Pornography Cleared of Charges – Researchers Rule
Substantiating the quote “The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting”, researchers have concluded to discard an accusation on pornography of a major & undesirable affect.
Kama Sutra – the Indian text dating back to 2nd or 3rd century is one of the most well known oldest “erotic arts”. Pornography – as called today, on becoming popular was banned by various laws until Supreme Court began limiting the censorship only to hard-core pornography (in 1950s and 1960s). Pornography had its first and major win following the release of the film Deep Throat and the controversy after it, resulting in First Amendment protections for porn. Since then pornography has been sky rocketing to become a multi billion dollar industry.
President Ronald Reagan created two national commissions (one in 1970s and one in early 1980s) to study the link between pornography exposure and aggressive behavior & crime (rape). The second commission headed by AG Edwin Meese concluded that there was a causal link between viewing pornography and sexual violence toward women. More specifically, it noted that viewing pornography changes perceptions of “typical” sexual behavior, trivializes rape, promotes rape myths and directly leads to male aggression toward women. Though the commission acknowledged that these effects were particularly prevalent for violent porn, these conclusions were generalized to include all pornographic material.
Several experimental and correlational studies have been done to validate the claims of the commission and the results of these experimental research studies reveal that effects appear negligible, temporary and difficult to generalize to the real world. Most of the studies where are also fraught with many limitations, some of which include validity issues with “aggression” measures, brief exposure times, complexities of correlating attitudes with behavior, and difficulties in generalizing results from college students to actual sexual offenders and rapists. Several studies have also found that pornography actually reduces rape rate.
Dr.Ferguson et al, have recently presented data about the number of hard-core pornography titles released and rape victimization statistics in US, from 1988 to 2005. As can be shown in the figure given below, increasing availability of pornography is associated with declining rape rates.
Rape rates in the United States today are at their lowest levels since 1960.This trend continues despite the fact that availability of pornography (number of titles released and number of pornographic websites) increases annually. Although data on pornography consumption are not available prior to 1988, from the early 1970s up until 1988, rape rates were relatively stable.
NCVS data also indicate that not all rapes are similar. Rape ranges from a highly predatory and harmful stranger perpetrated act to violations between acquaintances or even those romantically involved where sexual boundaries have been overstepped. NCVS statistics also reveal the latter to be the most common occurring type of rape. In 2007 for instance, only 28% of rape victims did not know their attacker.
Violent pornography is rare, and not regularly viewed by the most of consumers. However, it may still concern to those worried about violent and sex related crimes. Although these concerns may continue due to the psychological community’s dogged, if not always data-based, concerns about violence in the media, the attention to pornography as a cause of rape or sexual assault seems to be fading.
Considered together, the available data about pornography consumption and rape rates in the US seem to rule out a causal relationship, at least with respect to pornography availability causing an increase in the incidence of rape. It could even be argued that the available research and self-reported and official statistics might provide evidence for the reverse effect. The fact remains that crime in general, and rape specifically, has decreased substantially for the last 20 years. Concurrently, availability of pornography has increased steadily in the last 20 years. These data give the impression of a catharsis effect; that exposure to pornography may actually provide a means to alleviate sexual aggression.
Image Credit: Politics.co.uk
Journal Reference: doi:10.1016/j.avb.2009.04.008
