Image of Morgan Mae and friend from this explicit gallery.
Though provoking, edgy and controversial is what I’m calling Peter Suderman article for Reason Magazine, Does Porn Make Society Better? It’s about time we start looking at these questions head-on, but I object to the argument’s basis: conflation, or rather comparing as two equal values, porn and violence. Though in the details of the article, it’s not that simple, I still want to see an argument about porn making society better or worse without having to compare it to extreme violence. Nonetheless, it’s a fascinating piece. I’m curious to hear your opinions… Click through to the full article for Reason’s linkage. Snip:
On the subjects of rape, Ted Bundy, and pornography, Rod Dreher writes:
“Bundy isn’t blaming porn for making him a sex killer. He says it’s his own fault. But he also points out that constant exposure to pornography wore down the “very strong inhibitions against criminal and violent behavior” that kept the antisocial impulses within him in check. The point isn’t that every person who develops a porn habit will turn into Greg Goben or Ted Bundy. That’s absurd. But it seems inarguable to me that no good can come of pornography, and whatever weaknesses we struggle with in relation to sexual and emotional health will be amplified by porn. Put another way, can anybody imagine that using pornography makes you a better or more emotionally healthy person?”
Leaving aside the inherent problem of determining what makes someone a “better” person, there is some reasonably good evidence to suggest that increased access to pornography and violent entertainment make society better off by providing an outlet for aggressive, anti-social urges. Here’s Steven Landsburg summarizing the evidence that porn reduces rape at Slate:
“A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, poverty and unemployment rates, population density, and so forth.”
Landsburg also notes a study by University of California professors Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna that suggests violent movies produce a comparable effect:
“What happens when a particularly violent movie is released? Answer: Violent crime rates fall. Instantly. Here again, we have a lot of natural experiments: The number of violent movie releases changes a lot from week to week. One weekend, 12 million people watch Hannibal, and another weekend, 12 million watch Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
University of California professors Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna compared what happens on those weekends. (…read more, reason.com, thanks Praemedia!)
Internet porn wastes so much time. That said, I like porn. So I set up a self imposed ban by giving over my system passwords and setting up opendns.com to block all porn apart from a few sites which engage the mind as well.
My problem was that given 2 hours spare time, and a crappy TV schedule, I’d look at porn on the Net. Pretty much an addiction.
The Internet is sooo permissive. I don’t want the government to control it, but I have to exercise self control
“Porn’s a mixed bag. It certainly has a destructive effect on some people, though it probably also has a “useful outlet for antisocial impulses” role for others. I agree that the question should be confronted head-on, but it needs to be approached scientifically. It’s not a question you’re going to be able to answer through exercises in rhetoric/polemic.”
The science has largely been done, actually. And 30 years of studies that have gone out of their way to establish a link between porn and sexual aggression have largely failed to establish anything. The most that has been suggested is that a subset of already-violent men viewing the most violent subset of porn may show increased aggression. And even that conclusion is disputed. So at worst, all you can say is that porn is not good for already messed-up people. However, you really could say the same thing about religion – a small subset of people who read holy books will shoot abortion providers or fly a plane into a building. In that case, however, I don’t see anybody trying to ban religion based on the actions of a few psychos and fanatics.
Porn’s a mixed bag. It certainly has a destructive effect on some people, though it probably also has a “useful outlet for antisocial impulses” role for others. I agree that the question should be confronted head-on, but it needs to be approached scientifically. It’s not a question you’re going to be able to answer through exercises in rhetoric/polemic.
Just for the record, I think I’d rather kill somebody than have to sit through Hannibal again.