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.
You expect people whose very lives could end any minute to make that distinction?
That's not pornography by today's standards,IMHO. It's also tastefully done.
It doesn't take much to look around the internet and find material that degrades the human species. Judging by the quantity that's available, there is obviously a demand for the product. As is the case in opiate production, much of that demand has been deliberately manufactured by the suppliers.
It's an unfortunate example of the decline of Western Civilization.
We really should behave better than animals.
Having said all that, however, this is an issue of free speech - and I'd fight for their right to distribute the material.
The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War.
by Tom Lowry
"Naughty pictures" of nude or scantily clad women were available even then and people were upset about it.
Would I want my husband or son looking? NO, but it's not new.
Oh, great. Another repressed Church Lady (a term which embraces both genders) who wants to tell everyone else how to live their lives.
Get a life.
>>You expect people whose very lives could
>>end any minute to make that distinction?
I expect those who make vendor and supply chain decisions to make that distinction.
We don't need another GI-funded industry like the tobacco industry.
This is nothing new. The only difference is accessability. When I was going to sea, there were always 8mm "Training Films" on board the vessel. The senior enlisted lounge ran them several nights a week. I just could never understand why they showed them on the first night of a 60 day patrol.
Gunner
>>NO, but it's not new.
Of course it's not new.
More than 2000 years ago, Plato referred to the abuse of sexual urges as "the tyranny of the appetite".
Preying upon those who can not control their own appetites is probably the world's second oldest profession.
Hmm. I suppose Ms. Donnelly is speaking from experience here? I wonder when and where she did her combat tour....
I suppose it's possible that some troops COULD be addicted to pornography, and so porn availability MIGHT be an issue for them.
Of course, by getting rid of porn, you create whole new discipline issues. Young men, after several months of nearly no interaction with women, are going to get rather grumpy and ticked off pretty easily. Add to that mixture the lovely desert environment and the excitement of roadside explosives, and things get even worse. If the troops can enjoy a few luxuries, like a simple nudie magazine, it can ease a lot of tension that might otherwise be vented through fighting or other macho posturing that is detrimental to good discipline and morale.
To me, it makes more sense to send the few "porn addicts" to the chaplain or shrink than expecting officers and NCO's to deal with constant conflict between sexually frustrated joes.
As the then-mayor of New Orleans said in 1917 when the Navy forced the shutdown of the Storyville red-light district, you can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.
You are correct. They do.
Oh for heaven's sake!
The Chaplain did not specifically state who confessed the sin did he? He was just stating that there many men and women "in and out of the confessional" saying that they are addicted to porn. I've heard this many times from priests. It is now the number one sin which is confessed.
Then there's this scene...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SI9wcVGYMEs&mode=related&search=
Or, just go to youtube and type in "This is my rifle..."
I'll buy most of that.
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