Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with a woman from the Philippines, herself a former sex worker, who had founded an organization to help women in the sex trade in what was once the U.S. naval base in Subic Bay. My conversation with her reminded me of a comment I read (perhaps by Anthony Swofford in Jarhead) about the connection between pornography and the military. I wondered at the time what that connection is, and listening to Alma Bulawan of BUKLOD, I felt closer to the answer. Since our conversation, I have been pondering the connection between militarism and pornography, prostitution and rape.
In pornography, women (and men) are stripped of their personhood and humanity and become toys and fantasy objects. In prostitution, the same thing happens more directly. In the military, in order to desensitize recruits to their supposed enemy's humanity and personhood, soldiers and sailors are similar presented with "enemies" stripped of their humanity and individual personhood. (One military officer and psychologist wrote an excellent book on this aspect of training: On Killing by Dave Grossman.) In all of the places where American troops are stationed, either combatant or combat ready, the local people are also the "enemy" and they all are given derogatory nicknames by our military, for example, "haji," which takes a religious title of honor in Islamic cultures and reduces it to a term of caricature and contempt. This parallels the reduction of women to toys or objects in pornography and prostitution.
When we consider rape, such as the rapes almost regularly committed by American military personnel in Asia, the violence and sexual exploitation intersect. In speaking about the 1995 Okinawa schoolgirl gang rape, then US Pacific Forces Commander Admiral Richard Macke said on the record: "I think it was absolutely stupid, I've said it several times. For the price they paid to rent the car, they could have had a girl." Macke was accused of insensitivity and retired at a lower grade as a result of the outcry over his comment, but he was expressing the perspective of someone who sees the local people as not quite human. That is the connection between pornography and the military, and sadly, the explosion of pornography over the last generation and the spread of its sensibility, if one can call it that, into mainstream society demands awareness and action.
The first step, especially for men, is to become mindful of our own complicity in the intersecting webs supporting prostitution, pornography and militarism. Next steps include informing our friends and colleagues; supporting the Women for Genuine Security Network which has affiliates in all the places in East Asia where U.S. forces are stationed, as well as in Guam, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico; and working more broadly to end sex trafficking around the world.
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