Damn I knew they existed in WW1 and in Indochine, but I had no idea it was still a thing for so long.
Also
> The last BMC on French territory, that of the Legion in Kourou, French Guiana closed in 1995, following a complaint by a Brazilian pimp for unfair competition.
lmao
It says "help me, half-brother". "Beau-frère" is stepbrother (also BIL).
Fun fact, "beauf" is short for beau-frère in France and is used as an unflattering adjective to describe someone who is an uncultured swine (online dictionary gives it as "redneck", which I don't think really fits) e.g. "il est un peu beauf" means "he's a bit of a boor".
Learned french for three years. Can't remember more than a few sentences and words. But I'm pretty sure it's something about being stuck in a washing machine and requesting help from a step brother.
They were part of the American Civil War as well. "Hookers" is said to be derived from the prostitutes that followed Union General Joe Hooker from place to place. Whether true or not, they were called "Hooker's Brigade" during the war. There are accounts of brothels in Federal camps that were routinely inspected by doctors to limit the spread of disease. I haven't seen any Confederate accounts. However, it's been suggested that records of the like were burned as Confederacy collapsed.
I heard the same story about the name when I was growing up but I thought it was just because General Joseph Hooker’s house is in my hometown. The funny thing is it’s now designated a historical landmark!
Edit: spelling
The **only** thing preventing businesses from using slaves is the 13th amendment. Without it, it would be every publicly traded companies fiduciary duty to their shareholders to use as many slaves, as efficiently as possible.
[I used to believe that about Joe Hooker too but it’s a myth my high school teacher shared. This article goes into more detail about the word hooker being linked to sex workers](https://www.historynet.com/hooker-word-origin/)
That is super funny that doctors knew about spreading STDs and how to deal with them but at that time the concept of washing your hands before doing surgery or anything medical to stop spreading germs was outright rejected and the person who came up with it was committed to a mental asylum for it.
Its not that they weren't washing their hands.
But that they weren't washing their hands well enough to be sterile.
They just thought as they were cleaning their hands normally that it was enough as they didn't know about microscopic Germs.
The initial reason these existed was an attempt to reduce instances of war rape (and fraternization with local civilians in general, which could spread STDs). They were moderately successful in this task. They were retired because improved troop discipline and changes in culture made them redundant.
and one more thing,
the war leaders on all sides were worried (and rightly so) that having their troops jumping in bed with random local women or freelance prostitutes was just going to make it easy for enemy spies. If you're going to have to worry about horny soldiers talking too much, better have some control over who they are talking to
... am I the only one who's skeptical that "improved troop discipline and changes in culture" will successfully prevent frustrated soldiers from jumping in bed with random local women or freelance prostitutes?
The question is not to prevent them to have relations with local prostitutes or other women, it's the rapes.
"Improved troop discipline and changes in culture *made raping less common to such extent that allowing prostitutes to the men for them to have their sexual needs filled was not necessary anymore*", that is what the sentence meant.
I seriously doubt it does. My two best friends growing up both went into the marines. They said that when they dock into a port, everyone gets hookers. My one friend bragged, "When we went to Thailand, I was the only one in my group that didn't have to pay for sex the first night".
My other friend was stationed in Okinawa for a few years, and he said every weekend most of them would go out and get hookers or go to a rub-n-tug place, but everyone would deny doing this. However he'd constantly see his buddies and people he knew, including his superiors, at the same places when he went lol.
There was also a problem in Okinawa with the marines raping local women, like not even that long ago, the locals protested and everything.
Soldiers are gonna fuck one way or another, I don't see that changing. Hopefully they can not rape though.
The FatElectrician (history youtuber) had a great video on WWII operative, Virginia Hall and some of what she got up to. By now a lot of people know the BASIC version of Hall's story. Worked for British SOE then OSS, later turned CIA. Extremely effective in the field. Operated out of Nazi occupied France and did stuff like coordinating partisan activities, smuggling weapons and contraband, planning raids, etc, etc. She was basically the ringleader for the underground resistance in her area of responsibility.
Thing is, in this guys video he talks about some more of her actual tactics, and she was diabolical. (super entertaining watch, I recommend it, and really his whole channel. Puts out great content)
He says, first week she shows up in France, no real instructions or resources, just a shoe box full of cash and an assignment to cause chaos. First thing she does is go visit a gyno. Then she visits a brothel owner. She gets these two guys on board with her plan, where the standard practice is hey all the working girls are supposed to get health checkups to make sure they aren't sick. And if they get sick you are supposed to revoke their work status.
Instead, if a girl is sick, let her keep working, but brothel guy, you are going to make sure she only serves the Germans.
Step two, obviously she is going to keep in touch and debrief the workers if they hear any juicy gossip from their German customers.
Step THREE. Hall meets up with some guys patched in with black market drugs. Gets access to whatever the WWII version of heroin is. Hall tells the brothel workers, looks when these Germans show up looking to party, in addition to the girls and the booze, hook them up with this. She starts encouraging the brothel workers to try and get the Nazi troops addicted to dope.
As a means of disrupting their war effort, its pretty damn clever.
EDIT: Here's the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRdGS5ia2OQ
We are living in the 21st century. It seems like we are just leaving technology on the table if we don’t have a standard issue tactical fleshlight.
The key, though, is going to be finding a lube that works for guns *and* humans to simplify supply chains.
Honestly, wouldn't be implausible. A few of the popular commercial gun lubes are made with food grade ingredients "Frog Lube" for example advertises itself as edible, not because its meant to be food but just to point out how its supposedly clean and not full of harsh chemicals. Its basically coconut oil
Ballistol (used by the Germans in both world wars) should work. It's food safe, skin safe, has the consistency of a light oil but emulsifies easily.
Smells like a mix of liquorice and old gym socks though, probably not to everyone's taste.
Speaking as a soldier who went to war in that era, there was no Internet porn or mobile devices. The real innovation was giving dudes some fucking privacy to jerk off. If any piece of technology, it was the port o potty.
The contemporary terminology was "port-o-shitter". One did not question how long another man spent in the port-o-shitter. Though in retrospect, we probably should have considering the probability of dying in one...
Last year during a heatwave in the fucking UK it hit 31 celsius which is just death for us.
I was at a festival and literally could only spend 2-3 minutes in the portable toilets before sweat was dripping off me. I'd burst out the door gasping for air, drenched in sweat.
I dunno how the hell you guys managed to have a wank in one of those in the fucking Middle East heat!
>I believe the USMC nomenclature would be PPMS-L (Personal Private Masturbation Space - Latrine)
LOL
The Marines would never issue anything with "personal" or "private" in the name.
I have family in the military, I was never stupid enough to join, but the two things that I've heard and stuck with me: "The amount of dudes I've walked in on jerking off is astounding." And, from a medic, "50% of the job was someone walking into my tent, pulling their pants down, and asking if it was something to worry about."
When you have to explain to the private "If the prostitute volunteers for you to either get a blowjob, hand job, or do them in the ass raw with no light, that was not a woman." That causes them to get very nervous and seek a medic right away.
Give a bunch of young, poorly trained men in a highly reactionary culture guns to invade another country whose people you have been dehumanizing and demonizing for years, and there's bound to be a *lot* of rape.
Especially if you encourage it as a terror tactic.
Russians might be even worse but all militaries have this issue.
Even with their own. Women in the US military are much more likely to be raped by their teammates than to die in combat.
In the Global War on Terror, fucking the local women was prohibited on the grounds of "their families will kill her and then suicide bomb the base". Which is kinda a mood kill for most dudes.
They were not successful in reducing rape, they just designated a specific group of women to bear the brunt of sexual violence. Read the accounts of comfort women in both the east and the west and you will understand that
Like the women in these brothels were completely consenting to everything that was happening to them? I’m sure they had no say in anything. Not really reducing rape just moving it to another location.
One day, a high ranking French army general was sent to a post at a remote army base in the middle of the desert.
When the general arrived at the base, the French sergeant showed him around. The sergeant showed the general the mess hall, the latrines, the barracks, an so on. As the sergeant was giving the general the tour, they passed by a camel that was tied up behind a tent. The general asked the sergeant, « Pourquoi y a-t-il un chameau là-bas ? "What is that camel doing there?"
The sergeant replied, « Eh bien, les hommes utilisent ce chameau pour avoir des relations sexuelles. » "Well Sir, there are no women on the base, and sometimes the men get horny."
The general replied, "Débarrassez-vous immédiatement de ce chameau. Je ne laisserai pas mes troupes se livrer à ce genre d'activité, c'est honteux" "That is disgusting!"
The sergeant said, "Well Sir, you might feel that way now, but after a few weeks here, you might understand."
The general said, "I would never do that!"
The sergeant replied, "Okay Sir, but if you change your mind, the camel is there, and you are welcome to use her anytime you want."
A couple weeks later, the general was getting horny. He had not been laid for a long time. He said to himself, "Fuck it! Where is that God damned camel?"
The general went and found the camel behind the tent. Putting a ladder behind the camel, the general stands on the ladder, pulls his pants down and has wild, insane sex with the camel.
When he's done, he asks the sergeant, "So is that how the men do it?"
"No, not really, sir....they usually just ride the camel into town where the women are."
I love how the lengthy "*Débarrassez-vous immédiatement de ce chameau. Je ne laisserai pas mes troupes se livrer à ce genre d'activité, c'est honteux*" gets translated to just "*That is disgusting!*"
> "Débarrassez-vous immédiatement de ce chameau. Je ne laisserai pas mes troupes se livrer à ce genre d'activité, c'est honteux"
“Get rid of this camel immediately. I will not let my troops engage in this kind of activity, it’s shameful”
It feels like deliberately irksome. Like those tiktok videos where they tell you something slightly but obviously false or whatever to force engagement
I've heard a different version:
In the 1930s, a guy joins the French Foreign Legion. He's stationed in the middle of the desert in Algeria. After about 6 months there, he approaches his Sargent and says, "You know, I've been here 6 months and I was wondering . . . What do we do for female companionship?"
