Is raunchy humor an inevitable part of military culture?

Captain Owen Honors was relieved as commander of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise yesterday, because of raunchy videos he produced back in 2006 and 2007 while serving as the ship’s Executive Officer, or “XO.” The videos, which were shown to sailors on the ship during what was called “XO Movie Night,” included scenes of women taking showers together, and men as well. In other skits, sailors dressed in drag and used anti-gay slurs, simulated masturbation, and a rectal exam.

There’s no denying that life on a ship where men and women spend months at a time out in the middle of the ocean is a world hard to understand and explain. Is this controversy being blown way out of proportion, because civilians just don’t understand Navy life? Christina Carcelen, who is a ten-year veteran of the Navy says, “imagine being stuck in a ship for eight months, without going anywhere, working twelve, fourteen hours a day, every day. A little laughter honestly does a lot.”

Michael Corgan, associate chair and an associate professor of international relations at Boston University, is a former Surface Warfare Officer for the Navy, and a former instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy. He believes the media is making the recent videos a bigger deal than it really need to be, but he also thinks that Honors should really not have been making those videos.