Do We Care When It’s Men?

An original essay by reader Mark L.:

Do We Care When It’s Men?

Recently I have been listening to podcasts in my car. One of these podcasts is “History on Trial.” On this show the host, Mira Hayward, presents the stories of “famous legal battles from American history.” The stories often focus on some injustice that was either caused, remedied, or both by the American legal system.

Episode 16 was titled “The American Plan: Rock v. Carney (1920).” (1) “The American Plan” as we learn in the podcast was the common name for the collection of laws and policies that the Federal and state governments adopted around the time of World War I. The purpose of the American Plan was to fight sexually transmitted infections (STI’s). These laws were deemed necessary because a significant number of US soldiers serving in the war were testing positive for STI’s such as syphilis and gonorrhea.

“History on Trial” explains:

“To combat the problem, the government attempted to reduce sex work around military camps.

“In May 1917, Senator Wesley Livsey Jones introduced an amendment to the Selective Service Act– the act that invoked the draft– called Section 13. Section 13 empowered the Secretary of War to quote, ‘do everything by him deemed necessary to suppress and prevent the keeping or setting up of houses of ill fame, brothels, or bawdy-houses within such distance as he may deem needful of any military camp.’” (2)

The rest of the episode explains how this alleged concern for public health in wartime morphed into policies that allowed civilians, mostly women, to be investigated, detained, forced to undergo medical examinations and even held in jails masquerading as “detention hospitals”, all without due process of law. These policies were horrific, and as described in the podcast the reasoning behind them was sexist. Nothing I’m going to say in this article is meant to deny that in any way.

And yet, as I listened to the show, I sensed a certain incongruity. I think it started when the host casually mentioned the Selective Service Act and the routine testing of soldiers for STI’s. How odd, I thought, that in a show about the forced testing and detention of women for STI’s, the routine testing of millions of American male soldiers, over half of whom were draftees and thus also “involuntarily detained”, was considered so unremarkable it passed without further comment. (3)

Whenever someone points out how differently we view things like forced detention and forced medical treatment, depending on the sexes involved, rationalizations soon follow. Of course, only men were drafted back then, we have been told, because only men were needed in large numbers to prosecute the war. That may have been true back in 1917, though even then there were many jobs women could do to “free a man to fight.” But consider what happened during the next “war to end all wars.” In 1945, the shortage of Army nurses was so acute that President Roosevelt proposed drafting female nurses. A bill to draft nurses was approved by the House but stalled in the Senate. Eventually, various factors, including a massive recruiting effort and the end of the war in Europe, made drafting female nurses unnecessary. Historynet.com describes the reaction in the Senate this way:

“Senators breathed a sigh of relief. Elbert D. Thomas of Utah called the withdrawal of the conscription bill ‘the most satisfactory disposition of the difficult problem.’ He was thankful that ‘[t]he most extreme emergency measure of the war has solved itself.’” (4)

Just think about that for a moment. The most extreme emergency measure of the war wasn’t rationing food and other necessities. It wasn’t the odious internment of thousands of Japanese Americans. It was the prospect of drafting enough women to make up a shortage of 8,000 nurses. With attitudes such as that, it is no wonder that despite severe shortages of medical professionals in later conflicts, no female nurses or doctors were ever drafted into service. (5)

Nor were women required to register for the draft when President Carter reinstated draft registration in 1980. The Supreme Court upheld the legality of male-only draft registration in 1981 because, as Justice William Rehnquist wrote, “[t]he purpose of registration was to prepare for a draft of combat troops”. (6) This ignored the fact that in the recently ended Viet Nam war, only about ½ the men served in positions that could be described as combat troops. (7) With the removal of all restrictions on women serving in combat units in 2015, this last of the excuses for male-only draft registration was removed. Yet the opposition to drafting women persists. If our lawsuit against male-only registration accomplished nothing else, by bringing this issue to the forefront, it forced the defenders of the system to admit what we have known all along: That their support of all-male draft was always about giving greater protection to women solely because of their sex. Here is a typical quote about the issue, this one from Senator Josh Hawley:

“It’s one thing to allow American women to choose this service, but it’s quite another to force it upon our daughters, sisters, and wives. Missourians feel strongly that compelling women to fight our wars is wrong and so do I.” (8)

At this point, I can almost hear my readers shouting at their computers something like “but it’s not just about being sent somewhere or forced to do something based on your sex. These women were forced to undergo intrusive and humiliating examinations for STI’s, often for no good reason.” A fair point, hypothetical reader. That is a truly awful experience, as I have already stated.

