Norfolk, Va. - Walk into the local NEX or AAFES, and you'll see them on the magazine stands: Playboy, Curves, and Maxim - just some of the titles available for purchase.
So what's the big deal? Dirty magazines never hurt anybody, right?
Not according to one anti-porn advocacy group.
“Men are coming back from deployments addicted to pornography.”
Casey Capozzoli is the Deputy Executive Director for Morality in Media, which runs the website “Porn Harms” Her organization is now going after the Pentagon for selling dirty magazines to sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen in base exchanges around the world.
Apparently some military wives have been complaining to the group about easy availability of what they consider to be porn.
“It changes marriages and it breaks them up,” said Capozzoli. “It’s almost like your husband is cheating on you.”
Morality in Media is even making a connection between those Playboys and the military's rising numbers of sexual assault.
“Pornography is sexually exploitive, the military has a sexual exploitation problem, and this is contributing to that,” said Capozzoli.
Aside from moral issues, the group has a strong argument - because technically, selling sexually explicit material on base is against the law.
The Military Honor and Decency Act was passed in 1996, but this group says the Pentagon has chosen not to enforce it for years.
After trying to petition Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel with no results, Morality in Media decided to try their luck in Congress.
They hit gold when they got a picture into the hands of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions right before an Armed Services Committee hearing.
“These are pictures given to me of magazines being sold at an Air Force Exchange, our culture is awash in sexual activity,” said Senator Sessions.
That picture of rows of dirty magazines was snapped at Lackland Air Force Base, where more than 40 instructors are accused of having inappropriate relations with female basic trainees.
It seemed to turn some heads on the committee because in their report for the 2014 Defense Appropriations Bill, senators direct military officials to start the process of pulling those dirty magazines off the shelves.
We just had to ask some local exchange shoppers what they thought about the Senate's push to rid military bases of inappropriate content.
“Do you think it’s going to make a difference if they pull these dirty magazines off? No, not really, because if they want to, they are going to find another way to get it,” said one Navy wife.
“With people losing jobs, people being furloughed, this is the most important thing they could come up with? “It’s foolish, we have a lot of other stuff we need to worry about, instead of dirty magazines and selling them on base,” said a DOD civilian worker, upset that the Senate was even worrying about this when they haven’t passed a budget to fix sequestration.
The Navy tells us all local NEX abide by DOD instructions for what to stock on the shelves.
There is actually a “Resale Activities Board of Review” that determines if an item is considered sexually explicit.
All NEX stores here in Hampton Roads only carry approved titles.
The Pentagon now has 180 days to start reviewing that policy per the senate's instructions to get dirty magazines still there off the shelves.
