“A nude photo scandal has shaken the entire Marine Corps,” reads the headline on Marine Corps Times. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called it “degrading behavior” in a statement Monday morning. If you read the comments from current and former Marines, male and female, you’ll see dozens of posts like this one: “Don’t want nude photos shared don’t take them, that simple.” What do all these have in common? They are massively underplaying the dangerous behavior that is not a “scandal,” but in reality is sexual assault.
Former Marine Thomas Brennan broke the news on The War Horse over the weekend that hundreds of Marines are being investigated for sharing nude photos of fellow services members. But it’s not just “sharing photos of nude service members,” which itself, when shared without that person’s permission, is assault and illegal in many states. But taking photos without permission, sharing the name, rank and duty location of the females and commenting that these women should be raped while being videotaped. These photos were shared via a Marine United Facebook group of more than 30,000 members and stored in Google Drive.