And yet, can we at least look at what examinations the men were forced to undergo? I don’t know what sort of examinations the men underwent when they were inducted into the military in World War I. I hope it was a professional medical exam. But I do know something about the routine inspections for STI’s to which soldiers were subjected while serving. These were known as “short arm inspections”, a term which dates to at least World War I. Every man in the unit was required to submit to the inspection, whether he was sexually active or not. Here is a secondhand account of such an inspection during World War II, as told to writer Mark Conley by his father.:

“The inspection consisted of a mass line up of all the males of the group (platoon, company etc.), usually at two-week intervals, (usually in conjunction within the times of incubation after a visit to towns or areas where the ole houses of ill repute were. To ensure they got everyone at the same time, the inspections were called in the early morning hours, say about 3 or 4 in the morning, when most people were asleep in their beds. Further reasoning for this was a half sleepy person wasn’t as resistant as they would if the person was wide awake in the daylight hours. It was also reasoned by the higher authorities that if the inspection occurred at this hour, it lowered the chances for an accidental erection, and a possible manly disgrace to occur. A uniform, consisting of only the wear of boots, overcoat and helmet liner, was proscribed for conformity and ease in the inspection. Procedures were written and regulations issued, delegating this task to the unit’s medical officer or assistant.

“The men were formed into ranks, and given the command to go to attention. The doctor or his designee would then proceed down the lines to perform the inspection.

“The doctor had a proscribed regime of spoken orders to the now shivering inspected. On the order to ‘present’, the man was to undo his great coat and allow the man to inspect him for sores or other outward signs of infection. On the order to ‘Strip it down’ each man was to grasp the base of his ***** and using a stripping motion, run the hand to its tip. This was to see if anything foreign, such as drainage from an unseen infection were to be found in the urethra. If nothing was found, the man was told to 'recover’ and so he tucked himself back into his greatcoat and returned to the position of attention.” (9)

So, what happened to the men who contracted an STI? Often that depended on whether they had submitted to medical prophylaxis, a series of measures taken after potential exposure that were intended to prevent infection. A man returning from leave who may have been exposed was expected to present himself to the infirmary immediately on his return. Time was of the essence because the measures were known to be ineffective at more than eight hours after exposure. For this reason, the Army discouraged commanders from allowing leaves of longer than 24 hours. Some commanders prohibited leaves entirely just to prevent STI’s. (10)

At the infirmary medical personnel could carry out a procedure such as the following on the man’s genitals:

“First, there is scrubbing with soap and water; then washing with mercuric chlorid solution of the dilution of 1:2000 ; a thorough rubbing with 33 per cent, calomel ointment ; and an injection of 2 per cent, protargol or some of the other trade products of silver albuminate, which are just as effective.” (11)

Sometimes men bought prophylaxis kits to use on themselves. Supposedly, men who were “among the class which would avail themselves of [a prophylaxis kit]” would know where to obtain one. However, this personal prophylaxis was not sufficient for the Army, since men could not be trusted to wash themselves thoroughly enough. The treatment had to be “given under the eye of an experienced attendant.” (12) Presumably that attendant could be either male or female, since women often served as medical personnel at that time. (13)

If a man promptly submitted himself for prophylaxis and still contracted an STI, “he is not punished beyond losing his pay while the disease disables him for duty.” As if not being paid for a few days or weeks was no big deal. But if he did not submit to prophylactic treatment and contracted an STI, “he is court-martialed for disobedience of orders and, if convicted, is punished.” (11) Another punishment that was used in the British Army, and possibly others, was to notify the next of kin of the infection. The British discontinued this practice after an officer committed suicide after finding out his wife had been thus notified.

