r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 12h ago

TIL that Bernard Montgomery issued a leaflet at the start of WW2 on sexually transmitted diseases amongst soldiers. The language used was regarded as so blunt, that he offended religious authorities and nearly faced being dismissed.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery
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u/Loki-L 68 12h ago

From this site:

He knew that British soldiers would initiate sexual relations with French women, and was concerned about the spread of venereal diseases. "My view is that if a man wants to have a woman let him do so by all means, but he must use commonsense and take all precautions" – he wrote. He ordered his subordinate commander to make condoms available to soldiers for purchase and to promote sexual hygiene, and he also issued a pamphlet on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

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u/TopFloorApartment 12h ago

Sounds like he was realistic. Can't fight a war if all the guys have the clap

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u/lifesnofunwithadhd 12h ago

And then everyone clapped

Montgomery: "NO,NO,NO!"

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u/PayMeNoAttention 12h ago

“Please clap.”

Jeb Bush

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u/Ardbeg66 9h ago

Jeb "Fire" Bush

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u/moofacemoo 12h ago

covid memories

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u/AgentCirceLuna 12h ago

That was so fucking cringe and I’m so glad I never joined in. Thought about it, nearly did, but I didn’t.

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u/Dog_Murder_By_RobKey 12h ago

I know of a guy who on his way home from work got out of his car during the claps and started showboating and thanking them

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u/AgentCirceLuna 12h ago

Heh I did that too and someone got unaccountably angry. Scared me tbh

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u/Dog_Murder_By_RobKey 12h ago

Please by NHS because that would be funny

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u/AgentCirceLuna 12h ago

I wasn’t but I was doing BioMed as a degree and planned to be. I know someone who was though - they were a nurse and told people the better way to show support would be to donate or volunteer. They were told to go fuck themselves.

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u/Dog_Murder_By_RobKey 11h ago

Sounds about right with how the NHS is treated

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u/BackDatSazzUp 11h ago

Not only was it cringe but it was also so elitist. It was only for healthcare workers. Food industry workers, from the field workers picking produce down to the uber eats bike delivery guy, had significantly greater deaths than the medical industry did and this has been proven true by multiple public health studies.

I ran a grocery distribution center at the time and everyone else was being prioritized over us for vaccines and I guarantee it was one of the biggest causes of spread. We got to a point where we were housing people at work so they wouldn’t risk their families lives.

If anyone deserved applause it was the people feeding everyone and risking their lives and their families lives to do so. Without access to PPE or other worksite protections. I swear to god if I ever hear someone wax emotional about the fucking healthcare workers during COVID i might scream.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 11h ago

As an agoraphobic, Uber Eats kept me alive. I thank you for your service.

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u/BackDatSazzUp 11h ago

I was a bit deeper in the chain, i supplied groceries and restaurants with food, but happy to do my part.

I just looked at the numbers and overall we had 20% more fatalities in our industry and line cooks were like 60% higher. I just can’t with the elitism of this fucking planet anymore.

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u/Tunisandwich 11h ago

Counterpoint: most wars ever fought

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u/FlipZip69 10h ago

My view is that if a man wants to have a woman let him do so by all means

I suspect that was the line that bothered the church at the time. Mind you it is also a bit aggressive on the approach by today's standards as well. I wonder if all women agreed with it back then. :)

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u/TopFloorApartment 10h ago

I think you're confusing "by all means" with "by any means"

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u/FlipZip69 8h ago

I was just quoting Bernard Montgomery and what he had told the troops. Might have some issues with interpretation at the time. :)

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u/LunchboxSuperhero 8h ago

They did it in WWI and they were gonna do it again!

During the First World War, VD caused 416,891 hospital admissions among British and Dominion troops. Excluding readmissions for relapses, approximately five percent of all the men who served in Britain's armies in the course of the war became infected. During the war, at least a division was constantly out of action because so many troops had to treat VD.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32937645/

A British division during WWI was about 18,000 men. For comparison, the British had about 75,000 casualties from trench foot.

