An Australian navy submarine skipper has got himself into, erm, hot water, by suggesting that attractive females wearing bikinis could reverse a recruitment crisis.
Commander Tom Phillips, appointed to the Australian navy's HMAS Farncomb last year, also joked that the submariner equivalent of the notorious "mile-high club" for people having sex in aircraft was the "going down club".
Now then, the original Reuters story says he suggested female sailors "should" wear bikinis, which isn't quite true. If we scroll down the story we find that, in fact, he was asked by Ralph Magazine: "If female sailors all had to be hot and had to wear bikinis, would that help recruitment?"
To which he responded: "It would certainly get the right demographic of young men in. I'm not sure how feasible it is, however."
Does that make it all right?
The defence, science and personnel minister Warren Snowden called the remarks "utterly unacceptable", while the Australian MP Bob Baldwin said: "If these comments are to be attributed to this newly appointed commander, I think it will go down as one of the shortest careers in naval history."
But Rear Admiral Davyd Thomas, the deputy navy commander, said the Australian navy did not value "bodies over brains" as some angry women's rights groups have suggested.
Phillips was merely responding to a "flippant question".
"The commanding officer's response was not intended to be serious," he said.
The Australian blogger Amarinda Jones doesn't find it funny: "This is bloody stupid and it begs the question – if female sailors dress to attract male recruits, what do the male sailors do to attract women to enlist in the navy?" She writes: "I find it not only offensive to women in general but also to the members of the defence forces as it suggests they join under the influence of sex. Once again – as far as we have come as women, there is always some nitwit man trying to hold us back."
