And that's hard to do on water.
In a story broken by the Virginia-Pilot newspaper, Captain Owen Honors of the USS Enterprise, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, while XO (Executive OFficer, second-in-command) of the carrier produced a series of video "entertainment skits" for broadcast to the entire ships company (about 6,000 people) in 2006 and 2007. They were apparently well-made, but featured content that would make Benny Hill blush. The more boorish good ol' boys (and perhaps some of the more loutish women) on board thought they were funny, but complaints were not welcomed by Honors (I wonder why?).
In one scene, two female Navy sailors stand in a shower stall aboard the aircraft carrier, pretending to wash each other. They joke about how they should get six minutes under the water instead of the mandated three.
Update: Video excerpts on Youtube
In other skits, sailors parade in drag, use anti-gay slurs, and simulate masturbation and a rectal exam. Another scene implies that an officer is having sex in his stateroom with a donkey.
They're all part of a series of short movies produced aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Enterprise in 2006 and 2007 and broadcast to its nearly 6,000 sailors and Marines. The man who masterminded and starred in them is Capt. Owen Honors - now the commander of the carrier, which is weeks away from deploying.
It's also interesting that especially in the wake of the repeal of "don't ask don't tell" the homophobia based humor remains rampant (because let's not pretend much has changed in the last three years).
Honors was an F-14 naval aviator and a former Top Gun pilot. It's sad to say that that kind of phyical ability often comes with a puerile jock mindset that manifests itself in stunts like this. Here's some more:
After that, the video returns to Honors. "Finally, let's get to my favorite topic - something foreign to the gay kid over there: chicks in the shower," he says.
He gestures to the person next to him - who, through a trick of video, is Honors wearing the blue coveralls of a Navy surface warfare officer, or SWO. SWOs include the officers who crew the ship; they don't include fighter pilots and other aviators. Repeatedly in the videos, Honors, a former Top Gun pilot, draws distinctions between aviators and SWOs and refers to SWOs as "fags."
On one level, I can see the defense of "it's just the guys letting off steam", blah, blah, blah. Pressure cooker environment, yada, yada, yada.
But this guy was second-in-command, now commander, of a multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier and its aircraft. He's also a key link in the chain of command that enacts the pointier end of US foreign policy.
As such, these juvenile antics that would be no longer be welcome in a junior high school playground are surely grounds for relieving him of his command (and for that matter, also anyone above him who condoned this kind of behavior at the time.)
What would Capt. James T. Kirk think? Sadly, this ain't Star Trek, Mr. Sulu.