[0697] sethf@ATHENA.MIT.EDU MIT_harassment 02/18/93 19:47 (326 lines) Subject: Re: Connections? between pornography and violence - real references [The _Thistle_ article on sexual harassment guidelines reminded me about these posts, which give further detailed references] From soc.feminism Wed Jan 13 15:12:59 1993 From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Robert Coleman) Subject: Re: Someone Convince Me Organization: Informix Software, Inc. Date: 13 Jan 1993 21:59:31 GMT Approved: muffy@mica.berkeley.edu khamsi@ll.mit.EDU (Sarir Khamsi) writes: >>>>>> On 10 Jan 1993 17:37:19 GMT, randy@ms.uky.edu (Randy Appleton) said: >> I would like someone to please send me an article that would >> convince me in a scholorly and logical way that porn does have >> this effect. Alternativly, I would like someone to please send me >> a reference that I could look up at the local public library. >As an additional suggestion, you might try and talk to some women and >ask them how _they_ feel about it. A fascinating response, and unfortunately, not at all atypical. Someone asks to be convinced in a *scholarly* and *logical* way, and the response is to ask women how they *feel* about it. What is important, apparently, is not whether porn actually has the effects attributed to it, but whether women *feel* that it does. Ignoring, for the momenet, that I know plenty of women who enjoy pornography, including a number of feminists, and am aware of an organized sector of NOW in support of pornography, and would thus get quite mixed responses even on what women "feel", were I to ask... A good book on the subject is "Pornography: Private Right or Public Menace?" edited by Robert M. Baird & Stuart E. Rosenbaum. It has excerpts from the Commision reports, feminist perspectives, libertarian perspectives, religious perspectives, and a section on causation (which is the specific area of interest you've mentioned). The article that describes causal studies is the last article in the book, "Elicitation of Violence: The Evidence" by F.M. Christensen. This will have the opposite effect from the one you requested, though; it's thorough overview of the evidence pretty much blasts any theories of positive causality to smithereens; in fact, the evidence suggests that *if* there is a causality, it would be negative (since, for instance, sex crimes *decreased* in Denmark after pornography delegislation, and since yearly US government surveys asking people whether they have been victims of crimes show a *decrease* in the rape rate since 1973 [a period where those in the US know that pornography has become vastly more available, especially with the creation of the video rental business]). (Note that although the first example may actually be thought of as a social experiment in causality, the second example would be a very unsupported *correlation* for the idea that pornography can decrease the amount of rape; it's usefulness is not in that direction, but rather in that it dismisses the concept that pornography has a positive causation for rape. If rape rates are going down at the same time as pornography availability is going up, it's a little difficult to claim that pornography *causes* rape, yes?) The book does provide pointers to the studies, pro and con, so that you can make up your own mind as to their validity and statistical correctness (I always feel a little more confident when the researcher is not afraid to let you read the source material). And, in case you do want to find out how women (men, for that matter) "feel" about it, that material is also available in the book, including Brownmiller and Dworkin, both of whom "feel" with great enthusiasm. Robert C. -- ---------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: My company has not yet seen fit to elect me as spokesperson. Hmmpf. From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Robert Coleman) Subject: Re: Someone Convince Me Organization: Informix Software, Inc. Date: 20 Jan 1993 00:45:55 GMT Approved: muffy@mica.berkeley.edu aaldrich@encore.com (Al Aldrich) writes: >mikep@sr.hp.com (Mike Powell) writes: >> Interestingly, since it is widely held that men are the primary >> users of porn *and* the one who generally comitt rape, perhaps >> one should simply _ask men_. :-\ <-half smile. >I think this is true.. seriously. Although, I would go further and ask >men who are rapists or have been rapists and are in counseling for same. It has been done. The results were definitely non-conclusive... in the same survey, 39% of convicted rapists said that pornography had, at some time, led them to commit a "sexual crime". However, 39% *also* said that pornography "provides a safety valve for antisocial impulses". (Incidentally, at the time the survey was done, non-coercive oral and anal sex were also "sexual crimes" in the area that the survey was done. An update of this survey would be useful, with a more exacting definition of "sexual crimes".) Source: C. Eugene Walker, Vol. 8, USCOP Technical Report. Goldstein and Kant also interviewed convicted rapists and pedophiles, and concluded that "few if any" had been appreciably influenced by pornography; they decided that real persons in the environment "are far