And the Flag Was Still There: Straight People, Gay People, and Sexuality in the U.S. Military (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies) (Haworth Gay and Lesbian Studies) [Hardcover]

Lois Shawver (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1560249099 | ISBN-13: 978-1560249092 | Publication Date: December 16, 1994

In this groundbreaking book, author Lois Shawver substantiates a heretofore unexamined rationale--the “etiquette of disregard”--for lifting the ban against gays in the military. Why do we have a ban on gay people in the military? Primarily it is because most of the military brass and the politicians who support them predict enormous havoc if the ban were lifted. Yet studies show that little would change if the ban were lifted, and in And the Flag Was Still There, Shawver uses both anecdotal and systematic data to present her unique perspective that is of substantial interest not only to individuals interested in this military issue, but also to those in other occupations where gay people are discriminated against either by open policy or subtle historical trend.

This “etiquette of disregard” is an overlooked aspect of human sexual behavior where people who have the potential to find each other sexually attractive typically protect against this potential by simply remaining asexual. This behavior is readily apparent in other professions. Because doctors and nurses conform to this code of behavior or “etiquette of disregard,” they are able to examine the bodies of naked patients without melting into an uncomfortable lust. It is the same “etiquette of disregard” used by artists in the presence of nude models. And gay people, Shawver reminds us, are the most practiced of all in this etiquette because this is what allows them to go unnoticed to heterosexuals in public rest rooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms.

So are gays in the military any different? And the Flag Was Still There looks at the possibility of openly gay soldiers living and fighting in intimate situations--without incident. Readers curious about homosexuals--be they parents, spouses, or friends--will find much in this book to spark their thinking about the issue of gays in the military and their own perceptions of interactions with gay people in day-to-day life.

Author Lois Shawver has served as an expert in numerous trials dealing with the issue of bodily modesty in our culture--whether between men and women or between homosexuals and heterosexuals. All readers will enjoy her reasoned body of knowledge as it informs, educates, and entertains.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 262 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (December 16, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560249099
• ISBN-13: 978-1560249092
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,308,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed and dated thinking mars an otherwise compelling study of this controversial issue, September 13, 2005

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: And the Flag Was Still There: Straight People, Gay People, and Sexuality in the U.S. Military (Paperback)

"And the Flag Was Still There: Straight People, Gay People and Sexuality in the U.S. Military," by Lois Shawver, is an interesting addition to the substantial body of literature on this topic. The book features a foreword by Margarethe Cammermeyer (who tells her own story of being a lesbian in the U.S. Army in the book "Serving in Silence"). An "About the Author" paragraph at the start of the book identifies Shawver as a clinical psychologist who has worked as a psychotherapist for 20 years. This paragraph also notes, "She served as an expert in the Canadian review of their ban on homosexuals in the military and was influential in the lifting of that ban in October 1992."

The main text of the book is divided into nine chapters, as follows:

1. "Why the Military Would Ban Homosexuals"

2. "The Question of Heterosexual Modesty"

3. "Nakedness and the Etiquette of Disregard"

4. "Why Some People Dislike Gays"

5. "The Problem with Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

6. "How Many Homosexuals Are There Really?"

7. "How Would Homosexuals Affect Morale?"

8. "Stories of Real People Hurt by the Ban"

9. "How It Would Work in Our Post Cold War Military"

Shawver states her position in her preface: "I have become increasingly confident that it is time for the United States to drop our military ban against homosexuals." Shawver has clearly been diligent in documenting the facts that support her argument. The main text is followed by extensive endnotes (pages 155-214), many of which incorporate substantial quotes. These endnotes are followed by a lengthy bibliography (pages 215-249). The book also includes separate subject and name indexes.

The book is full of interesting material and compelling arguments. Shawver devotes substantial space to the concern that problems would result from gay and straight troops sharing shower facilities. She looks at parallels to other nudity situations in order to defuse the issue. She also relates and analyzes some true stories of gay people who have served in the military, and whom she has interviewed; she details her interview process in the endnotes.

