Posted on 01/08/2007 1:22:51 AM PST by balch3
(AgapePress) - An increasing number of servicemen and women are confessing to pornography addictions and most government-run military base and post exchanges are only adding to the problem by selling it.
In 1996, Congress enacted the Military Honor and Decency Act, which bans military stores from selling sexually explicit material, but according to Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, the act is not being enforced.
"Congress is going to have to take a look at this," Donnelly said. "Certainly the Pentagon is going to have to enforce those rules. It's a matter of good order and discipline and not just a matter of religion or free speech. It's a matter that the military itself needs to be concerned about."
Such concern is apparent among military chaplains like Father Mark Reilly, who recently returned from a Marine Corps tour in Iraq.
"I don't think I've ever been confronted as much face-to-face with men and women -- in and out of confessional -- saying, 'I'm addicted to porn and I don't know how to get out of it,'" Reilly said. "They're looking for a life preserver. It's wrecking their marriages. Like any addiction, they lose control."
Reilly said it's the combination of war stress and being away from loved ones that ignite the lust for pornography. Lust turns to addiction and addiction results in imitative behavior as seen in the Abu Ghraib photos -- made for and by porn addicts.
In The New Republic, Rochelle Gurstein described the Abu Ghraib photos as ones that "speak to the coercive and brutalizing nature of the pornographic imaginations so prevalent in our world today."
Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, who leads the U.S. military archdiocese, believes chaplains can play a big role in military porn sobriety by influencing "what is sold in the [exchanges], what's allowed in a public space, an office or a barracks, and I think a chaplain can have great leverage here."
The pornography that is sold at military exchanges is part of a $57 billion-a-year worldwide industry.
I spoke often with chaplains on deployment last year. Not one mentioned a porn 'epidemic', esp. considering what the other poster said is absolutely true; they're buying maxim, FHM, etc. Sometimes relatives will send Playboy, penthouse, and the like, but it isn't like the service is awash in the perverted bizarre stuff.
OHMYGOD! You don't mean that military guys are actually looking at -- gasp -- GIRLIE pictures...!!!
OH NO... When did THIS start? This has NEVER happened before in the all the history of men going off to war!
/yeesh
Stay safe RedEyeJack and thank you greatly for your service and for the info.
is there such a thing as a western sexual politics burqua?
Their analysts like this who needs religious fanatics?
We aren’t no thin red ’eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints.— Kipling, Tommy.
What a load of nanny state BS. The stateside Main Exchanges have been forced (years ago) to remove explicit material from their shelves and now only carry mag's like Playboy, Maxim, etc. If that causes someone to become addicted, they had bigger problems before and this sure as hell isn't going to solve it. If anything, the internet would be a bigger cause to this problem than something 12 year old kids get worked up about.
I'm going out on a limb here, if the INDIVIDUAL doesn't have the ability to resist the temptation then the INDIVIDUAL should seek help. Don't punish all the rest. What the hell ever happened to individual responsibility and accoutability? Of course the Chaplains want this off the base, talk about a vested interest.
Sheesh, the first go around was bad enough and as this article proves, only the first round in the battle to make our military a testing ground for the nanny state mentality.
It won't stop until someone makes these ass-clowns PROVE this BS.
SZ
Thank you for your service, RedEyeJack! Stay safe and good luck! I'll pray for your safe return.
Thank you for your service, RedEyeJack! Stay safe and good luck! I'll pray for your safe return.
Hillary must have as Bill as the FIRST VICTIM of this terrible disease!!! /sarcasm still on.
I see some hidden agenda here. After all, if people in the military are addicted to porn, then what's the big deal about letting gays in the military. Another example of gays trying to gain acceptance by tearing down straight institutions.
Whatever that means....I have no idea what your point is. Since you just joined it does not matter much anyway.
Excellent point.
I'm no expert--but it seems to me, how do people in the military, esp. those serving in war zones, have time to be "addicted" to porn? What is the line between looking at porn sites during down time, and "addiction"?
Busybody social reformers weaken our military. Not a victimless crime.
Have you ever noticed that Private Pyle is actor Vincent D'Onofrio, the cool detective star of LAw & Order: Criminal Intent?
Crap is right.
we send 19 year kids out to kill the enemy,but some sissy gets his panties in wad over pictures of naked women or the word Fu** on the side of a airplane
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