more potent sexual stimuli" for the sex criminal. Source: PORNOGRAPHY AND SEXUAL DEVIANCE, Goldstein and Kant Dr. Money reported, in US government hearing testimony, that persons requesting help in a sex-offender clinic "commonly disclose in the course of counseling therapy that pornography helps them contain their abnormal sexuality within imagination only, as a fantasy". Source: POLLUTING THE CENSORSHIP DEBATE, Lynn, Barry (published by the ACLU). >And I think the wrong question is being asked. I think that the real questions >are what and how does porn affect men and how much of that effect can be >directly/indirectly said to be harmful to women , OR men for that matter. There has been lots of work done on these questions; I have a list of some 60-70 studies that was posted some time ago to some usenet group or other. If you're really interested, email me and I'll dig it up and mail it to you. >> I would, at this point, recommend specific formal sources for >> information regarding pornography & rape except that I am not aware >> of any. I would like to add to the original request of the >> initial poster for a source of scholarly material on this topic. >Maybe there isn't any. Perhaps no `scholars' have given the notion enough >credence to research it thoroughly.. or had enough interest. hmmm.. Tons and tons of scholarship and studies; two congressional investigations, one around 1970 and one in the middle 80's, both of which were unable to condemn pornography (and the dynamics of the second group are particularly amusing to study, as half the group, including all the women, refused to sign the report that the more radical, religious based half wanted to put out, siting misrepresentations and outright lies. Unfortunately, I don't have the source for this available to me here). I've already posted the source for a good overview, not only of studies but of the whole issue; the overview also has a blibliography of other books/articles/journals to read on the subject. The really interesting question, I think, is, given the number of studies that have been done, and their generally (though not exclusively) negative findings (that is, no causal links) why haven't you heard of them? Who is keeping this information from you, in this age of all ages, when information is so easily propogated? Why do they consider this information so dangerous that they don't want you to have an *informed* opinion? Why, as reported in soc.feminism recently, when a college decided to have a conference on "sex workers", did the "anti-sex worker" side refuse to attend if the "pro-sex-worker" side was allowed to contribute? And why do I provide *sources*, so you can go read the stuff yourself and make your own opinion? Why ask why? :-\ Robert C. -- ---------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: My company has not yet seen fit to elect me as spokesperson. Hmmpf. From soc.feminism Fri Jan 22 15:36:37 1993 From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Coleman) Subject: Re: Archetypical anti-anti-porn comment Organization: Informix Software, Inc. Date: 22 Jan 93 23:26:53 GMT Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu an6583@anon.penet.fi (".Siren.") writes: >[Dan Z. posted (excerpted!):] >>... It would be nice (and helpful I think) to discuss why some women >>feel threatened by pornography. But this discussion can only happen >>when we have a clear view of pornography. Porn doesn't cause sex >>crimes. The article we have been discussing claimed that it does. How >>can the discussion proceed? >A lot of presumably intelligent people (as evidenced by the number of >posters on the other side of the debate so far) _DO_ think that there >_is_ a relation between pornography and sex crimes, so it can't be as >obvious as the previous poster seems to imply that there is no causal >connection (which is all that is being said-- no one said that porn >_will _cause_ sex crimes in any given case). With a wave of the hand >(wand?) all women's concerns in the matter have been dismissed (and >in a patronizing tone)! Ironically, you talk about "intelligent" people. Most of the argument in this particular version of this thread has centered around the request by a reader for, essentially, an "intellectual" discussion. He was told, in many different ways, not to seek intellectual reasons, but rather to pay attention to emotional ones. The intelligence of the "causal" proponents really is incidental, if all that are to be advanced are emotional reasons. Your paragraph seems to indicate that their intelligence is an important consideration in evaluating the correctness of their position; I'd agree with you. It's just that we haven't seen an intelligent defense of the causal position as yet (and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, but rather as an opposite to "emotional" defense). The (intelligent) concerns of the intelligent people haven't been dismissed, patronizingly or not, because they haven't, as yet, been advanced. Having done some due diligence by seeking out and reading material having to do with studies on the relationship between pornography and sex crimes [see references below --CTM], I can defend my beliefs. I'm not getting any