Playboy, Penthouse and other sex-themed magazines will no longer be sold at Army and Air Force exchanges _ a move described by the stores' operators as a business decision based on falling sales, and not a result of recent pressure from anti-pornography activists.

The 48 "adult sophisticate" magazines being dropped are among a total of 891 periodicals that will no longer be offered by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service at its stores on U.S. military bases worldwide. Other titles getting the ax include English Garden, SpongeBob Comics, the New York Review of Books and the Saturday Evening Post.

Morality in Media, a Washington-based anti-pornography group, called the decision "a great victory" in its campaign against sexual exploitation in the military, and said it would continue to urge operators of Navy and Marine Corps exchanges to follow suit.