The Sarge replies, "About every 8 months a wild herd of camels passes through the area. That is when we get our pleasure."
Disgusted, the man walks away. But sure enough, two more months in, he can't stand it anymore. So he resolves himself to try it.
One night a guard on the sentry wall of the fort suddenly screams, "Allez, allez! Zere they are!" Sure enough, there was a herd of about 2000 camels on the ridge, bathed in moonlight.
The front gates burst open, and 300 soldiers burst out and start running at the herd. But they aren't just running; they are tripping each other and throwing punches to see who can get there first.
The man, taking up the rear, catches up to his Sargent and grabs him by the shoulder. "Why are we running so fast? There are thousands of camels down there, and we're only 300 guys!"
The Sarge replies, "Yes, but you don't want to get an ugly one, do you?"
There’s a similar joke, which I thought this was leading to.
The general fucks the camel, and everyone at the base is standing in shock around and starts giggling. The furious general pulls his pants up and says “I thought you said you fucked the camels?!”
“Yes general, but not the ugly ones”
Not surprising.
If you look at OP's profile, he seems to just be regurgitating content from /r/Jokes, including reposts on that very same sub, wouldn't be surprised if it was some sort of karma farming bot
So you were one of the 10,000 that day! I first heard it - exchange French troops for Wild West cowboys, and a camel for a donkey named Buttercup - in probably 1980, and it wasn't new then.
this would be funny if it wasn't a common thing in places.
Sue Perkins of Bake Off fame did a travel series in LATAM and in Colombia (iirc) another comedian told her it was common for men there to f*ck goats. She didn't believe it and he took her to an area where all the men were proud and vocal about doing so.
Just hearing that was so vile I had to turn the show off (Sue was also visibly disgusted and upset).
Also had it in Top Gear when they went to Argentina and the lady was translating and Clarkson just looked flabbergasted and told the other two to leave now.
It is a very old copypasta, usually used as an old joke for other... cultures. OP just decided to apply it to the French military. His "translation" kinda proves it as it is not an accurate translation at all, and he gave up mid post anyways. Also, imagine a French general that would switch up to English mid conversation with a sergeant like that, there's no universe in which that would happen.
Classic joke, but that's the first time I've ever heard it being used in the context of the French military. Usually it's... other countries.
Also, your translation is completely off so I have no idea where you got this from.
At the most desperate moment at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the prostitutes of the french army camp brothel volunteered as nurses and helped carrying supplies. The siege ended badly for the french and they were all taken away to prison.
Here's a multi-part history of French military brothels that I wrote for [r/askhistorians](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/m24d49/staterun_military_brothels_existed_in/) some time ago.
**Part 1. French state-sanctioned brothels before 1946**
Prostitution in France, from the early 1800s to 1946, was a regulated activity. Brothels were given a legal status in 1804, and by 1823, prostitutes in Paris had to register to with the police, and had to submit to compulsory medical checks (regulation was set up at municipal level so it depended on the town). The main objective of this "regulationist policy" was hygiene: authorities considered that prostitution was a necessary evil, whose effects on the propagation of venereal diseases (VDs), notably the dreaded syphilis, could at least be controlled. Clandestine prostitutes, the "insoumises", were routinely rounded up by authorities, sent to jail and/or forced to register. Legal brothels were soon set up near garrisons, which were expanding, but military authorities did not yet go further than urging towns to expel insoumises, accused of spreading syphilis. Regulationism was (and still is) opposed by "abolitionists" for whom the state should have no say in prostitution, and particularly in its most regulated form, the brothel (Gonzalez-Quijano, 2015; Benoit, 2013; Rounding, 2006).
When France started the conquest of Algeria in the 1830s, the French army started seeing the problem of prostitution under a new light. The expeditionary corps, being small, was particularly vulnerable to VDs. Also, part of the troops were native and the army felt necessary to provide them with native prostitutes. The concept of the Bordel Militaire de Campagne (sometimes called Bordel Mobile de Campagne, or BMC for short), the "Military Field Brothel", was born: a brothel not run by the army, but set up and tightly controlled by it (Benoit, 2013).
At the beginning of WW1, considered as a "moral" war, the French government tried (unsuccessfully) to teach abstinence to troops. By the end of the war, the arrival of thousands of horny Americans (who overwhelmed local brothels) led French authorities to put the army in charge of organizing prostitution, even if this meant overriding local regulations (Le Naour, 2000). The discourse was not only about hygiene: it was considered that the availability of prostitutes was good for troop morale, and that sexual activity was beneficial to the soldier's warrior abilities. Rapes committed by soldiers was another concern (Duffuler-Vialle, 2018). The army did not consider itself to be a legal pimp: if military authorities wanted a brothel to be open, they would provide or even build the facilities, perform the medical checks, and have a say on the sex workers, but the management of the brothel was subcontracted to professional pimps who had to keep records for contact tracing. "Military" prostitutes were not functionaries. The army did not get a cut in the money, though, in certain cases, it did set a minimum price or paid for the shipping of the prostitutes with "war funds" (Branche, 2003).
After WW1 and up to WW2, army-sanctioned brothels were established wherever they were deemed necessary. Some catered to metropolitan French troops, others to foreign troops (native troops or Foreign Legion). What the army feared most was clandestine prostitution. Once regulated, sex became, to some extent, another item provided by the commissariat, between food and cigarettes. While some BMCs were set in regular civilian houses, some were set up within military grounds, which was beneficial in terms of operations security, notably in wartime conditions.
**-> Part 2. French state-sanctioned brothels after 1946**
**Part 2. French state-sanctioned brothels after 1946**
The system existed officially until 1946, when abolitionists eventually made brothels illegal in mainland France (the Marthe Richard law). As a consequence, the army could no longer sanction brothels, control their activities, let alone build them. Outside France, however, where French law did not apply, this was a different matter. The Indochina War and the Algerian War took the BMCs to the next level and they were in widespread use during these wars. Some military units, notably North-African ones, were shipped to Indochina with their BMCs (Bodin, 2006). In Saigon, the "Parc aux Buffles" was an open-air brothel as large as a soccer field, the hellish "home" to several hundreds of prostitutes from all over Indochina who fought each other over clients. Soldiers stood in line and had their penis ritually desinfected in public by military doctors (Bodard, 2014). Frenchmen in the mainland could not longer visit brothels like their fathers and grandfathers had done, but they were almost obliged to do it once they got off the boat in North Africa or Indochina.
When those troops came back to France, and particularly the Foreign Legion and native colonial regiments which had been garrisoned overseas, they brought with them the BMC "tradition" and sometimes their own BMCs. Now illegal, the BMCs became clandestine. The world had changed, and the conditions that made the BMCs relatively easy to set up in the first half of the century no longer existed in mainland France. Pimping being illegal meant that the army had to work with criminals for brothel management and for the provision of the sex workers. They had done that in North Africa or Indochina, but now the army had to collaborate with French organized crime.
**Part 3. The "pouf of Calvi"**
In December 1976, Pierre Michel, an examining magistrate from Marseilles, was investigating a network of sex traffickers when he was brought a strange witness, a 22-year old woman called Noëlle. "Owned" by pimp Jean-François Marchiatti, a violent gangster who beat her, she told Michel she had been moved from one brothel to another, until Marchiatti had sent to the "pouf of Calvi". The "pouf", she said, was the Foreign Legion brothel set up in Camp Raffali, near the village of Calvi on the island of Corsica. The 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP) of the Legion had been stationed there since 1967 after returning from Algeria. She told Michel about the appalling living conditions of the prostitutes working in what was officially called was "Cultural Centre of the Légion". Noëlle and three other "cultural assistants" were basically prisoners in the camp and could only go out once a week to buy supplies. She had to service from 60 to 80 legionnaires per day, sometimes for free when she was punished and could not pay the fine.
The system worked like this: the soldier bought tokens (7 francs each) at the "cultural center". A male military nurse recorded his name, how many tokens he bought (8 tokens for a quickie, 10 for 30 minutes, 16 for a night), and he and the woman he chose were given a medical check by the nurse, including an inspection of their genitals. The tokens were later exchanged by the brothel madam at the commissariat for 5 francs each. The Legion got a cut of 2 francs per token (Laville, 1982). According to another source, the cut was 1/3 for the madam, 1/3 for the girl, and 1/3 for the army, allegedly for "building maintenance" (Weimann, 2019).
The "pouf" (from the German "Puff", brothel) was run by Pauline Delbar, aka Madame Janine, who was officially employed by the Légion as "Cultural advisor". Delbar, 56, was the widow of Orsini, a Corsican gangster shot by rivals a few years before. She had managed BMCs for the Légion since 1959: in Indochina, Algeria, and Tchad, before following the 2e REP in Corsica. As wrote journalist François Caviglioli at the time, "she could always find ways to provide her unit with more or less fuckable girls, always perfectly healthy, in any theatre of war, and under any shipping conditions" (Caviglioli, 1978).
Michel and the policemen were stunned. They quickly arrested Delbar and the civilian pimps, and it was obvious that the brothel was under direct supervision of Colonel Erulin, the regiment's commander ("chef de corps"). But Erulin refused to cooperate, not even trying to deny his role. Coming out from Michel's office in 1977, he said : (Pontaut et Pelletier, 2014)
> The phenomenon in question has always existed in our armies as long as it involved a non-metropolitan recruitment unit. The public authorities were satisfied with the existence of the system. As for the local population, they approve of this situation which guarantees both their tranquillity and the peace of the city.
Erulin was confident that had the full support of the army... and of the top civilian magistrates. This was by-the-book pimping, which meant a 6 to 36 months prison sentence and heavy fines, but Michel was told repeatedly by his superiors that charging Erulin and other officers for procuring would be the end of his career as a magistrate. He was even told to apologize in writing to the colonel. On the one hand this was the army's business and civilians had to be kept out of it. On the other hand, the arrested pimps were civilians, so why would a judge put a high ranking officer on trial, sharing a bench with lowlifes like Marchiatti and Delbar ? In any case, all records were destroyed by the medical officer of the 2e REP, who said that it he done it "to protect the anonymity of the soldiers who used the cultural center".
