Feminists Play Role in Swedish Military's Porn Ban
by Jim Brown
July 27, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A former Justice Department official is applauding the Swedish military for barring government officials from staying in hotels that offer pornographic TV programs. The initiative of the Swedish military, which negotiates hotel space for public sector officials, is designed to protect women and improve the military's ability to recruit them. Swedish military officials say pornographic materials are harmful and degrading to women. For that reason, they say will no longer arrange deals with hotels that offer pornography.
Pat Trueman, the former head of the Justice Department's Child Exploitation Unit, says the move is significant because Sweden is a very promiscuous country.
"To have this turnaround from Sweden portends that maybe the world has had enough of this notion that pornography is a victimless crime," Trueman observes. "We all have known and said for years -- particularly Don Wildmon of the American Family Association -- that pornography is a harmful element to individuals and to society."
The Swedish military has also banned porn from its bases -- a step Congress took a few years ago when it passed a law to take pornography out of only some military bases. Trueman, who is now special counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, says he is hopeful the porn-ban trend in Sweden will spread to other countries.
"The Swedish military was confronted by a feminist organization that urged [acceptance of the fact] that pornography harms women [and] causes men to think harmful thoughts about women and [to] abuse women," he explains, suggesting that feminists elsewhere could have the same positive effect. "If the feminists throughout the world ... wake up to the fact around the world that pornography is a harmful element in society, I think this could have a multiplying effect."
Trueman notes, however, that feminists and feminist groups have tended to either hold the issue of pornography at arm's length or embrace it as "liberating."
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
