PX Porn

© Dale Franks, 1995

This week, the hot issue on LA talk radio is the issue of pornography being sold in military Post and Base Exchanges, in the form of Playboy, et al.  As a former career military police officer and criminal investigator, I am uniquely qualified to touch on two issues germane to the discussion:  the role of the BX/PX in military life, and pornography's role in the commission of violent sexual offenses.

The Army and Air Force Exchange System (AAFES) is the retail sales service administered by the Department of Defense to provide military members with convenient access to consumer products.  This system is sometimes criticized as an extravagance.  But, because many bases are located in relatively remote locations, such a system is a necessity.  I served at two installations during my career which were located more than ten miles from the nearest town.  Obviously, this makes going out for a gallon of milk prohibitively inconvenient.

Pricing in the AAFES system is intentionally gauged to provide lower profits for AAFES, so that military personnel get a price break.  Overall, pricing averages about 12% lower than that found in civilian retail establishments.  Military personnel, as a general rule, are paid an average of about 20% less than civilians who perform the same types of jobs.  Indeed, as unbelievable as it may seem, it is not uncommon for  junior Non-Commissioned Officers and Enlisted personnel to receive some form of public
assistance--especially food stamps--if they have families.  The lower prices provided by the AAFES system are vitally important in ensuring military members have a reasonable level of access to consumer goods.

With the above in mind, it seems to me to be inappropriate for Congress to use the AAFES customer base as a captive population for an exercise in social engineering.  There are some congressmen who object to allowing gays in the military on the grounds that such social experimentation would be damaging to morale, and would compromise the service's ability to perform its mission.  Those same congressmen don't seem to mind doing a little social experimentation themselves, however, when it comes to Playboy.  It is intellectually inconsistent to argue that leftist social experimentation is bad, but social experimentation on the right is good.    If the military is too fragile to serve as a crucible for social experimentation in one area, why will social experimentation in another area strengthen it?

It is, moreover, intellectually inconsistent to maintain on the one hand a volunteer force engaged in the defense of freedom, and on the other hand to determine that members of that force will not be allowed access to a consumer product which is legal and freely available elsewhere, solely on the basis of a moral judgment about that particular product.  Evidently, it is perfectly acceptable to send 18-year olds to foreign lands and die to preserve Hugh Hefner's freedom to publish Playboy, but it is not acceptable for those 18-year olds to read it.

Using the same reasoning, it could be argued that condoms should be removed from AAFES store shelves because, after all, they will be used to engage in illicit sexual conduct of some kind, perhaps even (Gasp!) pre-marital sex.  Indeed, a good Catholic senator (Ted Kennedy perhaps?) might argue that the Church's ban on contraceptives makes their very sale sinful.

Personally, I find arguments about pornography as a causative factor in the commission of violent sex offenses to be less than compelling.  In cases of sexual violence, it is true that the vast majority of offenders are regular users of explicit pornography.  But the argument that pornography is a causative factor in such crimes is based upon an erroneous conclusion.  Just because violent sexual offenders use pornography, it does not necessarily follow that pornography caused them to commit the offense.  The use of pornography in those cases is merely symptomatic of an underlying pathology.  To argue otherwise is the same as arguing that, because all geese are birds, all birds must be geese.  Additionally, the fact that the vast majority of pornography users are not violent sexual offenders must be of some significance.  Considering how steeped our society has become in fairly explicit sexual imagery, it seems logical to conclude that if pornography were a causative factor in such crimes, there would be far more of them.

One might argue that since the rise in the availability of pornography, there has been a concurrent rise in the incidence of sexually-related crimes.  True, but to make that argument in isolation is to ignore the secular trend rate of growth in crimes of all types.  Crimes having no sexual motivation whatsoever have also been on the rise during that same period.  The argument might have some validity if all crimes except sexually-related ones were steady or decreasing.  But since crime in general is on the rise, bifurcating out sexual crimes and trying to attach causative factors to them is a practical impossibility.

During this same period, Americans have also become more aware of the importance of a healthy diet and exercise.  Do we attribute the rise in healthy living to an increase in the rate of armed robbery?  No, because it seems counterintuitive.  But the statistical correlation between pornography and healthy living can be made with equal validity (or invalidity, as the case may be) to sexual crimes and armed robbery, respectively.  With this in mind, it might be more productive to address the causes of the rise in crime in general.

I do not want to give the impression that pornography is good, and I am not trying to defend the use of pornography.  I certainly wouldn't argue that the moral tone of our armed forces--or our society--is improved by easy access to it.  But Playboy is available in nearly every convenience store in the country.  You can even check out the current issue at your local public library.  Whether you like it or not, it is constitutionally protected.

Military members already volunteer to give up a substantial portion of personal and even civil liberty to join the armed forces.  Military members cannot take part in public  demonstrations.  They cannot campaign for a political candidate.  Now, congress is discussing whether or not they should regulate the reading material available to soldiers at the PX.

How many constitutional rights must a soldier give up in order to don a uniform to defend them?

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