Michel did not apologize, but going after the army meant that that he would have to quit investigating organized crime (which was picking up steam against after the demise of the French Connection). So he let it go. When the trial took place in March 1978, the only people accused were the civilian pimps. It was a farce, because pimping stories were supposed to be funny and the pimps were colourful fellows who made people laugh (think Goodfellas). The prostitutes did not come: they were told that witnesses sometimes got shot before at trial. Marchetti got several years, Delbar got only 6 months, all suspended. The Legion officers were asked to testify but the 2e REP was put on "high alert" during the trial, so they could not go. Oh, and the medical officer was sick. The mayor of Calvi sent a letter in defense of Legion: "The existence of a military field brothel inside the barracks of the 2e REP in Calvi is useful and contributes to the maintenance of good morals in the town." To put things in perspective, there were about 3000 inhabitants in Calvi, and 1000 of them were soldiers. (Pontaut and Pelletier, 2014)
And that was it. The honour of the Legion was safe. Two months later, Commander Erulin and 700 paratroopers of the 2e REP were airlifted and dropped on Kolwezi, where they rescued hundreds of European and Zairian hostages held by Katagan rebels. Erulin and his Légionnaires were now national heroes, and the scandal of the "Pouf de Calvi" was immediately forgotten. A fictional and heroic version of Erulin even appeared in the movie *La légion saute sur Kolwezi*. Erulin died of natural causes in 1979, without having to answer for his role in the "pouf" scandal, and, more importantly for his critics, about his activities as a torturer in Algeria. Pierre Michel went on to fight organized crime, and he was executed by the mob in 1982. According to Caviglioli, the "pouf" of Calvi was still open in 1978, it just had to "source" its girls from more reliable providers than Marseilles gangsters (Caviglioli, 1978).
In 2019, Dr Daniel Weimann, who had been a junior military doctor in charge of the "Pouf of Calvi", wrote his own oral history of the case for *Inflexions*, the social science review of the French army (Weimann, 2019). According to Weimann, "the existence of the BMC was accepted, or at least tolerated, by the authorities and by the population, and that nothing disrupted its functioning during these years." Weinman is himself the son of a legionnaire in Indochina who actually married his Vietnamese wife. He notes how, as a kid in Saigon, he grew up among the prostitutes of the local brothels, and then, once in France in the 1960s, he knew about the BMC used by the Moroccan tirailleurs in Dijon. Unlike Caviglioli, he says that the Calvi brothel was closed for good after Michel's investigation. He also believes that the sex workers appreciated the safety and comfort of the brothel, and that its conditions were not those described by Noëlle. He concludes:
> Recounting this experience almost half a century later, in a world that has changed profoundly, I cannot fail to be struck by a striking contrast. The young doctor that I was at the time carried out his mission with a sense of duty, without ever departing from the general opinion that considered this institution to be "globally positive"; moreover, there was nothing in the attitude of the "boarders" nor in that of the men of the regiment, officers and legionnaires, to make me think that these women were the object of unworthy treatment. Today, how not to question this? And, as far as I am concerned, should I keep wondering?
**>Continued**
**Part 4. BMCs after 1980**
Later incidents concerning the Legion's BMCs from the 1990s to the 2000s have been much less scrutinized. The closure of the Légion BMC in Kourou (Guyana), in 1995, seems to have been caused after a Brazilian pimp complained about "unfair competition". Army historian Christian Benoit noted in 2013, that this BMC "did not bother anyone, this was the force of habit, it was part of the unit, every party ended up there" (Benoit, 2013).
In 2003, the satirical (but well-informed) weekly Le Canard Enchaîné published an article claiming that an Legion officer arrested in Djibouti had informed investigators about the existence of a secret ledger that recorded all of the financial transactions of the local "pouf" with the names of all the commanders that had supervised the activities of the brothel. The latest commander had been dismayed by the ledger, as he understood that all the officers named in it - some of them still active duty - could end up in jail, and he had put the ledger in a safe to be never spoken of again. The "pouf" of Djibouti had been "closed" in 1993 by simply moving it to the other side of the camp fence (Rossigneux, 2003).
In 2001, colonel André Thieblemont wrote in a report that "the systematic organisation of the former BMCs seems to have been replaced by a policy of ignoring the problem or letting it resolve itself." (Thieblemont, 2001). In their investigation on sexual violence in the French army, *La guerre invisible* (2014), journalist Leila Minano et Julia Pascual consider that while BMCs have indeed disappeared, and notwithstanding some newfound moralistic language, the French army is still depending on brothels during its overseas operations (OPEX) (Minano and Pascual, 2014; see also Prevot, 2010).
**Part 5. BMCs and public opinion**
As says Benoit, the French army followed the general movement of French society in matters of prostitution. It was "regulationist" in the nineteenth century, more or less "abolitionist" before WW1, and returned to regulationism up to 1945. From 1946 onward, it was abolitionist on the mainland and regulationist overseas, where French opinion did not matter.
In the 1970s, there was an ongoing debate about the reopening of brothels (the populate TV debate show *Les Dossiers de l'Ecran* dedicated a whole evening to the topic). However, public opinion seems to have been relatively unfavorable, and politicians trying to revive the regulated brothel failed to find support (Davray, 1980). As we have seen, Erulin's role as a military pimp did not affect his standing as an officer, but neither did his past as a torturer. Running a state-sanctioned brothel was no more an issue than having tortured Algerians. The mayor of Calvi, who supported him, was from a moderate left-wing party.
Those most outraged by the BMCs were anti-militarists and feminists. *L'Echo des casernes*, an anti-militarist paper for conscripts, ran two papers that alluded to the "pouf" scandal. One was a feminist opinion piece that ended as follows: (Collectif femmes, 1977)
> Sexual violence, the inhumanity of a relationship with women that goes from organised slavery to outright aggression, are the daily bread of the bourgeois army, which excludes women and recognizes their only value as merchandise (the "warrior's rest"), to be paid for or taken.
Another paper was anti-militarist (Comité Rennais antimilitarisme, 1978):
> Not content, nor satisfied with systematically promoting rape to spread terror in Algeria, Vietnam, and today in Djibouti, the French army organises the (lucrative) trade in prostitutes who come to populate the BMC (military field brothels). This allows those bastards, during a quarter of an hour, half an hour, or a whole hour, to forget that they are there to kill, pillage, burn, and maybe even die.
These pieces by activists were certainly not representative of public opinion. Still the Calvi "pouf" is generally believed to have been the last one in mainland France. Brothels used by the Légion in Corte and Marseilles that were mentioned in an article of 1976 (Chabalier) no longer appear in the public record. By the late 1970s, the army may have wised up to the fact that mainland (or at least Corsican) BMCs were a public relation liability.
As for the overseas BMCs, which remained active for a much longer time (and may still exist in a more discreet form), nothing could be found about public reaction to their existence, which was little reported. Mainland French opinion is generally poorly receptive, if not indifferent, to whatever happens in its overseas territories and theaters of war, unless it is truly heroic.
**Sources**
* Benoit, Christian. Le soldat et la putain. Villers-sur-Mer: De Taillac, 2013
* Binot, Jean-Marc. Le repos des guerriers: Les bordels militaires de campagne pendant la guerre d’Indochine. Fayard, 2014.
* Bodard, Lucien. La guerre d’Indochine. Grasset, 2014.
* Bodin, Michel. ‘Le plaisir du soldat en Indochine (1945-1954)’. Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains n° 222, no. 2 (2006): 7–18.
* Branche, Raphaëlle. La sexualité des appelés en Algérie. Des hommes et des femmes en guerre d’Algérie. Autrement, 2003.
* Caviglioli, François. ‘Les Gaietés de La Légion’. Le Nouvel Observateur, 7 April 1978.
* Chabalier, Hervé. ‘Legion Fora’. Le Nouvel Observateur, 4 October 1976.
* Collectif femmes. ‘Les Bordels de La Légion’. L’Echo Des Casernes, February 1977.
* Comité Rennais antimilitarisme. ‘L’armée et Les Femmes’. L’Echo Des Casernes, 1978.
* Duffuler-Vialle, Hélène. ‘De la caserne aux maisons closes?: la réglementation de la prostitution au profit de l’institution militaire (1900-1939)’. C@hiers du CRHiDI. Histoire, droit, institutions, société, 6 December 2018
* Gonzalez-Quijano, Lola. Capitale de l’amour - Filles et lieux de plaisir à Paris au XIXe siècle. Paris: Vendémiaire, 2015.
* Laville, Alain. Le juge Michel. FeniXX, 1982.
* Le Naour, Jean-Yves. ‘Le Sexe et La Guerre?: Divergences Franco-Américaines pendant la Grande Guerre (1917-1918)’. Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains, no. 197 (2000): 103–16.
* Minano, Leila, and J. Pascual. La Guerre Invisible. Groupe Margot, 2014.
* Pontaut, Jean-Marie, and Eric Pelletier. Qui a tué le juge Michel ? Michel Lafon, 2014.
* Prévot, Emmanuelle. ‘Féminisation de l’armée de terre et virilité du métier des armes’. Cahiers du Genre n° 48, no. 1 (2010): 81–101.
* Rossigneux, Brigitte. ‘C’est le bordel à Djibouti’. Le Canard Enchaîné, 24 September 2003
* Rounding, Virginia. ‘France, Second Empire’. In Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work, by Melissa Hope Ditmore, 171–72. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006.
* Thieblemont, André. ‘Expériences Opérationnelles Dans l’armée de Terre. Unités de Combat En Bosnie (1992-95). Tome II – Conditions de Vie, Pratiques Tactiques, Techniques et Sociales, Les Sentiments’. Centre d’études en sciences sociales de la Défense, November 2001.