Shawver takes a hard look at the process by which suspected homosexuals are investigated. Among the most interesting material in the book are a fictionalized example of an interrogation session, and a true story of a wily gay military man who managed to outwit his interrogators. Shawver also discusses the experiences of a woman, herself gay, who worked for the Naval Investigative Service and was responsible for interrogating others suspected of homosexuality--truly an ironic situation.

Despite much strong material and many valid arguments, the book is severely hurt by Shawver's shortsighted and excessive intellectual investment in her vision of a post-Cold War "New World Order." With a copyright date of 1995, the book predates the horrors of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So Shawver's claim that we "are freed from the urgency of a threatening enemy" (p. 152) makes the book sound like a relic from an era that is past. Her argument is that this new era of relative peace and security offers an opportunity to "redesign" the military. Shawver is correct in noting that the post-Cold War military needs to be more capable of humanitarian interventions (she specifically mentions the Somalia intervention of the early 1990s) and other nontraditional missions, but her conflation of this issue with the gays-in-the-military issues is awkward and uses faulty logic.

Early in the book Shawver claims, "We can count on the fact that our military will be primarily concerned in this new world with a peacemaking role" (p. 13). Obviously, the 21st century U.S. military still needs to be capable of engaging and destroying enemy forces. Shawver's over-reliance on the short-lived "New World Order" ultimately weakens the overall book and detracts from the many valid arguments and compelling stories she presents. Despite the book's flaws, however, I strongly recommend it to any individual making a serious study of the gays-in-the-military issue.

1.0 out of 5 stars A masked modernist exposed in And the flag was still there., August 25, 2004

By 

Helen Mason "Helen" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: And the Flag Was Still There: Straight People, Gay People, and Sexuality in the U.S. Military (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies) (Haworth Gay and Lesbian Studies) (Hardcover)

I was shocked that Lois Shawver who paints herself as representing the "TRUE POSTMODERN" would have written a book with such obvious underpinnings of a MODERNIST theory of sexuality, Kinsey (1948,1953).
As most readers know, Kinsey as Shawver has done in this book counterpoised heterosexuality and homosexuality on a single bipolar continum, which ranges from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality, creating a kind of "zero sum game," in which the more one is hetereosexual, the less one is homosexual, and vice versa.
At the outset, the lack of clarification of the terms "hetersexual", "bisexual", and "homsexual" are much more complicated than thier casual usage by Shawver. Perhaps this book and the obvious modernist underpinnings shed light on the assault led by Lois Schawver on gay lesbian and bisexual participants in the Marriage Family Therapy online community. This book leads to the forcing out and osterization of homosexuals within thier communities with the alternatives left after shedding the current don't ask don't tell policy in effect.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the seminal book on gays/lesbians in the US military, October 22, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Huntington Beach, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: And the Flag Was Still There: Straight People, Gay People, and Sexuality in the U.S. Military (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies) (Haworth Gay and Lesbian Studies) (Hardcover)

Clinical psychologist Shawver has probed the nature of our military policies towards gays and lesbians in the military with uncanny precision<LB> The book appeared at the time President Clinton decided to fink out on the issue, hoping to appease everybody<LB>Issue by issue she explores the myths, her unruffled, calm manner contributing strength to her argument that these military policies are absurd and wrongfully prejudicial<LB>Among these erroneous assumptions are that "false modesty" prevails between straight and gay men as it does between women and men; gays corrupt the "national moral tone" and damage national defense; gays like anonymous sex more than straights do, etc. <LB>Shawver envisions a new military were gays and lesbians are full-fledged members<LB>The policy of pretending there are no homosexuals in the military (the don't ask, don't tell policy) is "a festering wound in our culture...hyprocisy"<LB>

I am moved by Shawver's arguments, and that she is a heterosexual reflects the enlightened attitudes for a non-gay, non-discriminating person to have<LB> All who seek to be informed on this painful issue must read AND THE FLAG WAS STILL THERE<LB>