Psychologists remain divided about the effects of pornography on the human mind, and they are likely to do so for quite some time. As with many fields involving something as complicated as thoughts, feelings and emotions, this is one in which most work will be entirely theoretical, as we can never really prove these things to be true. While we might finally see the effects which online porn has had on an entire generation within the next few decades, for the moment academics are completely divided about it. One of the most complicated aspects of this area is the debate about whether or not pornography addiction exists; some deny that it is even a possibility, while some studies have claimed that it is as addictive as cocaine. However, I want to look here at whether or not exposure to pornography leads to an increase in abnormal, aggressive sexual behaviour and violence towards women.
My main source for this article has been “Pornography and Sexual Abuse of Women”, a 1984 study by Mimi H. Silbert and Ayala M. Pines. This is an excellent investigation which is well worth reading for anybody who has an interest in this issue. We should, however, note that the type of pornography available to people, especially young people, in 1984 was far more limited than the widespread hardcore material consumed today. This has had an effect on some studies from the era and one study is criticised in “Pornography and Sexual Abuse of Women” for using “erotic rather than hardcore pornography”. It is worth remembering that today it is much easier to find much more extreme material.
Silbert and Pines refer to two separate ways of looking at the effects of pornography. The first is the “catharsis model”. This viewpoint holds that porn “may be more often than not a safety valve of the sexual deviant and potential sex offender”. In other words, people who might otherwise be quite dangerous are able to vent out their desires through the consumption of pornography and pornography is, therefore, actually beneficial to human psychology. Several studies have looked at the effects of porn and reached this conclusion. Studies in 1959, 1971 and 1973 all supported the catharsis idea and demonstrated in experiments that viewing pornography does not have an effect on people’s psychology, and when it does it is primarily as a means through which sexual feelings can be expressed in a safe way.
Denmark is a country which has shown, according to catharisists, that this is the correct theory. Here, the number of sexual offences fell as the availability of pornography increased. The Danish people, they argue, were able to release safely sexual feelings which would otherwise be expressed in dangerous, violent ways. Kant (a psychologist, not the philosopher) studied sex offenders and found that most of them had less exposure to porn as teenagers than normal people. In 1962 Pacht did a study which “did not support the contention that pre-adolescent and adolescent exposure to pornography contributes to the later commitment of sex offenses”. There is a great deal of evidence behind the catharisist position. Nevertheless it is deeply flawed.
In fact, even in one of the model’s own supporting studies we see the exposure of one key fact which lays bare an important fault in their logic; Howard et al (1973) found that continuous exposure to pornography “led to a steadily decreasing interest”. This was interpreted as evidence that porn was harmless, but I would argue that the opposite is true. Porn becomes “normal” as exposure persists, and people begin to accept it. This is often a negative thing because as soon as conventional pornography fails to excite the interests of the viewer, he is obliged to move on to more extreme material to satisfy himself, just as a drug user might move on to more dangerous drugs. It is in this process that we see the beginnings of the use of child pornography, which is not, in reality, as far removed from conventional pornography as the defenders of porn might think. Studies have shown that conventional porn (I do not like using this phrase, but it is important to distinguish) is sometimes a precursor to accessing child pornography.
Needless to say, there are many who oppose the catharsis model. These have formed a second position, the imitation model, which argues that pornography has profound, negative effect on people. It suggests that some men, and most sex offenders, are heavily influenced by the scenes they witness in porn and find that it justifies imitating the actions they see. Most frighteningly, these psychologists have discovered that many men presume that women enjoy abuse, violence and degradation. Silbert and Pines recount some of the abuse received by prostitutes and give startling examples of the porn-related attacks which their subjects recalled. “I know all about you bitches,” said one man “You’re no different; you’re like all of them. I seen it in all the movies. You love being beaten”. It’s hard to deny in this study at least that porn does have an impact on those who watch it.
Schultz (1971) interviewed sex offenders and found that they had been avid consumers of pornography from a young age. He also found that porn, in the words of the sex offenders, had been an important part of their crimes. In the work of Gager and Schurr (1976) we see evidence that sex attackers base their actions on things they have seen in pornographic movies. This is at odds with the earlier report by Pacht which argued that there was no correlation, and the Danish experience, which seems to suggest that the opposite is true. Whether things changed because of the era we can not be certain, but the fact that we have two opposing studies means we can not come to a satisfactory conclusion on the issue. There are large amounts of evidence stacked up on both sides.