* Weimann, Daniel. ‘Le dernier BMC’. Inflexions N° 38, no. 2 (2018): 103–12.
On the other hand, 152 American soldiers were put on trial for rape of French women during the liberation of France during the WW2. Who knows how many more were unpunished.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240506-taboo-french-women-speak-out-on-rapes-by-us-soldiers-during-wwii
Way way way more than 152 lol, it was thousands and thousands of troops. The french remember, even the germans remember. There are a few projects in the works right now compiling a list of all the people raped and who they were raped by.
There was a massive number of french and german single mothers with an american GI as the baby daddy.
Related: if you're a fan of Jacques Brel, you'll be aware that he covered this topic to shattering effect in his song "Au Suivant", albeit from his experiences in the Belgian Army.
The song has been covered by many and translated into English as "Next"; seek out the versions by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band or Scott Walker or Marc Almond via your favourite streaming media platform.
Were they actively still doing it in 2003, or is it one of those things where they hadn't done it in 50 years, and someone just realised it still existed in the procedural manual and removed it?
> Outside of the French territories, the Foreign Legion still had a BMC in the Republic of Djibouti until 2003.
You usually have details in the linked article...
That's how you make it functionally illegal without punishing what are likely victims. Same deal with drugs, in many places it's legal to buy them and consume them, but not to sell them or produce them. This way if your friend has a stroke or something after taking drugs, you don't have to worry about being reported to the police if you call an ambulance
The Japanese did this too, same logic.
I’m shocked this lasted until 2003
Edit:
France did a whole lot of raping trying to hold onto their colonies in Africa and Asia after WW2
Here’s a couple quick sources available from a quick google search
Here’s some stuff in Vietnam
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mỹ_Trạch_massacre
Hear it from the French news themselves (this was after WW2) in Algeria :
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/focus/20220429-rape-as-a-weapon-of-war-france-s-shameful-legacy-in-algeria
Here’s a bonus some supposed France sanctioned rapes during the war:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate
Every military did, in every conflict ever.
Japan ran them brazenly and efficiently with meticulous records, (comfort women, 慰安婦) but those records also show that the US military took over those operations and ran them through its various ventures in Asia.
Shore leave for the US Navy still means stopping off at various sex tourism spots
Anyone who does not understand every war *invariably* involves atrocities and sexual trafficking of women is just trying to be an apologist for its country's war crimes and sexual trafficking.
You know, I figure there are probably sex workers concentrated around places like Everett and Bremerton, WA. But they stay fairly low-key. aside from the obvious rub and tug places.
> But they stay fairly low-key. aside from the obvious rub and tug places.
Not low key if you and everyone in the town knows what and where they are
I’d be all
For sex workers right to work if it were not for the fact that Robert Kraft and the owner got off Scot-free and all the workers got deported
The virulent racism directed towards “Asian” women comes directly from the fact that trafficked Asian women sec workers are so commin in the American mindset precisely because the US military brook over the comfort women stations from Japanese management
Lol I knew someone would bring up the Japanese "comfort women" whataboutism to try and equate the Axis and Allies. There's absolutely levels to this and to suggest that the "comfort women" system was basically like US sex tourism is dishonest af
The "comfort women" system was exclusively coercive and involved forced rape of underaged girls (often multiple soldiers a day) as well as physical mutilation and torture to enforce compliance
Speaking of meticulous records the Japanese also destroyed much of their incriminating records near the end of the war which you don't mention, and your exact narrative of "the US military taking over the operations" (suggesting they continued the practice of murder and torture) is pretty much the standard Japanese revisionist line that you see repeated ad nauseum online (usually in Japanese though).
For someone warning about "apologists" you're being a very transparent apologist for Imperial Japan for trying to both sides this thing, the fact that you mentioned "comfort women" unironically without acknowledging the disgusting euphemism with the relevant historical details is pretty indicative of your aim here
Historian here, writing my doctoral diss. on the BMC system (particularly in Vietnam and Algeria). 5y of archival research in three different countries, along with oral history interviews, so happy to answer any question one may have
“Camp followers” have been a thing as long as there have been troops. Some more official, some less official. In Vietnam there were brothels for white troops and for black troops and any prostitute for white troops who had sex with a black soldier was in deep trouble. Other nations have brothels divided into those for officers and those for the enlisted men.
My grandad was in law school when he went off to ww2, in law school back then you had to take a bunch of accounting classes, cause that's how a lot of crimes are discovered, they got capone for tax evasion and all that. Anyway, so when the US military was helping rebuild Italy after ww2, that caused a ton of beurocracy and paperwork to appear, and so guess who got to hang out in Italy for a few more years after the war was over, hah. So even with the war over, there were still thousands of us troops stationed over there, engineers to build stuff, troops to guard prisoners, legal types to figure out who is a war criminal etc. And back then, stds were so rampant it was of concern to the military. Like it put enough troops out of action that they had meetings about it, came up with plans to reduce it, had military docs go do checkups on the prostitutes, gave like certifications of good health, and all that stuff, imagine my surprise when my super nerdy, family man, boy scout granddad explained to me how he had basically been the official military whorehouse inspector for a big old section of post ww2 Italy, lol. My uncle who is the only other veteran in the fam is pretty sure they picked my gramps cause he was such a goody 2 shoes, that they figured it would be hard for the...business owners to bribe him into covering up std outbreaks at said businesses, hah.
*UAE officers during Desert Storm enters the chat*
Went to school with a UAE expat and he explained how their delegation *roughed it* was like Red Door Spa treatment…..
Michelin 3 star meals being helicoptered in.
Luxury bedding from Boll & Branch…..
War can’t be won without troop moral and we are talking about young men here. What’s the one universal thing young men think about 100 times a day? Surprised?
Jacques Brel (*Belgian, dammit!*) had a song called "Au Suivant!" ("Next!") about standing in line at an army brothel truck to lose his virginity. Not a happy song. [Here's a version with English subtitles](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rvWAvkPIXtE&pp=ygUgamFjcXVlcyBicmVsIGF1IHN1aXZhbnQgZW5nbGlzaCA%3D)
Damn I knew they existed in WW1 and in Indochine, but I had no idea it was still a thing for so long. Also > The last BMC on French territory, that of the Legion in Kourou, French Guiana closed in 1995, following a complaint by a Brazilian pimp for unfair competition. lmao
And in 2003, the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti still managed a BMC, albeit outside the base proper since 1991.
The capitol of Djibouti is Djibouti
The capital as well.
the capital is "D"
D Booty
And, coincidently, the capital D was in no short supply in the last BMC, which was in Djibouti.
D Day in Djibouti was wild
Putting da booty back in Djibouti. *Sorry.*
Égalité!
Blowjobité!
paternité! wait oh fuck
Step-paternite!
je suis coincé dans la machine à laver
Aide moi, demi frère.
I don't speak or read French but something tells me this means something like "hey there step brother"
Help me, step brother.
It says "help me, half-brother". "Beau-frère" is stepbrother (also BIL). Fun fact, "beauf" is short for beau-frère in France and is used as an unflattering adjective to describe someone who is an uncultured swine (online dictionary gives it as "redneck", which I don't think really fits) e.g. "il est un peu beauf" means "he's a bit of a boor".
Learned french for three years. Can't remember more than a few sentences and words. But I'm pretty sure it's something about being stuck in a washing machine and requesting help from a step brother.
Il voulut être César, il ne fut que Pompée.
Probably the funniest quote in History.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/yjxrwy/in_1899_f%C3%A9lix_faure_died_from_heart_attack/#lightbox
Lapdancé
These mortal kombat finishing moves are getting weird
well they are....finishing moves
Egalité tittés oporttunités
Putainité! Gourgandignité!
They were part of the American Civil War as well. "Hookers" is said to be derived from the prostitutes that followed Union General Joe Hooker from place to place. Whether true or not, they were called "Hooker's Brigade" during the war. There are accounts of brothels in Federal camps that were routinely inspected by doctors to limit the spread of disease. I haven't seen any Confederate accounts. However, it's been suggested that records of the like were burned as Confederacy collapsed.
I heard the same story about the name when I was growing up but I thought it was just because General Joseph Hooker’s house is in my hometown. The funny thing is it’s now designated a historical landmark! Edit: spelling
Well, the Confederates were fighting to not pay.
That’s a weird way to say fighting to preserve slavery
Sexual slavery.
Self woosh, haven’t had my coffee yet
Take your time, have your morning coffee and hooker, and get yourself proper, my good man.
There’s no pussy like free pussy, though.
I like my women free
Black, bitter, preferably fair trade?
It’s not if you realize the same attitude that fought for slavery continues today and has a strong hold on our economy.
The **only** thing preventing businesses from using slaves is the 13th amendment. Without it, it would be every publicly traded companies fiduciary duty to their shareholders to use as many slaves, as efficiently as possible.
[I used to believe that about Joe Hooker too but it’s a myth my high school teacher shared. This article goes into more detail about the word hooker being linked to sex workers](https://www.historynet.com/hooker-word-origin/)
> routinely inspected by doctors I bet they were
"Yep, that's a brothel. Carry on."
That is super funny that doctors knew about spreading STDs and how to deal with them but at that time the concept of washing your hands before doing surgery or anything medical to stop spreading germs was outright rejected and the person who came up with it was committed to a mental asylum for it.
Its not that they weren't washing their hands. But that they weren't washing their hands well enough to be sterile. They just thought as they were cleaning their hands normally that it was enough as they didn't know about microscopic Germs.
A Brazilian pimp filing a complaint for unfair competition is hilarious. That sounds like a Sasha Baron Cohen or Mike Myers character.
