So like apples, team sports, and tutoring, a good healthy dose of pornography will ensure that your child will grow up to be a non-rapist. At least, that is, according to a new study published in The Scientist that finds no correlation between the availability of porn and increased sexual assault rates. In fact, the author, Milton Diamond, goes so far as to say that in some unique cases, an abundance of porn is actually correlated to a decrease in sex crimes.
To back up his claim, the author cites statistics from the Department of Justice that shows a sharp decline in the incidence of rape from 1975-1995, especially amongst those aged 20-34, a category that is felt would also represent the vast majority of internet users. A pretty telling number indeed, but to make the claim that the decline is correlative to the advent of internet porn is a leap to say the least. Being somewhat of a connosuier of smut myself, I can safely tell you that the state of internet porn back in the mid-90s is nothing compared to the tetrabytes of the stuff on any given dude’s external hard. It’s like comparing apples and oranges, or in this case 80kb jpeg files of breasts and streaming 400 mb videos of people roughing it.
Furthermore, as Kate Harding over at Salon points out, porn as a contributor to a decrease in rape cannot be a definitive claim given the overall complexity of sociological change during that time period:
"I'm guessing it would be awfully hard to control for every other thing that changed in a society over a decade or two. Off the top of my head, for instance, might it not be that increased feminism had something to do with it? Increased rape awareness? Or, I don't know, increased numbers of hour long crime dramas on TV? Increased use of the word "awesome"? Increased appreciation for Prince's musical genius? A lot was happening back then."
As much as I would like to believe that porn could solve my everyday problems, I have to agree that it is a bit of a stretch to claim that porn has deterred rape on a national level. More interesting, however, is Diamond’s claim that porn has actually influenced more tolerant views of women, a point I feel is not adequately proven.
In fact Diamond goes so far as to say that "No researcher or critic has found ... that exposure to pornography -- by any definition -- has had a cause-and-effect relationship towards ill feelings or actions against women. No correlation has even been found between exposure to porn and calloused attitudes toward women." I know I personally have a more profound respect for women after seeing feminist porn heavyweight Sasha Grey getting destroyed in “Ass Eaters Unanimous 19”, though you’ll never catch me admitting otherwise.
Porn plays a whole range of roles for different people and is much too complex a topic to be blanketed by the generalization that it has in some way influenced a decrease in rape and ushered in more tolerant views of women. Personally, I love porn as much as the next guy. But making it more accessible just seems a bit excessive and irresponsible at the moment, especially considering the lack of more definitive research on its effects; a dearth that may go unchanged for a long time to come given the strict rules governing scientific studies in relation to pornography. At the moment, I’ll just have to fire up my PC and hope that I don’t end up hating my mother after each session on the internet
And there is some pretty sick porn out there with overt violence against women. Even the mainstream stuff has a very male-dominants-a female object vibe. But I don't know if that necessarily translates into misogynistic attitudes. I watch violence on TV and I don't feel like committing violent acts, even right after the show is over
i doubt there's a causal relationship between porn and rape...
but i think a society that tolerates more liberal attitudes towards sex (and porn) would be much less stifling, and likely to create an environment that will create people to act in a deviant sexual manner, which might explain why there's some correlation between the two.
I'm skeptical of the stat saying rape has declined. I know it's referring to incidences of rape, but a stat I read from Stats Canada said one-third of rape victims don't report the crime. So how do you really measure such a thing?
I'm also not buying the argument that porn decreases rape either. I agree with you that it plays a whole range of roles, but women are still treated like objects in the industry and the industry itself sort of reflects attitudes about sexuality that heavily disempowers women. So to say it leads to a decrease in rape seems to ignore the context within which porn exists - a heterosexist, male-dominant environment.