Nature or Nurture Issue

For John, BLUF:  How do we know a reporter's agenda?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Here is a blog post from Law Professor Ann Althouse, recommended by Law Professor Hlenn Reynolds (The InstaPundit).  Don't get hung up on the gender orientation issue and focus on the question of obscurant ion and hidden agendas.

"The stories of young men sexually assaulting young women seem never to stop... and there are times when I find myself darkly wondering if there’s some ineradicable predatory streak in the male subset of our species."

Writes Frank Bruni, beginning his NYT column, which proceeds to tell us about a psychology professor who blames the culture and is in the business of fixing the culture. The military uses him to teach and advise on the prevention of sexual violence, so it's in his economic interest to promote the theory that it's the culture and not the innate biology. On the other hand, even if a tendency toward violence is inborn, we demand that people overcome destructive urges and channel their energy in a positive way.

Reading the line quoted above, what I found myself wondering — darkly wondering? — is whether Bruni should have noted that he is gay and thus not susceptible to the "ineradicable predatory streak" that he imagines leads to the sexual assault of young women. Is it wrong to write something like that about men and not address his own exclusion from the category he's derogating? Maybe. There's added authority in running down one's own kind.

A more serious omission here, however, is that sexual assault in the military happens to men even more than to women. If homosexual encounters are a big part of the problem, then Bruni is protecting his own kind, and the eclipsing of his exclusion from the heterosexual group he insults becomes much more problematic.

For those who might be tempted to see Professor Althouse as a "homophobe", she is pretty open about having a son who is homosexual, and being OK with it.

Of course, there is yesterday's post, which suggested females are the aggressors.

Regards  —  Cliff