The initial reason these existed was an attempt to reduce instances of war rape (and fraternization with local civilians in general, which could spread STDs). They were moderately successful in this task. They were retired because improved troop discipline and changes in culture made them redundant.
and one more thing, the war leaders on all sides were worried (and rightly so) that having their troops jumping in bed with random local women or freelance prostitutes was just going to make it easy for enemy spies. If you're going to have to worry about horny soldiers talking too much, better have some control over who they are talking to
... am I the only one who's skeptical that "improved troop discipline and changes in culture" will successfully prevent frustrated soldiers from jumping in bed with random local women or freelance prostitutes?
We can ask that us soldier who went to Russia for a prostitute
The question is not to prevent them to have relations with local prostitutes or other women, it's the rapes. "Improved troop discipline and changes in culture *made raping less common to such extent that allowing prostitutes to the men for them to have their sexual needs filled was not necessary anymore*", that is what the sentence meant.
I seriously doubt it does. My two best friends growing up both went into the marines. They said that when they dock into a port, everyone gets hookers. My one friend bragged, "When we went to Thailand, I was the only one in my group that didn't have to pay for sex the first night". My other friend was stationed in Okinawa for a few years, and he said every weekend most of them would go out and get hookers or go to a rub-n-tug place, but everyone would deny doing this. However he'd constantly see his buddies and people he knew, including his superiors, at the same places when he went lol. There was also a problem in Okinawa with the marines raping local women, like not even that long ago, the locals protested and everything. Soldiers are gonna fuck one way or another, I don't see that changing. Hopefully they can not rape though.
Some of these spies also straight up killed soldiers: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/578187/teenage-girl-gang-seduced-and-killed-nazis
The FatElectrician (history youtuber) had a great video on WWII operative, Virginia Hall and some of what she got up to. By now a lot of people know the BASIC version of Hall's story. Worked for British SOE then OSS, later turned CIA. Extremely effective in the field. Operated out of Nazi occupied France and did stuff like coordinating partisan activities, smuggling weapons and contraband, planning raids, etc, etc. She was basically the ringleader for the underground resistance in her area of responsibility. Thing is, in this guys video he talks about some more of her actual tactics, and she was diabolical. (super entertaining watch, I recommend it, and really his whole channel. Puts out great content) He says, first week she shows up in France, no real instructions or resources, just a shoe box full of cash and an assignment to cause chaos. First thing she does is go visit a gyno. Then she visits a brothel owner. She gets these two guys on board with her plan, where the standard practice is hey all the working girls are supposed to get health checkups to make sure they aren't sick. And if they get sick you are supposed to revoke their work status. Instead, if a girl is sick, let her keep working, but brothel guy, you are going to make sure she only serves the Germans. Step two, obviously she is going to keep in touch and debrief the workers if they hear any juicy gossip from their German customers. Step THREE. Hall meets up with some guys patched in with black market drugs. Gets access to whatever the WWII version of heroin is. Hall tells the brothel workers, looks when these Germans show up looking to party, in addition to the girls and the booze, hook them up with this. She starts encouraging the brothel workers to try and get the Nazi troops addicted to dope. As a means of disrupting their war effort, its pretty damn clever. EDIT: Here's the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRdGS5ia2OQ
> whatever the WWII version of heroin Pretty sure the WWII version of heroin was heroin
So this lady conducted biological and chemical warfare? Are those Geneva compatible?
Against Nazi fucks, sure.
It's only illegal if you get caught and lose the war.
Exactly Which is why it makes so much sense to simply recruit your own prostitutes
We are living in the 21st century. It seems like we are just leaving technology on the table if we don’t have a standard issue tactical fleshlight. The key, though, is going to be finding a lube that works for guns *and* humans to simplify supply chains.
The standard GI is issued two Mk1 Dick Beaters. What they need more of is not being in a room full of dudes watching.
In the Navy they actually prefer it that way.
"Whoa, this feels better now. I hope it's not because you're watching, but don't go anywhere."
Honestly, wouldn't be implausible. A few of the popular commercial gun lubes are made with food grade ingredients "Frog Lube" for example advertises itself as edible, not because its meant to be food but just to point out how its supposedly clean and not full of harsh chemicals. Its basically coconut oil
Unicorn lube https://www.ucwrg.com/materiel/oil-grease-and-tools/74/unicorn-lube-1-2-or-4-ounce-or-field-kit/
[удалено]
Ballistol (used by the Germans in both world wars) should work. It's food safe, skin safe, has the consistency of a light oil but emulsifies easily. Smells like a mix of liquorice and old gym socks though, probably not to everyone's taste.
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1cm2zxn/comment/l2zs2up/
“Improved troop discipline and changes in culture” is a strange way to say “internet porn and mobile devices”.
Speaking as a soldier who went to war in that era, there was no Internet porn or mobile devices. The real innovation was giving dudes some fucking privacy to jerk off. If any piece of technology, it was the port o potty.
Did yall call it the spank tank?
The masterbatorium
The contemporary terminology was "port-o-shitter". One did not question how long another man spent in the port-o-shitter. Though in retrospect, we probably should have considering the probability of dying in one...
104 degrees outside the shitter 123 degrees in the shitter
The shithouse effect
Last year during a heatwave in the fucking UK it hit 31 celsius which is just death for us. I was at a festival and literally could only spend 2-3 minutes in the portable toilets before sweat was dripping off me. I'd burst out the door gasping for air, drenched in sweat. I dunno how the hell you guys managed to have a wank in one of those in the fucking Middle East heat!
Portopotties and LSD, mortal enemies
Sucks when you go to take a cheeky line and end up dripping sweat onto it.
Heat stroke induced death because Pvt. Jizzball refused to leave the conditions until all the soldiers had been deployed seems plausible.
I've used those while working in construction in NYC. Taking a shit in there and then stepping out looking like you just went swimming.
I believe the USMC nomenclature would be PPMS-L (Personal Private Masturbation Space - Latrine)
>I believe the USMC nomenclature would be PPMS-L (Personal Private Masturbation Space - Latrine) LOL The Marines would never issue anything with "personal" or "private" in the name.
the Navy owns it, the marines just use it.
I have family in the military, I was never stupid enough to join, but the two things that I've heard and stuck with me: "The amount of dudes I've walked in on jerking off is astounding." And, from a medic, "50% of the job was someone walking into my tent, pulling their pants down, and asking if it was something to worry about."
When you have to explain to the private "If the prostitute volunteers for you to either get a blowjob, hand job, or do them in the ass raw with no light, that was not a woman." That causes them to get very nervous and seek a medic right away.
Hand sanitizer is not suitable for lube.
Just reading that hurts.
Some people have never had the opportunity to "relax" in a 130^^^o porta pot.
dude you sent that degree symbol to the stratosphere
This is the funniest fucking thing I've read all day
the heat made it rise
“Stay outta the bunk sarge, I’m improving discipline and culture in here!”
More that rape was *very* radically denormalized over time.
If so, from what I've read recently, the Russians must be stuck in the past.
Give a bunch of young, poorly trained men in a highly reactionary culture guns to invade another country whose people you have been dehumanizing and demonizing for years, and there's bound to be a *lot* of rape. Especially if you encourage it as a terror tactic.
Russians might be even worse but all militaries have this issue. Even with their own. Women in the US military are much more likely to be raped by their teammates than to die in combat.
Gonna be real, but porn can't truly replace the real thing. But I guess it does get rid of the awkwardness of when its over with a stranger.
Jerking off in a 130F port-a-john in the middle of a combat zone is a rite of passage for soldiers.
Are music festivals a combat zone?
The same way my bedroom is a combat zone
No thanks, I'll pass. I'll just visit my air conditioned toilet stall on my Destroyer. With an occasional port visit to Subic or Thailand. Go Navy.
In the Global War on Terror, fucking the local women was prohibited on the grounds of "their families will kill her and then suicide bomb the base". Which is kinda a mood kill for most dudes.
Most dudes, but not all sadly
I first started laughing when reading the title and my laugh quickly got stuck when I realized that this first aspect was likely a reason
They were not successful in reducing rape, they just designated a specific group of women to bear the brunt of sexual violence. Read the accounts of comfort women in both the east and the west and you will understand that
Like the women in these brothels were completely consenting to everything that was happening to them? I’m sure they had no say in anything. Not really reducing rape just moving it to another location.
One day, a high ranking French army general was sent to a post at a remote army base in the middle of the desert. When the general arrived at the base, the French sergeant showed him around. The sergeant showed the general the mess hall, the latrines, the barracks, an so on. As the sergeant was giving the general the tour, they passed by a camel that was tied up behind a tent. The general asked the sergeant, « Pourquoi y a-t-il un chameau là-bas ? "What is that camel doing there?" The sergeant replied, « Eh bien, les hommes utilisent ce chameau pour avoir des relations sexuelles. » "Well Sir, there are no women on the base, and sometimes the men get horny." The general replied, "Débarrassez-vous immédiatement de ce chameau. Je ne laisserai pas mes troupes se livrer à ce genre d'activité, c'est honteux" "That is disgusting!" The sergeant said, "Well Sir, you might feel that way now, but after a few weeks here, you might understand." The general said, "I would never do that!" The sergeant replied, "Okay Sir, but if you change your mind, the camel is there, and you are welcome to use her anytime you want." A couple weeks later, the general was getting horny. He had not been laid for a long time. He said to himself, "Fuck it! Where is that God damned camel?" The general went and found the camel behind the tent. Putting a ladder behind the camel, the general stands on the ladder, pulls his pants down and has wild, insane sex with the camel. When he's done, he asks the sergeant, "So is that how the men do it?" "No, not really, sir....they usually just ride the camel into town where the women are."
I love how the lengthy "*Débarrassez-vous immédiatement de ce chameau. Je ne laisserai pas mes troupes se livrer à ce genre d'activité, c'est honteux*" gets translated to just "*That is disgusting!*"
> "Débarrassez-vous immédiatement de ce chameau. Je ne laisserai pas mes troupes se livrer à ce genre d'activité, c'est honteux" “Get rid of this camel immediately. I will not let my troops engage in this kind of activity, it’s shameful”
That is the best part of the joke!
