War

by Sebastian Junger

And weird it was: strange pantomimed man-rapes and struggles for dominance and grotesque, smoochy come-ons that could only make sense in a place where every other form of amusement had long since been used up. Bobby wasn’t gay any more than he was racist, but a year on a hilltop somehow made pretending otherwise psychologically necessary. And it wasn’t gay anyhow: it was just so hypersexual that gender ceased to matter. Someone once asked Bobby whether, all joking aside, he would actually have sex with a man up here. “Of course,” Bobby said. “It would be gay not to.” “Gay not to?” O’Byrne demanded. “What the fuck does that mean?” Bobby launched into a theory that “real” men need sex no matter what, so choosing abstinence can only mean you’re not a real man. Who you have sex with is of far lesser importance. The men knew it made no sense—Bobby’s weird brilliance—but no one could quite formulate a rebuttal.