Adult magazines like Playboy and Penthouse are reportedly permitted to be sold on military installations because they do not meet the federal definition of indecent material, according to a top Pentagon official.
Frederick Vollrath, assistant secretary of defense for readiness and force management, responded to a complaint from Morality in Media in a July 22 letter by saying that a review board had scrutinized those magazines and determined that “based on the totality of each magazine’s content, they were not sexually explicit under [the federal law],” Military Times reports.
Morality in Media, an anti-pornography group, complained in June about the sale of adult magazine on Department of Defense property.
The group claimed that the display and sale of adult magazines in military posts amounts to a violation of the Military Honor and Decency Act of 1996, which prohibits the sale or rental at military exchanges of material in which “the dominant theme ... depicts or describes nudity, including sexual or excretory activities or organs in a lascivious way.”
Morality in Media officials released the letter from Vollrath, saying his response “would be hilarious if it were not so tragic,” adding that it’s puzzling why the Pentagon would continue to sell pornographic magazines while in the midst of a sexual exploitation scandal.
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