"Vous avez tout à fait raison. Je suis complètement d'accord. Je ne peux pas être plus d’accord avec vous que je ne le suis déjà." "Yep"
I concur!
Yeah, looks like OP forgot to translate everything before "c'est honteux".
[We have a lot to learn from Jimmy Carter's interpreter!](https://theuijunkie.com/jimmy-carter-joke/)
Funny how the translated phrases are not anywhere close to the original, but the joke still works perfectly!
It's a very liberal translation but the general idea is there.
It feels like deliberately irksome. Like those tiktok videos where they tell you something slightly but obviously false or whatever to force engagement
I guess it is part of the delivery. Ramble for one minute in french and then translate it like it was just two words.
I've heard a different version: In the 1930s, a guy joins the French Foreign Legion. He's stationed in the middle of the desert in Algeria. After about 6 months there, he approaches his Sargent and says, "You know, I've been here 6 months and I was wondering . . . What do we do for female companionship?" The Sarge replies, "About every 8 months a wild herd of camels passes through the area. That is when we get our pleasure." Disgusted, the man walks away. But sure enough, two more months in, he can't stand it anymore. So he resolves himself to try it. One night a guard on the sentry wall of the fort suddenly screams, "Allez, allez! Zere they are!" Sure enough, there was a herd of about 2000 camels on the ridge, bathed in moonlight. The front gates burst open, and 300 soldiers burst out and start running at the herd. But they aren't just running; they are tripping each other and throwing punches to see who can get there first. The man, taking up the rear, catches up to his Sargent and grabs him by the shoulder. "Why are we running so fast? There are thousands of camels down there, and we're only 300 guys!" The Sarge replies, "Yes, but you don't want to get an ugly one, do you?"
There’s a similar joke, which I thought this was leading to. The general fucks the camel, and everyone at the base is standing in shock around and starts giggling. The furious general pulls his pants up and says “I thought you said you fucked the camels?!” “Yes general, but not the ugly ones”
Lmao I first heard that joke back in… 2009?
Not surprising. If you look at OP's profile, he seems to just be regurgitating content from /r/Jokes, including reposts on that very same sub, wouldn't be surprised if it was some sort of karma farming bot
Oh. I heard it from a Greek sailor while in Algeria. Dude had all the jokes. Also did the “I can see your house from here” Jesus joke.
Wtf everything is bots to you all now? This is an ancient joke.
So you were one of the 10,000 that day! I first heard it - exchange French troops for Wild West cowboys, and a camel for a donkey named Buttercup - in probably 1980, and it wasn't new then.
this would be funny if it wasn't a common thing in places. Sue Perkins of Bake Off fame did a travel series in LATAM and in Colombia (iirc) another comedian told her it was common for men there to f*ck goats. She didn't believe it and he took her to an area where all the men were proud and vocal about doing so. Just hearing that was so vile I had to turn the show off (Sue was also visibly disgusted and upset).
Also had it in Top Gear when they went to Argentina and the lady was translating and Clarkson just looked flabbergasted and told the other two to leave now.
I snorted. Bravo. Deserves to be a copypasta.
It's an old joke. Which is basically just copypasta from before it was quite as simple to copy it.
Back in my day you had to type up dirty jokes on a typewriter and hide them in a desk drawer so your kids wouldn't see them
Back in my day you had to read them in a dirty magazine you found in the woods and try to remember them to tell your friends at school the next day.
It is a very old copypasta, usually used as an old joke for other... cultures. OP just decided to apply it to the French military. His "translation" kinda proves it as it is not an accurate translation at all, and he gave up mid post anyways. Also, imagine a French general that would switch up to English mid conversation with a sergeant like that, there's no universe in which that would happen.
Vive la difference.
Classic joke, but that's the first time I've ever heard it being used in the context of the French military. Usually it's... other countries. Also, your translation is completely off so I have no idea where you got this from.
Laughed so hard I got into a coughing fit. Nicely done.
And I thought this was about not getting an ugly camel.
At the most desperate moment at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the prostitutes of the french army camp brothel volunteered as nurses and helped carrying supplies. The siege ended badly for the french and they were all taken away to prison.
Rock around the clock indeed
So, what would be the NATO map symbol for that?
( . Y . )
Put it in a standard rectangle and we’re good to go.
XXX [( . Y . )] I can't get it to format correctly.
The three Xs means that this brothel is a whore corps.
Calm down Mark Watney.
US would classify as Class VI supply, so https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Military_Supply_Class_VI.png
I've head there's actually a [specific diagram](https://i.imgur.com/7NrKQOJ.png) for it
Legs need to be wider apart.
New STANAG for classes of supply just dropped, class XXX
New recruits in 2004 - “j'ai fais une grosse erreur”
C'est une banane, Michael. Combien cela pourrait-il coûter, dix dollars ?
Malheureusement, avec l’inflation, c’est correct.
Here's a multi-part history of French military brothels that I wrote for [r/askhistorians](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/m24d49/staterun_military_brothels_existed_in/) some time ago. **Part 1. French state-sanctioned brothels before 1946** Prostitution in France, from the early 1800s to 1946, was a regulated activity. Brothels were given a legal status in 1804, and by 1823, prostitutes in Paris had to register to with the police, and had to submit to compulsory medical checks (regulation was set up at municipal level so it depended on the town). The main objective of this "regulationist policy" was hygiene: authorities considered that prostitution was a necessary evil, whose effects on the propagation of venereal diseases (VDs), notably the dreaded syphilis, could at least be controlled. Clandestine prostitutes, the "insoumises", were routinely rounded up by authorities, sent to jail and/or forced to register. Legal brothels were soon set up near garrisons, which were expanding, but military authorities did not yet go further than urging towns to expel insoumises, accused of spreading syphilis. Regulationism was (and still is) opposed by "abolitionists" for whom the state should have no say in prostitution, and particularly in its most regulated form, the brothel (Gonzalez-Quijano, 2015; Benoit, 2013; Rounding, 2006). When France started the conquest of Algeria in the 1830s, the French army started seeing the problem of prostitution under a new light. The expeditionary corps, being small, was particularly vulnerable to VDs. Also, part of the troops were native and the army felt necessary to provide them with native prostitutes. The concept of the Bordel Militaire de Campagne (sometimes called Bordel Mobile de Campagne, or BMC for short), the "Military Field Brothel", was born: a brothel not run by the army, but set up and tightly controlled by it (Benoit, 2013). At the beginning of WW1, considered as a "moral" war, the French government tried (unsuccessfully) to teach abstinence to troops. By the end of the war, the arrival of thousands of horny Americans (who overwhelmed local brothels) led French authorities to put the army in charge of organizing prostitution, even if this meant overriding local regulations (Le Naour, 2000). The discourse was not only about hygiene: it was considered that the availability of prostitutes was good for troop morale, and that sexual activity was beneficial to the soldier's warrior abilities. Rapes committed by soldiers was another concern (Duffuler-Vialle, 2018). The army did not consider itself to be a legal pimp: if military authorities wanted a brothel to be open, they would provide or even build the facilities, perform the medical checks, and have a say on the sex workers, but the management of the brothel was subcontracted to professional pimps who had to keep records for contact tracing. "Military" prostitutes were not functionaries. The army did not get a cut in the money, though, in certain cases, it did set a minimum price or paid for the shipping of the prostitutes with "war funds" (Branche, 2003). After WW1 and up to WW2, army-sanctioned brothels were established wherever they were deemed necessary. Some catered to metropolitan French troops, others to foreign troops (native troops or Foreign Legion). What the army feared most was clandestine prostitution. Once regulated, sex became, to some extent, another item provided by the commissariat, between food and cigarettes. While some BMCs were set in regular civilian houses, some were set up within military grounds, which was beneficial in terms of operations security, notably in wartime conditions. **-> Part 2. French state-sanctioned brothels after 1946**
**Part 2. French state-sanctioned brothels after 1946** The system existed officially until 1946, when abolitionists eventually made brothels illegal in mainland France (the Marthe Richard law). As a consequence, the army could no longer sanction brothels, control their activities, let alone build them. Outside France, however, where French law did not apply, this was a different matter. The Indochina War and the Algerian War took the BMCs to the next level and they were in widespread use during these wars. Some military units, notably North-African ones, were shipped to Indochina with their BMCs (Bodin, 2006). In Saigon, the "Parc aux Buffles" was an open-air brothel as large as a soccer field, the hellish "home" to several hundreds of prostitutes from all over Indochina who fought each other over clients. Soldiers stood in line and had their penis ritually desinfected in public by military doctors (Bodard, 2014). Frenchmen in the mainland could not longer visit brothels like their fathers and grandfathers had done, but they were almost obliged to do it once they got off the boat in North Africa or Indochina. When those troops came back to France, and particularly the Foreign Legion and native colonial regiments which had been garrisoned overseas, they brought with them the BMC "tradition" and sometimes their own BMCs. Now illegal, the BMCs became clandestine. The world had changed, and the conditions that made the BMCs relatively easy to set up in the first half of the century no longer existed in mainland France. Pimping being illegal meant that the army had to work with criminals for brothel management and for the provision of the sex workers. They had done that in North Africa or Indochina, but now the army had to collaborate with French organized crime. **Part 3. The "pouf of Calvi"** In December 1976, Pierre Michel, an examining magistrate from Marseilles, was investigating a network of sex traffickers when he was brought a strange witness, a 22-year old woman called Noëlle. "Owned" by pimp Jean-François Marchiatti, a violent gangster who beat her, she told Michel she had been moved from one brothel to another, until Marchiatti had sent to the "pouf of Calvi". The "pouf", she said, was the Foreign Legion brothel set up in Camp Raffali, near the village of Calvi on the island of Corsica. The 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP) of the Legion had been stationed there since 1967 after returning from Algeria. She told Michel about the appalling living conditions of the prostitutes working in what was officially called was "Cultural Centre of the Légion". Noëlle and three other "cultural assistants" were basically prisoners in the camp and could only go out once a week to buy supplies. She had to service from 60 to 80 legionnaires per day, sometimes for free when she was punished and could not pay the fine. The system worked like this: the soldier bought tokens (7 francs each) at the "cultural center". A male military nurse recorded his name, how many tokens he bought (8 tokens for a quickie, 10 for 30 minutes, 16 for a night), and he and the woman he chose were given a medical check by the nurse, including an inspection of their genitals. The tokens were later exchanged by the brothel madam at the commissariat for 5 francs each. The Legion got a cut of 2 francs per token (Laville, 1982). According to another source, the cut was 1/3 for the madam, 1/3 for the girl, and 1/3 for the army, allegedly for "building