Pentagon nixed use of homosexual aphrodisiac

A Reuters story in HoustonChronicle.com: "The U.S. military rejected a 1994 proposal to develop an 'aphrodisiac' to spur homosexual activity among enemy troops but is hard at work on other less-than-lethal weapons, defense officials said Sunday."

That's the attention-getter. Needless to say, the full story's more prosaic. Key quote: "Lt. Col. Barry Venable of the Army, a Defense Department spokesman, said: 'This suggestion arose essentially from a brainstorming session, and it was rejected out of hand.'"

So the real story is that the Pentagon floated a whole bunch of cockamamie ideas for nonlethal weapons (the one about a halitosis-inducing chemical is a real winner, too).

Interesting that no one seems at all concerned about the use of chemical weapons, nor is there any suggestion that human testing of such weapons might pose ethical problems.