January 18, 2005
The bomb that dare not speak its name
The Sunshine Project is an activist group that studies the US government's research into chemical and biological weapons. They file lots of Freedom of Information requests, and one of their latest ones discovered something quite hilarious. Apparently, in 1994, the military considered a proposal to research a "gay bomb" that would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other. As the BBC notes:
The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale.
The military claims this proposal was immediately rejected, but the Sunshine Project says that it was still being pondered as late as 2001. I can't figure out who to believe. On the one hand, the idea is so laughable it would seem impossible anyone would take it seriously; then again, the military is so massively deranged about homosexuality that I can almost believe it.
(Thanks to Noah for this one!)
Posted by Clive Thompson at January 18, 2005 01:36 AM
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...You look so hot today, private....
So this may be a dumb comment but....
Why is this a bad idea? Sure, it's hilarious and I doubt that they make drugs strong enough to have the desired consequences (or at least they're not available on the streets of NY); but why is this a bad idea?
If there were some compound that you could spray on enemy troops that left them to busy with each other to pay attention to you, well... that sounds like a nice, non-lethal alternative to splattering their body parts across the battlefield.
And yes, probably moral and teamwork would be seriously affected afterwards. Our military is far from the only one with serious hang-ups about homosexuality.
I would like to see such a weapon deployed massively at home... a week of saturation bombing with gay bombs might go a long way towards ending some of the sexually uptight culture in the US! Heh. "Why, Billy-Jo-Jim-Bob, I never noticed but you have the most tender lips and such pretty eyes. Hell, I don't care what God says, come over here you vixen!"
Will -- I think the reason I found the idea so ludicrous is that it's born of an idea that it's even possible to produce such a powerful effect on a remote enemy, by means of some hormonal/biological/neurological bomb. There are plenty of reasons why this is hard to do; if it were possible to truly create an actually functioning version of spanish fly (same-sex or otherwise), the free market would have taken care of that ages ago. God knows the demand is out there.
Since it is probably nigh-impossible, the interesting question becomes: Why did the military experts who fielded that proposal think it really was viable? This is where things get interesting. Because my guess is that since military heads are -- as I suggested before -- completely flabbergasted and pruriently addled by gay sexuality, they've probably imbibed the clueless idea that gay male sexuality is a fearfully and mysteriously powerful force: So easily triggered in otherwise straight dudes that you basically gotta ban all the poofters from the military, or else barracks discipline will degrade into one massive, steaming orgy. You pretty much have to believe something like that to keep a proposal like this kicking around for seven years.
Anyway, that's what I found funny about it!
I see, and agree.
Based on your original post I wasn't too sure if you found it a crazy idea because it was impossible to achieve or because you thought the stated goal was not worthwhile.
Anyway they would use it to get the enemy busy doing something else rather than fighting and THEN blast them flat with proper bombs...
