Alright, so here's the thing. Sexual harrassment does happen sometimes. I don't care if you're gay, straight, male or female, every one of those groups is capable of sexual harrassment.

People in the military are worried about a few different things here. And no one really thinks all gay men and lesbians are creepy molestors or something - most of us know at least a few gay or lesbian people in our units, and have no problem with them, as long as they do their jobs and are good soldiers. But it's a statistical probability that when you open up the services for gays and lesbians to serve openly, you're also going to get that small sliver of the population who acts totally inappropriately.

Now, when people say "roommates" in the military, they mean people you can't get away from. There's no separate bedroom. You're in a tent with this person, or a barracks room, and have little to no privacy. Showers, while most have stalls and curtains, feature cramped group changing areas. As everyone knows, there's an unspoken code of conduct for these types of areas. Everyone keeps their eyes to themselves.

Not everyone always follows this.

In my years in the military, I've only really come across one woman who was completely rude, inappropriate, inprofessional, and stared at me lewdly in shower changing areas and our open-bay living arrangements. It was awful. But it was only a four month school, and so I let it go without saying anything, bit my lip, and never said anything about it.

I'd have no idea what to do about that if she was my roommate for a year or more, as would be common in a regular unit. Moving living arrangements in the Army is difficult - you have to prove your roommate is behaving in a threatening way, something very difficult to do in sexual harrassment changes. There are no "single" rooms, if you're not a NCO or higher. Rooms are assigned to you, you have no choice in roommate currently. Personality clashes are given the "work it out yourselves" treatment.

Bottom line, living areas are supposed to be comfort zones. If you don't want to live with someone who may be sexually attracted to you, be that a straight person of the opposite gender or a homosexual person of the same gender, I do think you should have that right in the military. But that framework doesn't currently exist. Now, the military, as it does with everything, is going about trying to change that framework in a completely fucked up and politically incorrect way. But I don't think the feelings behind it are necessarily as bigoted as everyone here makes them out to be.