WASHINGTON, DC — A congressman wants all adult content made off-limits to service members.If a Republican congressman from Georgia’s 10th District has his way, servicemen and women will not be allowed to purchase even softcore erotica on base.

Paul Broun, a physician by trade, is a believer in the anecdotal evidence that suggests pornography consumers are inspired to commit sex crimes. Even though such theories have been found to be without scientific basis, Broun wants all erotica removed from military exchanges.

Depending upon the base on which they’re located, exchanges can range in size and scope from facilities similar to civilian convenience stores all the way up to Sears-like department stores that sell everything including the kitchen sink. They are commercial endeavors managed by contractors — the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the Coast Guard Exchange System and the Navy Exchange Service — and are not subsidized by taxpayer funds. All of them contribute a percentage of their annual revenues to the military’s morale, recreation and welfare fund, which sponsors activities and facilities for service members and their families.

“Sexually explicit” materials have been banned from bases since Congress passed a 1996 law to that effect. The definition of “sexually explicit” rests in the hands of a Department of Defense review board that serves anonymously and meets periodically to consider new materials. It has banned the magazines Bootylicious and Juggs, but Playboy and Penthouse both passed muster as having enough social and political relevance to warrant acceptance.

Broun wants the board dismissed in favor of an outright ban. He plans to insert into the old law some new language that would define “sexually explicit” as nudity or depictions of “human genitals, pubic area, anus, anal cleft, or any part of the female breast below a horizontal line across the top of the areola.”

Since it was introduced on April 16th, 16 co-sponsors have signed on to support the bill.

Leave aside for a moment that few members of Congress served in the armed forces, and even fewer have children or grandchildren on active duty today. Also dispense with the notion that according to AAFES, magazine sales make up only a small part of exchange sales worldwide. (Playboy accounts for less than 3-percent of AAFES’ annual magazine sales, according to an AAFES spokesman.) Even discount the idea that service members can get much raunchier material online at the click of a button, so banning softcore magazines at military exchanges seems like a moot point, at best.

What’s really galling about Broun’s position is that he insists he wants to change the law in order to protect taxpayers and the military. He claims taxpayers inappropriately are being forced to subsidize the pornography sold on bases, and it’s taking a toll on the service members who view it.

“Sexual assault is going up within the military, and I certainly think there’s a very high likelihood the pornography being sold in military PXs is contributing to that,” he told Newsweek.

Perhaps Broun, 61, can be forgiven. He’s only been in Congress for a year, having been elected to replace the previous representative who died in office. Still, he denies his bill is an attempt to buttress his current campaign against another conservative contender by standing firm against one of the Republicans’ favorite whipping boys: pornography as a destroyer of family values and human lives.

“The purpose [of the bill] is just to get DoD to uphold the law,” he told Newsweek.