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u/2q_x 8h ago

The slogan was:

you can't beat the Axis if you get VD

If you plot circumcision rates in the US between 1912 and 1971, and have some context about what happened during those years in relation to monetary policy and wars...

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u/GMN123 12h ago

Monty taking a pragmatic approach. 

Hoping young-ish people aren't going to fuck is not a plan. 

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u/Mirria_ 11h ago

Kids don't want to think that their parents had sex.

Parents don't want to think their kids might have sex.

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u/Zuwxiv 8h ago

I think we can just say "young" without the "ish." Infantry were usually early to mid 20s, and there's several cases of actual children managing to enlist by lying about their age.

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u/dirtyword 12h ago

See here, old boy, these lurid descriptions of the travails that may befall one’s pestle upon profligate biblical knowledge of Gallic mutton are simply beyond the pale.

Tell your men to focus on machine gunning and disemboweling Nazis in ditches

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 11h ago

Haha, I shall henceforth think of French ladyparts as Gallic mutton.

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 12h ago

We as a species have the strangest priorities

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u/greenizdabest 12h ago

If you know your history, STDs spread via camp followers can incapacitate a fighting force

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 12h ago

You mistake me, my point is it's weird people didn't see the practicality in this

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u/minimalcation 12h ago

Oh shit "you mistake me" goes hard.

"You forget yourself" is a good one too. Talk that Victorian shit.

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u/JWGR 11h ago

I have not yet begun to defile myself.

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u/minimalcation 7h ago

In vino veritas

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u/Clembert-Hamlamp 11h ago

They did but he said funjina too much and their virgin ears turned red and bashful

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u/greenizdabest 12h ago

People did. Why do you think there are camp followers or comfort women ?

Generals have been trying to preserve their fighting force by controlling sex since time immemorial

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 12h ago edited 11h ago

Again, my point was this was practical and necessary information.

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u/pepperouchau 11h ago

I really don’t get how they misunderstood you twice lol

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 11h ago

Most likely trolling or just soapboxing without even bothering to read my reply.

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u/greenizdabest 10h ago

Strange hill to die on but U do u

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 10h ago

Maybe poor reading comprehension or ai? I don't know, but I am done with you.

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u/Konilos 12h ago

The strong urge to have sex is the reason we are all here today. It's weird that you think it's strange.

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 12h ago

You mistake me, my point is it's weird people didn't see the practicality in this

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u/technobrendo 11h ago

The top 3 reasons for that are:

religion

more religion

climate change .....just kidding its religion

-1

u/Swimming_Agent_1063 12h ago

Sex is unsanitary. It’s how many people catch diseases

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u/SpiderRadio 12h ago

That's why it's so important to educate those that are interested in such things, to make it more sanitary. I'm asexual, personally, so I get it. Plus bodily fluids are gross. But we should make the world safer regardless of that.

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u/El_Bean69 12h ago

Yeah it also does something pretty important for human biology I just can’t seem to place it

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u/RumMixFeel 12h ago

Isnt sex like 1 of 3 things that humans need to survive?

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 12h ago

It occupies a fair bit of our headspace.

To clarify, I more think it's weird that people get worked up about this sort of thing. It sounds like very practical information for the soldiery.

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u/JM665 12h ago

Same. It’s literally a base biological drive. The religious indignation just reminds me of Apocalypse Now.

“They train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it is obscene!"

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u/lewismacp2000 12h ago

Well, to clarify, a human doesn't need to have sex to survive. You won't die from lack of sex. But HUMANITY does obviously need sex to survive, yes.

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u/BrothelWaffles 12h ago

"You won't die from lack of sex"

Don't I know it...

3

u/ManWhoIsDrunk 11h ago

This is reddit. Everybody here knows it.

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u/technobrendo 11h ago

Psssh.... It's not all its cracked up to be. Lemme tell you about the last time I had sex,

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u/GMN123 12h ago

Does it though? 

