Does pornography cause rape?

[hardheadjarhead]

Saw this article today:

http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=1503848&nav=0RZEIorC

If it isn't up by the time you click on the link, it was about a protestor outside an adult bookstore getting water sprayed on him. The protester was from a local anti-rape group.

I'd like people's thoughts on this. Does mainstream porn cause rape? I'm not talking about child pornography...but the legal stuff sold over the counter.

This is a hotly debated topic elsewhere. What is your take?




Regards,

Steve Scott

 

[Zepp]

Of course porn causes rape. Just like violence in TV and movies causes fights, religion causes people to be killed in God's name, fast food makes people fat, alcohol causes car accidents, and condoms cause teenagers to have sex, etc, etc.

People are responsible for the choices they make. Making scapegoats out of things like pornography or other types of media is just a way of trying to ignore deeper issues in society. Maybe pornography is a symptom of those deeper issues, but getting rid of it won't cause a noticeable decline in sexual assault. Rape has been happening for much longer than there's been porn.

Ok, so maybe some mentally ill, weak-willed SOB is inspired by watching the porn movies he rents to force himself on a woman. But isn't it also possible that pornography can provide a sort of healthy release for such a person by letting them resolve their issues in a visual fantasy, without having to hurt someone else?

The lead protester in the article sounds like someone who needs to go home and punch the clown. I feel bad for the rape survivors in the group, but turning their anger on people looking for a little release won't help them.

Just my thoughts. :asian:

 

[Damian Mavis]

My take is that it absolutely DOES NOT cause rape. That's the same as saying when I enjoy watching my wife disrobe that THAT causes rape too. I'm talking regular non violent pornography. We as a society need to stop making lame excuses for evil peoples behaviour. Some people seem to be too weak minded to accept that bad people are out there that don't need an excuse to cause harm to others and that they are looking for an explanation for the horrible world we live in, either way people need to accept that bad things happen for little or no reason at all and there's no explaining it away. You can take steps to try to limit the chances of bad stuff happening to you but you can't explain it away and say "if there was no porn there would be no rape" In your dreams and you wish. Or my favorite! If there was no violence in television then there would be no violence in our society. LIKE WE HAVEN'T BEEN KILLING EACH OTHER FOR STUPID REASONS SINCE THE BEGGINING OF OUR RACE. I'm sorry for ranting.

There is beauty in our world but you have to be strong enough to accept that there is also great ugliness.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[Damian Mavis]

Heh I posted my reply while Zepp posted his. I agree with Zepp.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[Touch Of Death]

Pornography causes masterbation and a lot of other social ills, however rape is a crime of violence and unless the porn depicts rape as being ok, I don't think it can be held to blame. Porn has a way of empowering men to think it might be possible to enjoy more sexual partners than he has access too, but the actual violennce that it would take to acheive rape comes from somewhere else.
Sean

 

[Galvatron]

Well I know that when I was a horny teenager, porn might very well have prevented it!

Seriously though, I'm sure there's been remote circumstances where it may have played a factor in some person's already sick mind.
On the whole, it's mainly just a subject for the religously prude to ***** about, and my my how they like to *****.
Any person sick enough to actually rape another person is going to do it, regardless of what's on cinemax at 2am.

 

[Richard S.]

i agree with touch'o'death. i think that porn can cause dis-satisfaction, even frustration. (long after the five-fingered "date" has gone) but, thats not rape. unless the dis-satisfied, frustrated person was a sociopath to begin with......

 

[Zepp]

Originally posted by Richard S.
...unless the dis-satisfied, frustrated person was a sociopath to begin with......

I believe that's the key phrase here.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

I agree with Zepp...but thought I'd throw that out there to see people's responses.

Similar things we see in the news:

Doom (insert other excuse here) caused the Columbine massacre.

Heavy metal/Grunge causes teen suicide.

Twinkies cause homicide.


Things like this diminish us by attempting to relieve us of personal responsibility for our behavior. Our impulses aren't evil...how we act on them might be. If I have the impulse to murder someone, it isn't bad. If I whack someone, then I have to be held accountable.

I submit that porn doesn't cause rape...and hey, it doesn't cause masturbation. It might facilitate it, make it more exciting, but it doesn't cause it. Remember being thirteen?

I think some people have an agenda in the case of porn. They want to get rid of it, so the they demonize it. The old excuse of lust being a sin just doesn't cut it with the general population...so a cause and effect for rape has to be added.

In the examples cited above, people are using excuses. I pity the parent that loses a child to suicide, but blaming a rock group is denial that anything was wrong with the child or the family. Kids get depressed and kill themselves for a reason. It is either pharmacological, has to do with an issue the child is facing, or is a combination of both.

Doom (or whatever) didn't cause Columbine. Dylan and Kleibold were freakin' psychopaths. I know a hundred kids that played Doom back then, and play it now. They're good kids.

Now I'm going to get off my soapbox, go eat a Twinkie, and kill someone.

Just kidding.

Steve Scott

 

[MA-Caver]

Originally posted by Touch'O'Death
Pornography causes masterbation and a lot of other social ills, Sean

This little subject needs to be on another thread but I had to ask after reading your line Sean: How is masterbation a SOCIAL ill? Do you mean doing it in public, okay I can see how THAT could be considered but if it's done in private or with a sexual partner then it shouldn't be considered a "social ill".