As Braeden Suggit points out, “[t]reatment for VD was a punishment in its own right. Special hospitals for VD patients were set up and often regarded as deterrent. Patients would be treated with Salvarsan and mercury which offered uncomfortable and sometimes serious side effects such as jaundice and convulsions. Other treatments included irrigation, which was painful and undignified resulting in many men to opt for chemical treatment instead. These long and uncomfortable stays in VD hospitals often averaged between 50 and 60 days, with the majority of patients recovering and returning to the front.” (14)

Using treatments as punishment for STI in the Armed Forces likely continues to this day. When I was in the Marines (in the 1980’s), a Navy Corpsman described how they would treat Marines seeking treatment for a particular infection. If it was the patient’s first visit, he would receive an injection and be told what to do to prevent it in the future. On a second visit, he would get the injection and a stern talking to. On the third visit, the Corpsman would retrieve a vial that was kept in the coldest part of the fridge just for this purpose. He would fill the syringe with the thick serum, then bounce the syringe needle first off of a metal table. This gave the needle a significant bend at the end. When the needle was pulled out after the injection, the men would scream as it brought a lump of tissue with it. According to the Corpsman, they never had a man return for Round 4.

Of course, the Corpsman who told me the story thought it was immensely funny. In fact, many of the things in this essay have been presented as humorous in books, movies and TV shows. But we only see them as humorous because men are on the receiving end. That’s the point.

None of this should be taken as criticism of the “History on Trial” podcast or its host. She was telling a different story than the one I was telling here. In fairness, there was an episode that dealt with opposition to the draft, though that opposition had nothing to do with it being male only. (15) It’s not like anyone is going to make a podcast about Rostker v. Goldberg or NCFM v. Selective Service System anytime soon. The idea that the law can impose a “selective burden” on men is seen as normal and unremarkable and thus not worth caring about. That too is the point.

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Mira Hayward, “History on Trial Episode 16 The American Plan: Rock v. Carney (1920)” Retrieved from https://www.historyontrialpodcast.com/_files/ugd/ce3c2c_bf97d5dbe7534e73826c8122cd349b10.pdf
Scott W. Stern, The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison “Promiscuous” Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), p. 12, as cited in the “History on Trial” transcript.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-congress-passes-selective-service-act: “By the end of World War I in November 1918, some 24 million men had registered under the Selective Service Act. Of the almost 4.8 million Americans who eventually served in the war, some 2.8 million had been drafted.”
https://www.historynet.com/drafting-women/
See for example the failed attempt to recruit sufficient female nurses during the Viet Nam conflict. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nightingale_(United_States)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostker_v._Goldberg
Referring to US military personnel who served in Viet Nam, https://www.mrfa.org/us-navy-army/vietnam-war-statistics/ states “[o]f the 2.6 million, between 1 and 1.6 million (40-60%) either fought in combat, provided close combat support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.”
https://rollcall.com/2021/07/23/conservatives-riled-up-over-registering-women-for-draft/
Mark Conley, https://www.military-quotes.com/forums/threads/the-origin-of-the-term-short-arm-inspection.1161/
Pusey, William A. (Chairman, Committee on Venereal Diseases for the Surgeon-General of the Army), Handling of the Venereal Problem in the United States Army in the Present Crisis, 1918, p. 14. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/101501138.nlm.nih.gov/mode/2up
Ibid, p. 16.
Ibid, p. 17
Victor Wong, a Canadian WW2 veteran, describes a “short-arm” inspection, this one checking for hernias, conducted by a female captain who was a physician. https://www.ccmms.ca/veteran-stories/army/victor-eric-wong/
Braeden Suggit, “Venereal Disease in the First World War”, 2017, https://throughveteranseyes.ca/2017/09/18/venereal-disease-in-the-first-world-war/#_ftn7 We can get some idea of the horrors men faced at the front lines when we consider that some soldiers deliberately tried to get STI’s so that they would be sent to these “detention hospitals.” As bad as hospitals were, the front lines were generally far worse.
“Episode 7: Radical Priests v. the FBI” https://www.historyontrialpodcast.com/7-radical-priests-v-the-fbi