evidence that those who believe in positive connections have similarly done their homework. If they have, they certainly aren't defending the position (except, again, by referring us to women's "feelings", an avoidance of things intellectual, and a reference that, in my case at least, didn't lead to the conclusion they'd expected anyway). It isn't "with a wave of the hand" (and incidentally, "wand" without a smiley is about as patronizing as one can get) that the causal connection is dismissed, but rather it's a result of the lack of intellectual defense, and, in my case, the failure of the emotional defense as well. (And incidentally again, it isn't only women who believe in a causal connection, and hence "dismissal" wouldn't just be dismissing women's concerns...in fact, how did you work from "intelligent *people*" to "*women's* concerns"? And, as I demonstrated earlier, there's some reason to doubt that women's beliefs on this issue are monolithic enough to justify calling dismissal of the causal belief dismissal of "women's concerns"). Of course, you yourself could change all that, if you so chose. I don't know about others, but I'd welcome an intellectual discussion, since there's no way to research everything, and the more thought put into analysis of the data, the better. [This was the original end of the article. I asked for references -- and got them! --CTM] One of the moderators has asked me to provide some sources for studies on the effects of pornography. Here is a list of abstracts I glommed off the net in late 1990, originally posted to soc.men and soc.women by (apparently) Roger Tang. I've included his comment. Additionally, I recommend U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography: The Report, 1970 U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C. Attorney General's Commission on Pornography: Final Report, 1986 U.S. Department of Justice, Washington D.C. (The 1986 report being more of a lesson in rhetoric and politics; note that all of the women on the commission refused to sign the anti-pornography final report, for instance...) Kutchinsky, Berl. "Towards an Explanation of The Decrease in Registered Sex Crimes in Copenhagen." (Part of the USCOP Technical Review, Vol 8, 1970) Kutchinsky, Berl. "Pornography and It's Effects in Denmark and the United States: A Rejoinder and Beyond." in Comparitive Social Research: An Annual. Vol. 8. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1985 And, as I mentioned before: F.M. Christensen. "Elicitation of Violence: The Evidence", in "Pornography: Private Right or Public Menace?", edited by Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, Prometheus Books, Buffalo New York. ...which gives more references... I particularly enjoyed the results of the first study, which found that patrons of an adult theater had more favorable attitudes toward women than the female college students (!) Also, note that some of these studies *do* find some correlation. I'm not attempting to pretend that studies with that result don't exist; in fact, if they didn't, I'd think someone was lying. Nor am I attempting to hide these studies; I'd much rather people know about them, and think about them. For instance, there are a number of studies that correlate aggression with violent pornography; but there are two aspects to this material, violence and pornography. Why do they automatically place the blame on the pornography (not try to isolate further?) In studies that do isolate further, the correlation is found to be with violence, not with pornography. (This caused a bit of an uproar with the Meese Commission, for instance; they thought they had found a study showing violent pornography positively correlated with violence, and were immediately repudiated by the authors of the study, who pointed out that the correlation of violence was with...violent depictions.) Another example is the study below that talks about competitive RT tasks including application of shocks. A Control group was used viewing neutral slides with a silent woman; but this isn't a control for the three situations listed! Where is the control of a "friendly" woman and an "unfriendly" woman during neutral slides? Without such a control group, I'd tend to suspect that degree of "friendly acquaintanceship" has more to do with the results than the actual film viewed... Personally, I find the real-life "experiments" more convincing than laboratory experiments. That's why I find the results of Kutchinsky's analysis of the decrease in sexual crimes in Copenhagen after liberalization of Pornography, or the study mentioned below testing aggression from males self-reported by females before and after a campus showing of an X-rated movie, more convincing than some of the others... Enjoy! Robert C. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- May I re-present this? Instead of vague handwaving about what studies found what, here are some abstracts from the last seven years about pornography viewing and subsequent overt behavior. Read them, look up the originals, and THEN we can argue about exactly WHAT porn does or does not do to people and what to do about it..... [goes on to give the list in #656] --[0697]-- (pref = [0667])