On topic however Pornography does not cause rape I agree. There has been enough said already that I don't need to expound upon it.
I've worked as a co-therapist for sex offenders and all of them have agreed that it was their own thinking that got them to do what they done. Yes Poronography was for some, a part of it or a "trigger" but they still made the final decision in the end to commit their deed(s). Some of the offenders didn't need any poronography to go out and do what they done.
Millions of people observe, collect porn every day but only a few out of those millions actually go out and commit rape. And even a few out of them have observed any pornography just prior to their crime.
The human mind is the greates porn creating machine of all. Magazines, videos, internet pics and what-not just enhance that imagination.

Violent Porn and the ilk like wise only give new ideas. The individual is accountable for everything they do/say/think. Our laws should be based on that and not against porn, guns, drugs. Misuse of those things however should be a factor in determining those laws.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Originally posted by MACaver
This little subject needs to be on another thread but I had to ask after reading your line Sean: How is masterbation a SOCIAL ill? Do you mean doing it in public, okay I can see how THAT could be considered but if it's done in private or with a sexual partner then it shouldn't be considered a "social ill".

I'll just touch(ha ha) on what I know from reading and Television programs on the subject. Masterbation as a result of porn becomes an issue because you are obviously fantasizing about the actresses instead of your normal sexual partner which is your wife or girlfreind. That means you are seeking outside sources to become sexuly satisfied. This causes intamacy issues between you and your wife or girlfreind. Part of you will want her to act as hedoistic as the porn star and the other part of you will resent her for it if she does. This puts an impossible burden on women in society. Healthy masterbation if you will would require one to fantasize about your normal sexual behavior with that partner in there absence. Even that is unhealthy according to the guy that wrote "men are from mars and women are from venus", because masterbation tends to nuture our feminen side when in fact women are attracted to our masculine side. I don't know how true this is but It made sense when I read it ten years ago. And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Sean

 

[hardheadjarhead]

I'd have a negative attitude towards masterbation if my handle were "Touch 'o' Death" too.

Sorry. I couldn't resist that.

SCS

 

[pknox]

I'm not sure how pornography could cause rape, for a few reasons:

1) Let's think about it scientifically - if you were trying to prove that "A" happening results in "B" (let's say for example, smoking causes cancer), you would need to produce numerous case studies where the occurrence of A, isolated from other factors, almost always leads to B. If, for example, you surveyed 1000 smokers with reasonably consistent other habits, and say 700 of them developed cancer, then yes, there would be a correlation. 500, sure. 300, maybe, 100, I guess so - until you got down to a level where you couldn't say there was a positive correlation anymore.

Think about the millions of people who look at pornography every day. Take the circulation numbers of certain magazines, add that to the number of video tapes/DVD's rented and sold, the traffic on adult newsgroups and websites, etc...and you get a boatload of people. And how many of them are rapists? I, personally, haven't seen one case where a person was convicted as a rapist, and viewing of "normal" pornography was cited as the only cause -- true, there may have been porn consumers who were rapists, but usually they had a myriad of other problems as well. In that case, no correlation, and the hypothesis is false.

2) In every study I've seen, as well as many reports I've read and heard from rapist survivor groups, I've always been told that rape is a crime committed to rob the victim of power - not to solely (or in most cases, even primarily) satisfy a sexual urge. If the motive behind the crime in question is not a sexual one, why would viewing sexual material contribute to an increase in its frequency? Realize, too, that I am not talking here about child porn, or porn in which everyone involved was not a willing participant. As that skirts through the boundaries of sexuality, and veers right into the realm of power over individuals, I wouldn't be surprised to find that those types of films did make the rapist more susceptible to act. But mainstream porn? No. The numbers are just too far skewed in favor for me to believe that.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Originally posted by hardheadjarhead
I'd have a negative attitude towards masterbation if my handle were "Touch 'o' Death" too.

Sorry. I couldn't resist that.

SCS

Bud ump bum tss,
I didn't say I had a negative attitude, I'm just aware of the ramifications provided for me by various media.
Sean

 

[Touch Of Death]

Porn also can be used to program the young into accepting the behavior. This also goes for those people that we all know that tend to like those 15 year old girls. Sure they may marry them once there pregnant or somthing but did that make it OK?
Sean

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Program what behavior? Masturbation? Or the activity viewed in the pornography?

SCS

 

[hardheadjarhead]

A related article. Sort of.


http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1067599846321181.xml

 

[Touch Of Death]

Originally posted by hardheadjarhead
Program what behavior? Masturbation? Or the activity viewed in the pornography?

SCS

Sexual activity of course, which I suppose could include masterbation.
Sean

 

[hardheadjarhead]

The social ills of porn, other than the reputation it has of stimulating rape, might be something for another thread.

I wasn't really concerned with it as an issue of morality, but rather whether people felt it led to extreme behavior such as rape.

It seems that people here on MartialTalk have a pretty good sense of what causes, and doesn't cause, violence.





SCS

 

[Touch Of Death]

I feel rape is a form of stealing. Just like stealing is is a crime of oportunity. Most porn depicts the women as actualy wanting to participate in the sexual acts. Perhaps porn could be a positive model for the potential date rapist in that if the women you attemt to have sex with aren't as open to the idea as the porn actresses then perhaps you should stop. Just a thought.