人生行路 — The Journey of Life

Penthouse has been back in military exchanges for a while now, and the reaction by anti-pornography groups (example) should be no surprise, but unlike tobacco and alcohol, the military conduct no campaigning against the use of pornography. Sex-related public service campaigns seem only to include sexual harrassment/assault, abstinence promotion aimed at minors, and the prohibition against viewing pornography on government computers, the latter topic of which is never found on AFN commercials.

The Navy Times article linked says that the law does ban “sexually explicit” publications, despite that Penthouse fell out from that definition, and Playboy has fallen outside ever since the the specific law’s existed, meaning that according to the board evaluating the magazines, they do not contain “as a dominant theme the depiction or description of nudity, including sexual or excretory activities or organs, in a lascivious way.” When comparing this to barring pornography on government computers, what exactly is the definition of what kinds of sexual materials are banned? I don’t know which law bans pornography viewing on government computers, but if command policies ban “pornography,” and “pornography” is inherently “sexually explicit,” and Penthouse and Playboy aren’t “sexually explicit,” then what exactly is banned? This doesn’t mean officers should immediately stop enforcing the full intent of command policy, but somebody could try to bring this up. The specter is far more real for shore commands, which can’t force an individual into NJP.

To address those advocating a complete ban of pornography–using, of course, a much looser definition–they will end up having to address why the military doesn’t do the same for alcohol and tobacco, especially considering the content of public service campaigns as mentioned above. Those not familiar with AFN commercials, be informed that they do cover a wide range of topics other than alcohol and tobacco, covering seemingly everything from eating breakfast, to powers of attorney, to those of the Loose Lips Sink Ships variety.

A more consistent solution on both ends might be to wage a similar campaign against pornography. Sure it might be cheesy, but we ought to be consistent in our cheesiness, right? Why not broadcast testimonials against pornography? At minimum, let former porn stars tell the story of what it’s really like in there. Let men whose lives have been ruined tell their story. And to make sure we have just enough cheesiness, stick Pete the Porno Puppet in there, too.

Note: This post is edited from its original form due to the YouTube embedding messing up the layout of the page.

This article is written for future publication on PurityPeople.com. More articles to come later.

Back in high school and college, I was the computer geek without any “luck.” Now that I’m in the military and am living on a large piece of steel and haze-gray paint in the middle of the ocean, the whole dating game from back in college has taken a back seat while I work on other things. I’ve found myself with an outside view of those years through which God is teaching me is that He isn’t going to tolerate us just sitting around waiting for Him to get things done for us. In fact, if we’re not getting things done for Him, such a demand is the height of arrogance.

Let me tell you about the first experience I had with the concept in college. There was a certain girl who went to high school with me, or perhaps more properly, we went to the same high school. We didn’t know each other very well, but apparently she in her desperation had developed a crush on me. Eventually she gave up on kind of hiding it, though I could tell from the countless phone calls and times “hanging out.” She was a non-believer, and I knew that things would not work out between these two people whose values did not match. I tried to call it off, and it wasn’t happening.

Long story shortened, I opened my email one morning to find a suicide poem. Immediately I call 911. She’s OK, but she’s overdosed on painkillers. I find out a few days later that the doctors were amazed that her liver wasn’t fried with the amount she took.

Then I made one of the stupidest decisions in my life. While there was little chance of dating, I still abandoned her friendship out of a false sense of self-preservation. It was clear that God wanted me to be at her side helping her out, and I ignored the call.

Is there any more evidence God needed to determine that I was fully unqualified to handle a dating relationship? I flipped the bird at God, and turned my back on a friend who needed my help.

Oh, and then I got addicted to porn and masturbation. More on that in another article.

What are you doing while you’re waiting for romance? Do your actions reflect that you’re ready, or are you just wallowing in self-pity like I was?

Remember that house where the landlord lives under the tenants? I just was able to return to the housing office, and it happens to be available after all this time. And this time, I listened and didn’t end up trusting myself over God.

Somebody broke the television in my guys’ berthing the other day in some drunken rage. Based upon the colorful diagonal streaking across the LCD screen, I’m convinced that the damage is irreparable unless one could just replace the LCD part. The cost of that would only justify getting them a new TV, which we did more quickly than I would have anticipated. Still yet, I doubted the move in that maybe the guys would find some value in peace and quiet rather than having the tube…er…screen making noise all day.

So a fellow DIVO and I are given a blank check and get assigned to hit up the exchange and get the guys a television. We buy a television, get back, and get it installed. Later on in the day, I’m told to check on the guys and the television. I get there, the television is installed…and off. A bunch of guys are just resting there, couches towards the TV.

I’m confused. Is the television working?

“Oh yeah, sir, the television’s working. We just started liking to be able to sleep during lunch hour.”

Who knew?