished? (Time):

What does it tell us that female soldiers deployed overseas stop drinking water after 7 p.m. to reduce the odds of being raped if they have to use the bathroom at night? Or that a soldier who was assaulted when she went out for a cigarette was afraid to report it for fear she would be demoted – for having gone out without her weapon? Or that, as Representative Jane Harman puts it, “a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.”

The fight over “Don’t ask, don’t tell” made headlines this winter as an issue of justice and history and the social evolution of our military institutions. We’ve heard much less about another set of hearings in the House Armed Services Committee. Maybe that’s because too many commanders still don’t ask, and too many victims still won’t tell, about the levels of violence endured by women in uniform.

The problem is even worse than that. The Pentagon estimates that 80% to 90% of sexual assaults go unreported, and it’s no wonder. Anonymity is all but impossible; a Government Accountability Office report concluded that most victims stay silent because of “the belief that nothing would be done; fear of ostracism, harassment, or ridicule; and concern that peers would gossip.” More than half feared they would be labeled troublemakers. A civilian who is raped can get confidential, or “privileged,” advice from her doctors, lawyers, victim advocates; the only privilege in the military applies to chaplains. A civilian who knows her assailant has a much better chance of avoiding him than does a soldier at a remote base, where filing charges can be a career killer – not for the assailant but the victim. Women worry that they will be removed from their units for their own “protection” and talk about not wanting to undermine their missions or the cohesion of their units. And then some just do the math: only 8% of cases that are investigated end in prosecution, compared with 40% for civilians arrested for sex crimes. Astonishingly, about 80% of those convicted are honorably discharged nonetheless.

Sickening. Disgusting. And going on under the watch of commanders who clearly aren’t doing enough to stop the sexual assault and the culture of privilege that allows it to continue.

Of course none of the above is relevant in the matter of DADT. The above represents criminal activity. It has nothing to do with unit cohesion. The behavior is a violation of any code of conduct regarding what is expected in our military.

An excuse offered by experts is that the “military culture is intrinsically violent and hypermasculine” is garbage — what are you doing recruiting people into the ranks who cannot control impulses to commit sexual violence against their peers?! To me that is a serious liability. Women now represent 15% of the armed forces; to say commanders don’t have a grasp of the situation calls their competence into question.

So if there is any thought that gays and lesbians being able to serve openly is going to result in full blown assaults on the heterosexual men in uniform, they are sorely mistaken. Trust me, when that occurs, I’m sure any gay man or lesbian will prosecuted pronto simply because of bias still within the military culture that won’t be eradicated overnight when DADT goes away. The reality is that there is a serious problem in the military, and it has nothing to do with the closet.