The good news is that the Pentagon wants men in the armed forces to have sex with each other. The bad news is that they want men on the enemy side to do it.

It sounds like a joke, but it’s not. Under the Freedom of Information Act, a non-profit group studying biological weapons found out the Pentagon seriously entertained the idea of spraying enemy troops with a chemical that would make them sexually irresistible to each other.

As a citizen I’m shocked that the armed forces could sink so low. As a gay man I’m wondering if you can buy the stuff over the counter.

A biochemical weapons proposal titled Harassing, Annoying, and “Bad Guy” Identifying Chemicals was apparently submitted to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate in 1994. It included the development of a biochemical making enemies exceptionally sensitive to sunlight.

But it’s what should be called the “gay spray” that attracted the most attention. A military official tried to diffuse the international media attention by saying, “the proposal was rejected out of hand.”

An exceedingly rich metaphor given the subject matter, but the denial is rather hollow. It’s a bad idea to get the enemy to blow each other before we blow them up. True, if we won, the Pentagon would gain a new revenue stream in the form of a $19.99 plus postage video called “Enemy Combatants Gone Wild Doggie Style.”

But that’s the thing. We wouldn’t win. Male lovers make the bravest fighters. History has proven that over and over. Our troops would be better off giving the enemy military hardware than temporary hard-ons. Nothing emboldens a man more than protecting his lover. And nothing enrages him more than seeing him killed.

According to Homer’s Iliad, the battle of Troy turned when Achilles’ lover, Patroklos, was slain by the enemy. The Trojan War had dragged on for years and Greece was about to be routed when Achilles, the enraged widow, led his troops to victory.

In the ancient Greek cities of Elis and Boeotia, male lovers were ordered to fight alongside each other because they were likelier to fight harder and win. The most famous, organized group of warrior-lovers were the Sacred Band of Thebes.

In the 4th century B.C. they had never lost a battle. Until they met the army of a famous Macedonian general and his even more famous son, Alexander the Great. The Sacred Band lost, but get this: Even as their beloved city of Thebes surrendered to Alexander and his father, the Sacred Band fought until each and every member was killed.

Their incomprehensible valor impressed Alexander. Not enough to spare their lives, of course, but it led him to create a Sacred Band of his own.

Greek literature is full of stories of heroic sacrifices by male couples. From the Athenians Harmodius and Aristogeiton to the Macedonians Alexander and Hephaestion, gay couples fought harder, defended longer and drove further than their straight, single counterparts.

So squirting the enemy with gay spray is not quite the brilliant idea military strategists think it would be. If they really wanted to gain a strategic advantage, they’d crop-dust our own troops with it.

Of course that would never happen, not just because of institutional homophobia but because gay civilians would keep raiding the stockpiles.

Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to lift the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban. Or rather, keep it but with one loophole: gay men could serve openly as long as they sign up with their lovers.

It’s the perfect compromise, really. The military could preserve their bigotry and gain a secret weapon. Even if the science to make the gay spray existed, the political climate wouldn’t allow its use. The chemical would clearly find a black market use in the U.S. And then you’d see an unholy alliance between gay bars and religious fundamentalists. No doubt they’d come up with a voter initiative (Proposition 69) complete with a catchy slogan “Say Nay To The Gay Spray”. The spray would, of course, ruin alcohol sales at gay bars. Why buy a hottie a drink when you could just give him a spritz?