For the longest time, pop psychology has taught us that "rape is about power, not sex." That rape was purely an expression of power was received truth, though it didn't sit well with anyone who'd experienced the powerful effects of libido. It was hard to imagine that rape would have nothing to do with that; it seemed more logical that different personalities responded differently to this drive. Because of the nature of most pornography---and it's distinctly male-dominant/women-subservient themes---it was often singled out as promoting rape. Some argued the opposite---that it offered a release for feelings that, pent up, might lead to more violent tendencies. That's not in any way to say that those that rape are not responsible for what they do; it's more a way of understanding what leads people down that path and heading them off at the pass, as it were. The goal is to reduce rape. Quite frankly, if people watching women pretend to be subjugated on screen prevents women from being raped in real life, that's the kind of preventative measure our society should be interested in. <h>The Advent of Pr0n</h> The experiment mentioned above has come to fruition with the advent of the internet and it's most successful business, pr0n. Since there's so much more pornography around---available in the privacy of the home, often for free and without any looky-loos passing judgement in the line at the local video store---it should be possible to see if it's having an effect. <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2152487/" source="Slate" title="How the Web Prevents Rape: All that Internet porn reduces sex crimes. Really.">How the Web Prevents Rape</a> sums up the latest research: <bq>The bottom line on these experiments is, "More Net access, less rape." 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.</bq> The orginal 56--page long paper (including tables), <a href="http://www.law.stanford.edu/display/images/dynamic/events_media/Kendall%20cover%20+%20paper.pdf" author="Todd Kendall">Pornography, Rape, and the Internet</a> has a good deal more analysis and statistical backing and is a pretty good read---if only because any paper that cites <i>Deep Throat</i> is less boring than most. It seems---to the non-statistically inclined layman, at any rate---to be a well-considered study that makes every effort to justify the proposed correlation---namely, that internet porn is a substitute for rape. It <i>does not</i> make any judgement of pornography, the porn industry or how its run, who profits, who suffers and so on: it simply notes that easily available, privately viewable, simulated sex prevents some rapes in real life. To support the hypothesis, Kendall carefully addresses and eliminates---or accounts for---other explanations. An analysis of similar data for homicides shows no correlation with internet usage, suggesting that the observed correlation is <iq>not simply due to omitted variables that may affect crime generally, such as income or law enforcement resources.</iq> In fact, because the internet <iq>facilitates more dating and other face-to-face interactions</iq>, it actually increases the likelihood of the more common form of rape---date rape---so the <iq>true substitutability of pornography and rape</iq> is probably even greater than measured (the 10/7 ratio mentioned above). Further bolstering the argument is that the effect <iq>is statistically significant only for men in the 15-19 age group</iq>. This is the group that (A) is most likely to commit rape and (B) <iq>for whom privacy concerns made pornography relatively unavailable before the internet (e.g., men living at home with their parents)</iq>. Other studies analyzing pornography and its effect on the male psyche have been limited to laboratory settings. These have shown <iq>that male subjects, immediately after watching pornography, are more likely to express misogynistic attitudes.</iq> Being aroused in a laboratory environment---without access to the release that accompanies a more private viewing---is naturally going to lead to a frustration that will evince itself as increased hostility. Expressed that way, it sounds scientific, but any fool knows that the state of sexual arousal is both an emotionally and hormonally charged one; if the natural release---orgasm, for those not good at innuendo---is not possible, it takes practice for even the most refined gentleman (or lady) to return to a "normal" state without causing any social gaffes or getting pissed off. <h>Other Opinions</h> The comments on the article were equally interesting, ranging from <a href="http://www.slate.com/?id=3936&m=18421316">Kendall makes an elementary error</a>, which questions the statistics employed by the author of the study to <a href="http://www.slate.com/?id=3936&m=18416196" author="">"Rape is about power"?</a>, which makes incredibly fine distinctions about which kinds of porn would satisfy which kinds of rapists. Some of the arguments are clearly hand-waving ones, seeking to prove that rape is so complex that we can't understand it, so it only makes sense to find cause in things that <i>seem</i> like they would engender rape. Others point out that rape has been trending downward anyway recently, which is illegitimately clouding the waters as Kendall accounted for those trends---specifically against the availability of VHS porn delivered in discreet brown-paper packages directly to the doorstep. One of the more interesting (if not politer) contributors to the discussion was hussymansmanhattan, who wrote <a href="http://www.slate.com/?id=3936&m=18413498">the elephant in the room</a>, claiming that this study will <iq>put a final nail in the old undergraduate-level trope that 'rape is only about power.'</iq> Another reader posited that since <iq>informed consent</iq> differentiated between normal sex and rape, that it <i>was</i> about power. To this, another reader responded with this brilliant riposte: <bq>Informed consent is also the difference between a loan and theft. So, are you saying if somebody breaks into my house and steals my TV, that's mainly about demonstrating power, and not about him wanting my TV?</bq> <h>Fundamentalism</h> Further analysis of the comments shows that there is much more room for fundamentalism in this supposedly liberal discussion than for a search for solutions. Sure, a lot of pornography is sexist, but it's also not mainstream or regulated enough---if it weren't so shunned and condemned to dark corners, it might be forced to clean up its act somewhat as it was dragged into the light. It's the recoiling from pornography entirely that allows it to cater to the lowest common denominator. But really, it's the word "only" (sex is <i>only</i> about power) that sticks in the craw here, because it attempts to force rape into a neat, little box completely separate from the act of making love, so as not to sully the holy act of impregnation. Men rape one another in prison, though neither one is gay, so that is presented as proof that rape is about power. Really? How does fucking someone in the ass prove your power over them more than just beating the crap out of them? The humiliation is worse? You could just make the guy do something horrible that doesn't involve you also getting your rocks off (see Abu Ghraib photos for ideas). But no, the sex drive is strong enough to overcome a strong anti-homosexual bent simply because there are no women around and prisoners live in pretty intimate conditions. It just seems so trite to claim that the overpowering urge brought on by flowing hormones has <i>nothing</i> to do with forcefully slaking that lust. Regardless of how much some people want to prevent rape, others are more interested in enforcing their personal mores first. A lot of pornography---especially the newer wave called "gonzo" porn---is extremely demeaning to women. This study in no way approves (or disapproves) this point; this study merely shows a reduction in actual, real-life rapes with adoption of the internet and traces it to increased porn availability. This point can't be stressed enough: this is mathematics, not morals. Fewer rapes is a <i>good thing</i>. It is a completely separate step to address the problems with pornography---but the math shows that eliminating it wholesale will also eliminate a beneficial side-effect. <h>Further Reading</h> For an insightful analysis of the state of pornography today, see the following: <dl> <a href="http://www.zmag.org/jensenporn.htm" source="ZMag" author="Robert Jensen">Sexuality, masculinity and men's choices</a> An excellent description of one researcher's trip through the world of pornography and the culprit he finds: masculinity. <a href="http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/deathofempathy.htm" author="Robert Jensen">Death of Empathy</a> A recent essay stringing the lack of empathy for performers in hardcore sex videos with the lack of empathy shown to those less fortunate by the privileged. </dl>