A YOUNG woman has complained to the Defence Ministry that her fiancé refuses to have sex with her because the army is draining him of all his energy.
According to Ministry spokesman Antonis Kritiotis the woman said her fiancé would return home on overnight leave exhausted and fell asleep almost straight away, not even aware of her presence.
“The young woman called us with her complaint, which was somewhat out of the ordinary,” said Kritiotis. “We do receive numerous complaints from various people regarding different matters, but never have we had one like this before.”
Kritiotis said the Defence Ministry would look into her complaint, but admitted it was not a high priority on their list.
The spokesman refused to reveal where the National Guardsman was stationed, how many hours he was on watch at a time, if he was in fact made to partake in excessive exercise routines and what his rank was.
A source at the National Guard told the Cyprus Mail they received many more important complaints than the slackened sex drive.
“It is true that a woman called blaming the army for her fiancé’s lack of sexual appetite,” he said.
But the source added that since the Defence Ministry had decided to change the overnight leave time for soldiers, allowing them to leave camp at 4pm and return the next day by 3pm, they had received many complaints from parents and national guardsmen themselves.
“The new system is fine for people in Nicosia, but presents a problem for soldiers in Paphos as the times do not suit them. It was easier for them to leave camp at 2pm so they were home in the afternoon. By leaving at 4pm they spend most of their free afternoon travelling,” the source said.
He did admit that there were difficulties with the National Guard as there were not enough soldiers to complete duties and therefore they were limited as to how much overnight leave they could grant each one.
With the new system, each soldier will be eligible to leave the army once a week and where possible twice.
“Despite this ongoing problem, we are taking these complaints into account and do want to make the new system work for all soldiers, no matter where they are stationed,” said the source.
But he added that blaming the Defence Ministry for a suppressed sex drive was unfair. “With so many other severe objections from soldiers themselves, we do not consider this isolated complaint to be very serious.”