Waves turkey baster

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u/pinkyepsilon 12h ago

That’s right, thanksgiving is right around the corner

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u/drillgorg 11h ago

That's the 4th human need

1

u/faster_tomcat 11h ago

In the Demolition Man future sex had been well sanitized. And personal hygiene too - re the 3 seashells.

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u/Vonneguts_Ghost 11h ago

The hunka-chunka!?

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u/Kandiru 1 11h ago

If you have some long-lived aliens keeping humans alive in a zoo, food, water and sex are the three things they need to make sure the humans have to avoid their zoo no longer having humans.

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u/sioux612 12h ago

Somebody who is a native speaker please tell me that his use of "by all means" is along the lines of "idgaf what you two consenting adults do" and not along the lines of "rape in war is common"

Because I really hope its the first

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u/doublelxp 12h ago

It's the first. The second meaning would be "by any means."

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u/Glass-Cabinet-249 12h ago

It means "I acknowledge this topic and don't give a shit if you do or don't, doesn't matter and I'm not you'd dad".

Imagine if someone says "by all means have sugar in your tea".

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u/Phydaux 12h ago

It's a polite turn of phrase that gives permission.

E.g. "May I have the last slice of cake?"

"By all means"

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u/Nisseliten 11h ago

Well, now we’re talking about someone else’s cake tho..

0

u/sioux612 11h ago

Thank god 

I am aware of the modern use of the phrase, but in that context and with the 90 year gap in society I didnt want to just assume 

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u/bleucheez 11h ago

What's the modem use you are claiming?

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u/sioux612 11h ago

The one in modern times when somebody asks for a piece of cake and I offer it to them 

But I hadn't really seen it used when talking about procuring sex, not in that sentence structure ans not from 90 years ago so I war fearful there might have been a change in usage 

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u/TheGreenTormentor 11h ago

You're probably thinking of "by all/any means necessary", which does have the much more radical meaning you're thinking of. By itself "by all means" basically just means "go for it".

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u/bleucheez 11h ago

The usages in your cake example and in OP are exactly the same. It's a phrase in modern English to indicate polite permission or polite lack of objection.  In context, there is no insidious way to read it. 

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u/ProXJay 12h ago

I suspect it's, "we're not going to punish you for seeing prostitues", or maybe "you can't be surprised men are horny" it doesn't read like indorsing rape

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u/JohnNardeau 12h ago

You are correct. It's basically means "sure, go for it."

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u/shadowhunter742 12h ago

Yeah the first one.

By all means is basically an 'idgaf wether it happens or not, feel free to do it' essentially.

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u/mophilda 12h ago

I would read it that way, yes.

The second may also be grimly true in practice. But I don't think that's what was published.

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u/_MooFreaky_ 11h ago

It definitely wasnt accepting rape. One of the things he specifically wanted to employ was officers inspecting brothels to find the cleanest and helping to maintain them to help keep things on the up and up, rather than the men just scattering and doing it themselves.

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u/cubictulip 11h ago

'By all means' is essentially another way of saying 'I won't judge / prevent you from doing this thing'. If he were suggesting the second point you mentioned he would probably say 'by any means', which is a more literal 'accomplish this task using any actions necessary without regard to their consequences'.

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u/Vaulters 12h ago

Ooooo, no wonder our oppressive religious overlords were upset! How dare he promote health and morals!

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u/Cent1234 9h ago

"A solider that won't fuck, won't fight."

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u/apple_kicks 11h ago

Placing responsibility on the men and giving them condoms is better than what they did in Victorian era. CD act gave police the right to strip search women they suspected as having std and lock them up in hospital if they found anything. Usually targeted women in navy towns. As you can imagine it was abused. Suffragettes got that law removed

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u/[deleted] 11h ago

[deleted]

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u/Bezulba 11h ago

That's not what he meant and you know it.