In our continuing, semi-regular series on "Healthy Sexuality and the Combat Veteran," we need to take a look at three or so "unhealthy" variations on a theme. The first, here, is "inability to touch intimacy" -- there's plenty o' sex (promiscuity), just not with the wife. The material is quoted from a Vietnam veteran participating in a program with Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.:
Nantucket in the summertime was a fucking playground. You meet broads, we’re stationed there, we don’t know what the fuck we’re stationed there for. A different broad every night, twosomes, threesomes, it was a liberal fucking place. It was just fucking crazy, but it was a relief for a short period of time. It worked better than booze. In my mind it had intimacy. With booze, I didn’t have intimacy. You’re fucking someone you don’t even know; but you know that you’re fucking. I wouldn’t even call it lust. It’s what I’m supposed to do and I feel good doing it, but then you get up and leave. After you’re done you couldn’t wait to get the fuck outta there. Also on Nantucket. Once you’re done everything popped back up [i.e., intrusive memories and emotions related to Vietnam.] But for that five minutes you forget everything. Then you get up and leave.
You know you’re walking down the street [today] and you see a guy with his wife, holding hands, and you wonder “why can’t I do that? Why can’t I hold hands like that?” I want to, but I don’t know how. It seems like there’s a process to it, but we don’t know the process. You know, people hugging and shit like that? We do it in different ways. We take care of our wives, we give them what they want. We make sure they’re not afraid of anyone – we’re there if anything fucking happens. We have intimacy in that way.
You’re drunk, you’re slobbering over some broad – I touched it [intimacy]. I didn’t touch it with the person I want to [i.e., his wife], but I touched it. Back then I didn’t know what it was for. It felt good, and not too many things felt good lately and this is one of them. You know I can drink till I drop. Booze and fucking has a lot to do with our scenarios, booze would lead to sex. Half of us don’t drink anymore. The pact between booze and sex fucking ended.
And when I went home – you know, I think I still have a problem, I still have a problem today, approaching my wife for sex. I don’t know if she wants me to approach her. I don’t know the steps. Every once in a while it’s okay, but most of the time it ain’t. I won’t say it’s the punishment, but I’d say for us it’s the way it’s supposed to be. We don’t put a lot of stock in it.
You’ve got a wife and a family, and you can’t abandon them, so, you just fuck. There’s nights you don’t come home. The wife, she figures you’re out on a drunk again. And most of us did weird things, really, but we always left the money at home. Like, “That’s for you, because this part of me isn’t good.” [I would] fuck nasty, but you couldn’t do that kind of thing to your wife. That’s a whole different thing. That’s the woman who nurtures you, and puts you back together, and puts up with your bullshit.
If you look at a lot of us, we had solid women, the women were strong, they were solid. That’s what we lost. We were in the fucking jungle while they were going to their prom, the holding hands. You know, the high school sweetheart, we gave that up. Willingly, we gave that up. We didn’t know it. But we gave it up willingly and said, “I’m going to do this [fight a war],” so we can’t capture [what was lost], don’t know how to. Before Nam, I remember going out with girls in high school, not fuck or anything, but making out all night, kissing and – I remember doing that. [Before Vietnam] not really fucking. It was that time in the early 1960s, you went home and took a cold shower half the time. But the intimacy was there, the hugging and the kissing and you could put your arm around the girl you went out with. These weren’t sluts…”
…
You don’t want to degrade your wife to that level. [Like a slave?] Yes. There’s times when she approaches me, and you know what? You’re very careful making love. You’re very careful in your mind. In your mind you don’t want to get dog-fucking dirty. This is my wife, the mother of my kids. She’s the one who holds the family together. I supply [the family’s livelihood]. That’s a whole different thing. I don’t have a word for it.
It has a type of relief that’s good for a while, sure as hell better than any booze. Some of us ain’t drinking anymore so it’s harder.
The way we are, amongst ourselves, look at it is it’s just another price we pay.
