Fair warning: the following post is adult in subject matter. If you’re my kids, hopefully you’ll be far too bored by this discussion to read further until you’re of an age when it’s interesting to you.
Actual title of this blog: “Porn Up, Rape Down”
http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.edu/Adobefiles/porn.pdf by Anthony D’Amato
ABSTRACT: The incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85% in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults. The Nixon and Reagan Commissions tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials produced social violence. The reverse may be true: that pornography has reduced social violence.
Rather than being a topical pundit and conversation-leaner, I’ll let the paper stand for itself and post my own opinions in a day or two 🙂 If you’re going to comment, I only ask that you read the (brief) research paper before posting. Following your gut instinct may lead you to questionable conclusions.
Think there’s a correlation? Causation?
Interesting
The idea has some merit. Certainly it helps to disprove the theory that exposure to pornography encourages rape (although that does not in any way mean that such exposure has no negative effects whatsoever).
The two areas that I have questions with his logic are:
1) If in his data he’s shown us eight states (the 4 with the lowest and highest access to the internet), and out of all of those the highest percentage of rape reduction is 50%, where is the 85% coming from?
2) In the 4 states with the lowest access to the internet, the percentage of rape actually increased. He took that as a sign that porn prevents rape. I don’t see that. If porn played a major role in preventing rape, then ANY exposure to it, even in lesser amounts, would cause at least some reduction.
If the data had shown that the low-internet states had also shown a reduction in rape, albeit a smaller reduction than the high-internet states, that would have better supported his theory.
Japanese study
A more comprehensive correlation which seems to track better (but is, unfortunately, much longer) is Milton Diamond (University of Hawaii) and Ayako Uchiyama (Japan’s National Institute of Police Science) collaboration, Pornography, Rape, and Sex Crimes in Japan.
Very similar correlations, with one major exception: the rate of rape convictions increased during the period, which tracks with public education campaigns in Japan designed to equalize the role of women in this traditionally male-dominated society. A larger percentage of women reported the violations than in previous years; despite the increase of reports, the overall rate still dropped.
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Matthew P. Barnson
My point of view
So my current point of view on this topic is split. On the one hand, I think pornography creates unrealistic expectations on the part of sexual partners. It creates an expectation for men that women expect to be degraded and enjoy it. It creates a situation of unfulfilling intercourse and advancing sexual deviancy.
On the other hand, I think people who say rape is only about “power and control” are pushing an agenda. Yeah, it’s about power and control… AND release of sexual tension. The refusal of many to acknowledge that last bit blinds them to the reality that “defusing” men who’s body chemistry expects more sexual activity than that afforded them reduces their likelihood of attempting to take it forcefully.
I think there is a significant methodological flaw in both of these studies, too. Not that they ignore other possible causes of the correlation between porn and rape — the one about Japan expressly addresses many of these — but that they underestimate the effect public-education campaigns, increased enforcement, and increased reporting of rapes has.
For a long time, I’ve maintained that what keeps some people from committing certain crimes isn’t the fear of the possible punishment, but the fear of being caught at all. For many potential violators, it doesn’t matter much whether the infraction carries with it a five-year penalty or a fifteen-year penalty. If they don’t think they’ll get caught, they’ll proceed.
As a final factor, we’ve done a serious about-face on women’s issues in the past sixty years. Sixty years ago, it was common to blame the victim in rape cases, and the men got away scot-free. Today, blaming the victim is frowned upon and generally doesn’t wash with a jury.
So I think a combination of a less sexually-repressed society, increased education regarding the issue, aggressive enforcement, and a more sympathetic judiciary have all contributed to the dramatic decrease in rape over the past few decades.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Too Many Other Factors
My personal opinion is that the study is too simplified. The changes in sexual mores, attitudes towards reporting such crimes, attitudes about whether it IS a crime, and public support for the victimes over the time period probably have just as much effect as porn does in reducing crime, if not more.
And say you buy the premise, for argument’s sake. What about the ill effects towards women (and children) caused by the explosion of the porn industry? I wonder how many “participants” in porn are doing so because they don’t have any other option? I bet some are in it to feed their nymphomania, and more power to those, but I bet a bigger majority are in it because they’re reaching the bottom of a downward slide in their life.
Pornography isn’t bad, but pronography as it is now, with the degradation to women, is bad. What porn needs is a return to 79s grandeur, with a plot and cheesy soundtracks.
Not that I’ve seen any porn, mind you. This is all based on what Sam’s told me about it 😉
My $.02 Weed
Exposure…
I had my very first exposure to that in Sammy G’s basement. A kid named John (not the one here, another one, different spelling) had given/sold/loaned (it’s fuzzy) Sammy this video, and I watched it at the tender age of 15 or 16.
I recall that I had to go get a drink because I left my jaw dropped open so long. And I got a crick in my neck from leaning my head sideways to watch while holding my hand on the “stop” button on the VCR in case Sammy’s insomniac mother came downstairs.
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Matthew P. Barnson
That Was Me
Yep. That was me. Back in the day. Sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Except for the first two.