GOP Senator Suggests Porn Is To Blame For Military Sexual Assaults

By Hayes Brown/Think Progress
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) detoured from a line of questioning about sexual assault in the military to raise the possible connection between the availability of pornography on military bases and sexual attacks on servicemembers.

Sessions joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in time for its second panel of the day, having missed the first session due to a conflicting meeting of the Budget Committee. Once there, Sessions wasted no time diving into the issue, asking several questions of the assembled military commanders in the panel.

During his questioning, however, Sessions brought up his concern that access to pornography on and around military bases was creating “problems” among the soldiers, sailors, and pilots:

SESSIONS: Mr. Chairman, I’d just add a letter, a document here that was given to me from Morality in the Media. Pat Truman used to be in the Department of Justice. I knew him when he was there. He points out that, a picture here of a newsstand and an Air Force base exchange with, you know, sexually explicit magazines being sold. So, we live in a culture that’s awash in sexual activity. If it’s not sold on base, it’s right off base. There are videos and so forth that can be obtained, and it creates some problems, I think.

Sessions then immediately segued into asking questions about the panel’s responses to sexual assault situations, asking what they would do if “you had a female soldier who had felt she was assaulted by an NCO, higher rank,” leaving his previous comments hanging in the air. He didn’t return to them during the rest of his questioning, leaving his full meaning unclear. However, while a few studies have found that pornography makes men more sexually aggressive, there’s no real-world evidence bearing out the claim that this translates into sexist attitudes or sexual violence. In fact, many more recent studies have been unable to show causation between viewing pornography and carrying out sexual violence.

Much discussion has been had over how best to change what has been recognized as a problem with the culture within the military, where sexual assault and rape are severely under-reported. An estimated 26,000 instances of sexual assault in 2012, of which only 3,374 were reported and investigated. A slew of high-profile scandals has also contributed to the view that the armed services are not doing enough to prevent sexual assault in its ranks.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) had also raised several concerning points during the first panel, including that hormones could be sufficiently blamed for sexual assaults and questioning whether the first women to serve on an aircraft carrier were investigated for getting pregnantduring their tour. Chambliss’ comments, though, were tempered with a fair amount of blame directed towards Congress and the military leadership alike. “But guys, we are not doing our job. You’re not doing yours, and we are not doing ours with the rates we are seeing on sexual assaults,” Chambliss said. Sessions showed no such circumspection following his comments.

ANALYSIS: The GOP’s Use Of Frivolous Sex And Porn Amendments To Kill Substantive Bills

By Lee Fang

Yesterday, House Democrats were forced to scrap the COMPETES Act — a jobs bill to increase investments in science, research, and training programs. Despite initial bipartisan support, the bill went down suddenly as House Republicans staged a parliamentary ambush to insert a provision that would fire any federal worker “disciplined for violations regarding the viewing, downloading, or exchanging of pornography.”

The unadulterated partisan politics were on full display shortly before the vote. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) unveiled the GOP porn amendment, announcing that it would be a referendum on the use of porn on government computers. However, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) quickly took to the floor to denounce the minority party’s “embarrassing” gimmicks to “undermine an important bill for my 9-year-old daughter, for your kids and your grandkids”:

JENKINS: If you think spreading pornography with a government computer is an act that should lead to dismissal, then vote for this motion. [...]

GORDON: For God’s sakes. And when it gets to the conference, we’ll take care of that even more. But everyone raise your hand that’s for pornography. C’mon raise your hand. Nobody? Nobody is for pornography? Well I’m shocked so I guess we need this little bitty provision that means nothing is going to gut the entire bill. This is an embarrassment. If you vote for this, you should be embarrassed.

Watch it:

Using a “motion to recommit,” the amendment scared enough Democrats to back the porn amendment, thus forcing Democratic leaders to pull consideration of the bill, possibly postponing it for weeks. House Republicans celebrated their success in obstructing the jobs bill, and promised more of the tactic in an interview with CQ. “We certainly should do more of this type of thing,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX).

But it’s not the first time Republicans in Congress have used sex-related amendments to sow division and kill substantive bills:

– Republicans, led by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), fought to kill the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act, a bill to boost energy efficiency, by forcing votes on sex related amendments. One amendment requires home contractors to ensure that no employee “has been convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, a crime of child molestation, rape or any other form of sexual assault.” The amendment was successfully placed into the House version of the bill.

– In an attempt to kill health reform, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) offered an amendment to the reconciliation “fixes” in the Senate, to force the bill to go through the House again. His amendment would ban coverage of erectile dysfunction drugs for sex offenders. However, Coburn had offered his own version of a health reform legislation, the Patients’ Choice Act, and his bill did not even contain his own sex offenders provision he tried to force on the Democrats’ bill. His amendment failed.

– Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) tried to bog down the FY 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill by staging a fight over grant money to study HIV risks of sex workers. The study Issa targeted was a $5 million project cleared by an NIH peer review process and was already underway. Nevertheless, Issa claimed that instead of studying Thai and Chinese sex workers, the NIH should just take “a $3.10 transit ticket to go across town” to complete the study. Avoiding a fight, Rep. David Obey (D-WI) abruptly accepted Issa’s amendment to remove the research funding.

In the one instance Democrats have stood up and opposed frivolous sex-related amendments, Republican campaign committees have quickly used those votes to claim Democrats support sex offenders. A release from the NRSC blared: “Barbara Boxer Votes To Allow Convicted Sex Offenders To Receive Taxpayer-Funded Viagra” shortly after Coburn’s amendment failed. The GOP has used sex as a political weapon to kill legislation designed to create jobs, fund research, reform health care and save energy. And as Rep. Smith noted, they plan to use this tactic more often.