Cary's response has two parts.

Part A: Notify the boyfriend, fill the purse with condoms. Perfect. There's no reason for him to be unknowingly put in danger, and as Cary points out there's a real risk of her behavior spiraling outward into a real tragedy.

Part B: Speculation on trauma, hints of rape. She didn't head off to that room thinking that they were all going to stand and pledge allegiance all night. Presumably she had been drinking, chatting, and flirting with them for some time beforehand as well. If she didn't know that there was going to be sex, she at least knew that the possibility was in the cards, and chose to play that hand. If she didn't know that the possibility was in the cards, she should have at least known that her boyfriend might find out and would be far from happy--and this, I suspect, was the point.

Her behavior (that night, in the past, and subsequently) really seems to suggest that she doesn't want to take responsibility for her actions. I've had friends like this in the past, and at least part of it was that they wanted to pull the plug on their current relationship (they're young, they want to have fun, they don't want to be tied down) but can't bring themselves to end it. Instead, they repeatedly wander down roads were its at least likely that things will "happen" that will end the relationship for them. Somehow word will reach the boyfriend and the relationship will reach the crises that she secretly wants but has been avoiding. Alternatively, if word doesn't reach the boyfriend, the evening acts as a safety valve, allowing her to blow off steam and go on believing that she is young, that she can have fun, that she's not tied down--despite the 8 year relationship. She's probably not thought any of this out explicitly (hey, I hear the marines are in town!) but it is a strategy that has been working, for better or worse, for a number of years. (BTW: As an added bonus, if the writer tells the boyfriend, the young woman will probably dump most of the blame for the breakup on her.)

This woman is 26 years old and does not take responsibility for her actions. You or Lisa are expected to bail her out. It seems that Jan is struggling with both alcohol and sex problems. I don't really think you can help her until she decides to help herself. Remove yourself from her life. I would call your local public health department and speak to someone in the STD unit -- they may be able to inform Jan's boyfriend anonymously.

Today's response is a great example of why I read this column. Great job, Cary, with empathizing and trying to shed some light on what may be going on inside LW's friend. Yeah, what she is doing is reprehensible, but we are all human and frail, and some compassion coupled with tough love (insisting that she tell) could be exactly what she needs.

I was somewhat stunned at the nature of your advice. Based on the facts you received you know only that the person in question is displaying self-destructive behavior, indicative of sexual addiction. You give good advice about telling the right people, getting her help, etc. But you go on to add illusory justifications, to put on layer after layer of imaginary gloss that you have absolutely no reason to believe exists. You paint a picture of a possibly abusive, potentially cheating, boyfriend, but you have no real reason to suspect that. You also imply that the woman was all but gang raped by hordes of marines, but you've got no evidence for that either. You give her behavior a justification of depth and existential angst that would make Freud proud. It degrades and diminishes her responsibility to imply that her behavior is anything other than her own fault and anything other than the issue at hand. It is irresponsible to plant so much blame on other people in this situation just based on figments of your imagination.

...is that military servicemembers are regularly tested for HIV (like, every 6 months), and their status gets reported to everyone and their cousin, because it affects the person's availability for combat (DOD will not send anyone to the Iraq or Afghanistan theaters who is HIV+). That's not to say that HIV isn't a risk, but we're talking about a population that is hyper-cognizant of their HIV status relative to the general population.

This is why I agree with Cary that the risk of STDs in this particular instance should not be your focus here. Getting sloppy drunk in a hotel room with a group of strange men is extraordinarily risky behavior. It's probably even more risky when all the men know each other well, as in a fraternity or a military unit; I would suspect it might lower some men's inhibitions against doing something nonconsensual or illegal if they felt they were with other men whom they could trust to "cover" for them. Even doing it with a bunch of men you know is risky behavior. Once, when I was an Army officer, several of my fellow officers and I had to go to a formal event in Heidelberg and decided to all chip in for a hotel room, thinking that this would be a smarter alternative than drinking at the event and then driving back to our home base which was a couple of hours away. I didn't think twice about it, since these were my colleagues and fellow officers (we'd already slept in the same tent on multiple field-training exercises, so it's not like this was some new concept for us). Well, there was quite a bit of drinking at this event, as it turned out, and the after-party spilled into the hotel room. It also included a couple of guys who weren't from my unit. As the guys got more and more drunk, I started to get more and more uncomfortable with this arrangement (at the same time realizing that I had limited options as I didn't even have my own car with me). The guys, even the guys I knew, were starting to act just a little bit...different towards me. Fortunately, another male friend of mine who had rented a room with his wife down the hallway saw what was developing and quickly offered me the extra bed in their room. I really have no idea what would have happened had I had to stay. I at least wasn't sloppy drunk myself and had the presence of mind to get out of there.

Incidentally, some enlisteds I knew in the Army taught me the expression "pull a train over her." This refers to a woman being passed out drunk in a room and all the guys in the unit, one by one, having their way with her. This may well have happened with your friend. You really have no idea whether she's the victim of a crime, or whether she even has any awareness of whether she could be the victim of a crime. Even if she knows she is a rape victim, she may be blaming herself for her own stupidity. I sense a lot of self-hatred on her part. This person needs help a lot more than her boyfriend does right now.