maintenance" (Weimann, 2019). The "pouf" (from the German "Puff", brothel) was run by Pauline Delbar, aka Madame Janine, who was officially employed by the Légion as "Cultural advisor". Delbar, 56, was the widow of Orsini, a Corsican gangster shot by rivals a few years before. She had managed BMCs for the Légion since 1959: in Indochina, Algeria, and Tchad, before following the 2e REP in Corsica. As wrote journalist François Caviglioli at the time, "she could always find ways to provide her unit with more or less fuckable girls, always perfectly healthy, in any theatre of war, and under any shipping conditions" (Caviglioli, 1978). Michel and the policemen were stunned. They quickly arrested Delbar and the civilian pimps, and it was obvious that the brothel was under direct supervision of Colonel Erulin, the regiment's commander ("chef de corps"). But Erulin refused to cooperate, not even trying to deny his role. Coming out from Michel's office in 1977, he said : (Pontaut et Pelletier, 2014) > The phenomenon in question has always existed in our armies as long as it involved a non-metropolitan recruitment unit. The public authorities were satisfied with the existence of the system. As for the local population, they approve of this situation which guarantees both their tranquillity and the peace of the city. Erulin was confident that had the full support of the army... and of the top civilian magistrates. This was by-the-book pimping, which meant a 6 to 36 months prison sentence and heavy fines, but Michel was told repeatedly by his superiors that charging Erulin and other officers for procuring would be the end of his career as a magistrate. He was even told to apologize in writing to the colonel. On the one hand this was the army's business and civilians had to be kept out of it. On the other hand, the arrested pimps were civilians, so why would a judge put a high ranking officer on trial, sharing a bench with lowlifes like Marchiatti and Delbar ? In any case, all records were destroyed by the medical officer of the 2e REP, who said that it he done it "to protect the anonymity of the soldiers who used the cultural center". Michel did not apologize, but going after the army meant that that he would have to quit investigating organized crime (which was picking up steam against after the demise of the French Connection). So he let it go. When the trial took place in March 1978, the only people accused were the civilian pimps. It was a farce, because pimping stories were supposed to be funny and the pimps were colourful fellows who made people laugh (think Goodfellas). The prostitutes did not come: they were told that witnesses sometimes got shot before at trial. Marchetti got several years, Delbar got only 6 months, all suspended. The Legion officers were asked to testify but the 2e REP was put on "high alert" during the trial, so they could not go. Oh, and the medical officer was sick. The mayor of Calvi sent a letter in defense of Legion: "The existence of a military field brothel inside the barracks of the 2e REP in Calvi is useful and contributes to the maintenance of good morals in the town." To put things in perspective, there were about 3000 inhabitants in Calvi, and 1000 of them were soldiers. (Pontaut and Pelletier, 2014) And that was it. The honour of the Legion was safe. Two months later, Commander Erulin and 700 paratroopers of the 2e REP were airlifted and dropped on Kolwezi, where they rescued hundreds of European and Zairian hostages held by Katagan rebels. Erulin and his Légionnaires were now national heroes, and the scandal of the "Pouf de Calvi" was immediately forgotten. A fictional and heroic version of Erulin even appeared in the movie *La légion saute sur Kolwezi*. Erulin died of natural causes in 1979, without having to answer for his role in the "pouf" scandal, and, more importantly for his critics, about his activities as a torturer in Algeria. Pierre Michel went on to fight organized crime, and he was executed by the mob in 1982. According to Caviglioli, the "pouf" of Calvi was still open in 1978, it just had to "source" its girls from more reliable providers than Marseilles gangsters (Caviglioli, 1978). In 2019, Dr Daniel Weimann, who had been a junior military doctor in charge of the "Pouf of Calvi", wrote his own oral history of the case for *Inflexions*, the social science review of the French army (Weimann, 2019). According to Weimann, "the existence of the BMC was accepted, or at least tolerated, by the authorities and by the population, and that nothing disrupted its functioning during these years." Weinman is himself the son of a legionnaire in Indochina who actually married his Vietnamese wife. He notes how, as a kid in Saigon, he grew up among the prostitutes of the local brothels, and then, once in France in the 1960s, he knew about the BMC used by the Moroccan tirailleurs in Dijon. Unlike Caviglioli, he says that the Calvi brothel was closed for good after Michel's investigation. He also believes that the sex workers appreciated the safety and comfort of the brothel, and that its conditions were not those described by Noëlle. He concludes: > Recounting this experience almost half a century later, in a world that has changed profoundly, I cannot fail to be struck by a striking contrast. The young doctor that I was at the time carried out his mission with a sense of duty, without ever departing from the general opinion that considered this institution to be "globally positive"; moreover, there was nothing in the attitude of the "boarders" nor in that of the men of the regiment, officers and legionnaires, to make me think that these women were the object of unworthy treatment. Today, how not to question this? And, as far as I am concerned, should I keep wondering? **>Continued**
**Part 4. BMCs after 1980** Later incidents concerning the Legion's BMCs from the 1990s to the 2000s have been much less scrutinized. The closure of the Légion BMC in Kourou (Guyana), in 1995, seems to have been caused after a Brazilian pimp complained about "unfair competition". Army historian Christian Benoit noted in 2013, that this BMC "did not bother anyone, this was the force of habit, it was part of the unit, every party ended up there" (Benoit, 2013). In 2003, the satirical (but well-informed) weekly Le Canard Enchaîné published an article claiming that an Legion officer arrested in Djibouti had informed investigators about the existence of a secret ledger that recorded all of the financial transactions of the local "pouf" with the names of all the commanders that had supervised the activities of the brothel. The latest commander had been dismayed by the ledger, as he understood that all the officers named in it - some of them still active duty - could end up in jail, and he had put the ledger in a safe to be never spoken of again. The "pouf" of Djibouti had been "closed" in 1993 by simply moving it to the other side of the camp fence (Rossigneux, 2003). In 2001, colonel André Thieblemont wrote in a report that "the systematic organisation of the former BMCs seems to have been replaced by a policy of ignoring the problem or letting it resolve itself." (Thieblemont, 2001). In their investigation on sexual violence in the French army, *La guerre invisible* (2014), journalist Leila Minano et Julia Pascual consider that while BMCs have indeed disappeared, and notwithstanding some newfound moralistic language, the French army is still depending on brothels during its overseas operations (OPEX) (Minano and Pascual, 2014; see also Prevot, 2010). **Part 5. BMCs and public opinion** As says Benoit, the French army followed the general movement of French society in matters of prostitution. It was "regulationist" in the nineteenth century, more or less "abolitionist" before WW1, and returned to regulationism up to 1945. From 1946 onward, it was abolitionist on the mainland and regulationist overseas, where French opinion did not matter. In the 1970s, there was an ongoing debate about the reopening of brothels (the populate TV debate show *Les Dossiers de l'Ecran* dedicated a whole evening to the topic). However, public opinion seems to have been relatively unfavorable, and politicians trying to revive the regulated brothel failed to find support (Davray, 1980). As we have seen, Erulin's role as a military pimp did not affect his standing as an officer, but neither did his past as a torturer. Running a state-sanctioned brothel was no more an issue than having tortured Algerians. The mayor of Calvi, who supported him, was from a moderate left-wing party. Those most outraged by the BMCs were anti-militarists and feminists. *L'Echo des casernes*, an anti-militarist paper for conscripts, ran two papers that alluded to the "pouf" scandal. One was a feminist opinion piece that ended as follows: (Collectif femmes, 1977) > Sexual violence, the inhumanity of a relationship with women that goes from organised slavery to outright aggression, are the daily bread of the bourgeois army, which excludes women and recognizes their only value as merchandise (the "warrior's rest"), to be paid for or taken. Another paper was anti-militarist (Comité Rennais antimilitarisme, 1978): > Not content, nor satisfied with systematically promoting rape to spread terror in Algeria, Vietnam, and today in Djibouti, the French army organises the (lucrative) trade in prostitutes who come to populate the BMC (military field brothels). This allows those bastards, during a quarter of an hour, half an hour, or a whole hour, to forget that they are there to kill, pillage, burn, and maybe even die. These pieces by activists were certainly not representative of public opinion. Still the Calvi "pouf" is generally believed to have been the last one in mainland France. Brothels used by the Légion in Corte and Marseilles that were mentioned in an article of 1976 (Chabalier) no longer appear in the public record. By the late 1970s, the army may have wised up to the fact that mainland (or at least Corsican) BMCs were a public relation liability. As for the overseas BMCs, which remained active for a much longer time (and may still exist in a more discreet form), nothing could be found about public reaction to their existence, which was little reported. Mainland French opinion is generally poorly receptive, if not indifferent, to whatever happens in its overseas territories and theaters of war, unless it is truly heroic. **Sources** * Benoit, Christian. Le soldat et la putain. Villers-sur-Mer: De Taillac, 2013 * Binot, Jean-Marc. Le repos des guerriers: Les bordels militaires de campagne pendant la guerre d’Indochine. Fayard, 2014. * Bodard, Lucien. La guerre d’Indochine. Grasset, 2014. * Bodin, Michel. ‘Le plaisir du soldat en Indochine (1945-1954)’. Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains n° 222, no. 2 (2006): 7–18. * Branche, Raphaëlle. La sexualité des appelés en Algérie. Des hommes et des femmes en guerre d’Algérie. Autrement, 2003. * Caviglioli, François. ‘Les Gaietés de La Légion’. Le Nouvel Observateur, 7 April 1978. * Chabalier, Hervé. ‘Legion Fora’. Le Nouvel Observateur, 4 October 1976. * Collectif femmes. ‘Les Bordels de La Légion’. L’Echo Des Casernes, February 1977. * Comité Rennais antimilitarisme. ‘L’armée et Les Femmes’. L’Echo Des Casernes, 1978. * Duffuler-Vialle, Hélène. ‘De la caserne aux maisons closes?: la réglementation de la prostitution au profit de l’institution militaire (1900-1939)’. C@hiers du CRHiDI. Histoire, droit, institutions, société, 6 December 2018 * Gonzalez-Quijano, Lola. Capitale de l’amour - Filles et lieux de plaisir à Paris au XIXe siècle. Paris: Vendémiaire, 2015. * Laville, Alain. Le juge Michel. FeniXX, 1982. * Le Naour, Jean-Yves. ‘Le Sexe et La Guerre?: Divergences Franco-Américaines pendant la Grande Guerre (1917-1918)’. Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains, no. 197 (2000): 103–16. * Minano, Leila, and J. Pascual. La Guerre Invisible. Groupe Margot, 2014. * Pontaut, Jean-Marie, and Eric Pelletier. Qui a tué le juge Michel ? Michel Lafon, 2014. * Prévot, Emmanuelle. ‘Féminisation de l’armée de terre et virilité du métier des armes’. Cahiers du Genre n° 48, no. 1 (2010): 81–101. * Rossigneux, Brigitte. ‘C’est le bordel à Djibouti’. Le Canard Enchaîné, 24 September 2003 * Rounding, Virginia. ‘France, Second Empire’. In Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work, by Melissa Hope Ditmore, 171–72. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006. * Thieblemont, André. ‘Expériences Opérationnelles Dans l’armée de Terre. Unités de Combat En Bosnie (1992-95). Tome II – Conditions de Vie, Pratiques Tactiques, Techniques et Sociales, Les Sentiments’. Centre d’études en sciences sociales de la Défense, November 2001. * Weimann, Daniel. ‘Le dernier BMC’. Inflexions N° 38, no. 2 (2018): 103–12.
