Pentagon: Penthouse, Playboy Not Sexually Explicit
WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 29, 2013) – Morality in Media received a response to the letter sent to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, which urged him to stop selling pornographic magazines on military bases. The response from Assistant Secretary F.E. Vollrath would be hilarious if it were not so tragic.
The letter acknowledges that federal law prohibits the sale of sexually explicit material on bases, citing the Military Honor and Decency Act of 1996: “Section 2495b of title 10, United States Code, prohibits the sale or rental of sexually explicit material on property under DOD jurisdiction.” It goes on to say that a Pentagon review board reviewed the publications cited in our letter [Penthouse, Playboy, and Nude Magazine] and determined that they were not “sexually explicit” under that law.
So that’s the problem- sex magazines are not sexy enough for the Pentagon!
We didn’t run out to purchase the magazines in question to see if they no longer contain porn, aka, are “sexually explicit material,” but we did take another look a the definition of “sexually explicit material” in the law in question. It states, “The term ‘sexually explicit material’ means … visual depictions, produced in any medium, the dominant theme of which depicts or describes nudity … in a lascivious way.”
Now do you understand why the Pentagon will continue to sell porn magazines despite being in the midst of its unprecedented sexual exploitation scandal?
Neither do we.