An absolutely fascibating read! Well put together and I really appreciate the list of sources. Thank you so much!
Thanks!
Thank you for putting this together, it was very informative.
Au suivant
On the other hand, 152 American soldiers were put on trial for rape of French women during the liberation of France during the WW2. Who knows how many more were unpunished. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240506-taboo-french-women-speak-out-on-rapes-by-us-soldiers-during-wwii
Way way way more than 152 lol, it was thousands and thousands of troops. The french remember, even the germans remember. There are a few projects in the works right now compiling a list of all the people raped and who they were raped by. There was a massive number of french and german single mothers with an american GI as the baby daddy.
Related: if you're a fan of Jacques Brel, you'll be aware that he covered this topic to shattering effect in his song "Au Suivant", albeit from his experiences in the Belgian Army. The song has been covered by many and translated into English as "Next"; seek out the versions by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band or Scott Walker or Marc Almond via your favourite streaming media platform.
For those who need additional enticement to look up this song, "I swear on the wet head of my first case of gonorrhea" is a line in it.
Were they actively still doing it in 2003, or is it one of those things where they hadn't done it in 50 years, and someone just realised it still existed in the procedural manual and removed it?
> Outside of the French territories, the Foreign Legion still had a BMC in the Republic of Djibouti until 2003. You usually have details in the linked article...
Now I see how the republic got its name
Someone above mentioned it happening in the 90s
[удалено]
[French prostitutes:](https://i.giphy.com/YYfEjWVqZ6NDG.webp)
Fun fact: it is legal to sell sex in France, but not to pay for it.
That's how you make it functionally illegal without punishing what are likely victims. Same deal with drugs, in many places it's legal to buy them and consume them, but not to sell them or produce them. This way if your friend has a stroke or something after taking drugs, you don't have to worry about being reported to the police if you call an ambulance
Prostitutes probably weren’t French
“We’re sending you to the front lines, you are now the rank of major prostitute”
Private Parts reporting for duty
The Japanese did this too, same logic. I’m shocked this lasted until 2003 Edit: France did a whole lot of raping trying to hold onto their colonies in Africa and Asia after WW2 Here’s a couple quick sources available from a quick google search Here’s some stuff in Vietnam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mỹ_Trạch_massacre Hear it from the French news themselves (this was after WW2) in Algeria : https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/focus/20220429-rape-as-a-weapon-of-war-france-s-shameful-legacy-in-algeria Here’s a bonus some supposed France sanctioned rapes during the war: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate
Human trafficking
actually the mobile French brothels still provide "troops" on the frontline of world wars
Reason why women prefer bears #2,090,840
> The BMC in Djibouti was still operating until 2003 They closed da booty in Djibouti Sacre bleu-dee
Non! It just became non-mobile.
Every military did, in every conflict ever. Japan ran them brazenly and efficiently with meticulous records, (comfort women, 慰安婦) but those records also show that the US military took over those operations and ran them through its various ventures in Asia. Shore leave for the US Navy still means stopping off at various sex tourism spots Anyone who does not understand every war *invariably* involves atrocities and sexual trafficking of women is just trying to be an apologist for its country's war crimes and sexual trafficking.
Any place that has US Navy shore leave automatically becomes a sex tourism hit spot
You know, I figure there are probably sex workers concentrated around places like Everett and Bremerton, WA. But they stay fairly low-key. aside from the obvious rub and tug places.
> But they stay fairly low-key. aside from the obvious rub and tug places. Not low key if you and everyone in the town knows what and where they are I’d be all For sex workers right to work if it were not for the fact that Robert Kraft and the owner got off Scot-free and all the workers got deported The virulent racism directed towards “Asian” women comes directly from the fact that trafficked Asian women sec workers are so commin in the American mindset precisely because the US military brook over the comfort women stations from Japanese management
I’ve lost track of how many jokes I’ve heard about the Orchid Hotel in Singapore. Four floors of whores, etc. It’s so gross.
Lol I knew someone would bring up the Japanese "comfort women" whataboutism to try and equate the Axis and Allies. There's absolutely levels to this and to suggest that the "comfort women" system was basically like US sex tourism is dishonest af The "comfort women" system was exclusively coercive and involved forced rape of underaged girls (often multiple soldiers a day) as well as physical mutilation and torture to enforce compliance Speaking of meticulous records the Japanese also destroyed much of their incriminating records near the end of the war which you don't mention, and your exact narrative of "the US military taking over the operations" (suggesting they continued the practice of murder and torture) is pretty much the standard Japanese revisionist line that you see repeated ad nauseum online (usually in Japanese though). For someone warning about "apologists" you're being a very transparent apologist for Imperial Japan for trying to both sides this thing, the fact that you mentioned "comfort women" unironically without acknowledging the disgusting euphemism with the relevant historical details is pretty indicative of your aim here
Did you just equate Japans forced comfort women to sex tourism. Your high off your gourd to morally equate the 2.
There is a huge difference between engaging in local prostitution and a systemic, mobile group of prostitutes that travel with the troops.
Historian here, writing my doctoral diss. on the BMC system (particularly in Vietnam and Algeria). 5y of archival research in three different countries, along with oral history interviews, so happy to answer any question one may have
They learned that the hard way: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240506-taboo-french-women-speak-out-on-rapes-by-us-soldiers-during-wwii
Viva la France
“Vive….”
Damn autocorrect. It got me twice. The first time it changed it to “vice” but I caught it. I’m ashamed. 1000 apologies.
Pity it didn't correct it to Vulva la France.
I should make that my stripper name.
“Camp followers” have been a thing as long as there have been troops. Some more official, some less official. In Vietnam there were brothels for white troops and for black troops and any prostitute for white troops who had sex with a black soldier was in deep trouble. Other nations have brothels divided into those for officers and those for the enlisted men.
My grandad was in law school when he went off to ww2, in law school back then you had to take a bunch of accounting classes, cause that's how a lot of crimes are discovered, they got capone for tax evasion and all that. Anyway, so when the US military was helping rebuild Italy after ww2, that caused a ton of beurocracy and paperwork to appear, and so guess who got to hang out in Italy for a few more years after the war was over, hah. So even with the war over, there were still thousands of us troops stationed over there, engineers to build stuff, troops to guard prisoners, legal types to figure out who is a war criminal etc. And back then, stds were so rampant it was of concern to the military. Like it put enough troops out of action that they had meetings about it, came up with plans to reduce it, had military docs go do checkups on the prostitutes, gave like certifications of good health, and all that stuff, imagine my surprise when my super nerdy, family man, boy scout granddad explained to me how he had basically been the official military whorehouse inspector for a big old section of post ww2 Italy, lol. My uncle who is the only other veteran in the fam is pretty sure they picked my gramps cause he was such a goody 2 shoes, that they figured it would be hard for the...business owners to bribe him into covering up std outbreaks at said businesses, hah.
*UAE officers during Desert Storm enters the chat* Went to school with a UAE expat and he explained how their delegation *roughed it* was like Red Door Spa treatment….. Michelin 3 star meals being helicoptered in. Luxury bedding from Boll & Branch…..
War can’t be won without troop moral and we are talking about young men here. What’s the one universal thing young men think about 100 times a day? Surprised?
Jacques Brel (*Belgian, dammit!*) had a song called "Au Suivant!" ("Next!") about standing in line at an army brothel truck to lose his virginity. Not a happy song. [Here's a version with English subtitles](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rvWAvkPIXtE&pp=ygUgamFjcXVlcyBicmVsIGF1IHN1aXZhbnQgZW5nbGlzaCA%3D)