However, it is important to remember that sexual assaults are an extreme and fortunately rare manifestation of potentially porn driven aggression. Most people who watch porn do not turn out to be sex offenders. I think that we should probably conclude from the mass of evidence that the effects of porn on a person’s likelihood to rape or abuse a woman vary between individuals. One man might watch pornography and find that it serves as a vent for his abnormal sexual feelings. Another might watch it and find that it is inspiring (54% of young men find porn “really inspiring”) and go on to commit illegal acts. Perhaps the complexity of the human mind means that the response of individuals will vary completely, and no valid experimental data has therefore been gathered to prove either model correct. Russell (1980) seems to provide a basis for arguing that the imitation model is correct in around 10% of cases. This may be a small figure, but the idea that out of all the millions of people around the world watching pornography as many as 10% will be dangerously affected is actually very frightening. It means we are dealing with hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people who have been inspired by porn and find that it has had an impact on their sexual behaviour. This is terrifying.
At a lower, but in no way less important, part of the spectrum of aggression, we find that there is a wealth of evidence suggesting that men have their opinions formed by pornography. In the same year as Russel’s study, Donnerstein did an experiment which “found that when male subjects view aggressive erotic films, in which the woman is a victim of aggression, that even without angering the subjects, we will get increases in aggression against a female”. Feshbach and Malanutt (1978), recorded evidence that men were more willing to accept rape and were less sympathetic to the victim of rape when they had been exposed to pornography. In this case, there is very little counter-evidence. While we can not be certain whether or not porn does have an impact on sex related crimes, we seem to be fairly sure that it does have an impact on subjects willingness to simply accept these crimes.
From amongst this tangle of evidence and argument it is quite difficult to reach a conclusion on either side. Individuals will have different thoughts about it, and I would be very interested to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. When analysing the debate, and this article has simply looked at the surface evidence, we need to remember several things which might challenge the validity of all of these studies. For a start, as mentioned above, most studies come from an era before the internet, and are therefore difficult to compare to modern life. Furthermore, exposure to pornography in a laboratory situation is quite different to exposure to pornography in your own home.
I believe, however, that there is sufficient evidence to argue that pornography does have an impact on our psychology and behaviour. The presentation of women and men in porn is an image of the dominance of one sex over another, an image which is very similar to propaganda in the way it is put forward. It seems certain that this does have an impact on the opinions of those who watch it, and that it encourages a belief in the superiority of men, especially in sexual situations. Insofar as pornography postulates this theory of gender, and encourages its viewers to believe that women enjoy violence and degradation, it is difficult to see how it can not have an effect on the sexual abuse of women. Porn movies often verge on scenes of rape and people who are perhaps not fully mentally stable might well be moved by these movies to act out their fantasies in reality. Even if this represents a small minority, the fact that the opinions of many men are being shaped by porn is a shocking one. It seems, through the complicated web of evidence, that porn does indeed have an effect on us, and it is probably an effect which will vary depending on individuals. Not everybody who watches porn will become a rapist, but many people who watch porn will cease to sympathise with rape victims. Porn does, therefore, pose a psychological problem.
No related posts.
In the beginning of this article you say that the porn available in the 80′s was not as “hard core” as it is today. This reveals something in and of itself. That porn has become more extreme and “hard core”, so perhaps the allowance of porn tends in this direction, just like the use of a drug. Many drugs require more and more of the substance to have any effect. So, you show through your words and points that porn creates more porn, and more extreme porn. Therefor porn is a drug, and the use of this drug creates more violent/intense/extreme behavior.
I believe you need look no further, you have answered your own question.
I agree with you Rebecca. As I’ve said in the article, there is an important but often unexplored link between porn and child porn. When porn ceases to stimulate the mind, people progressively become more extreme in their habits. Some eventually reach the high end of the spectrum; child pornography.
As Rachel Cutrer Johnson has said on the AntiPornMenProject Facebook page, we still need to bear in mind bias when evaluating all of these studies. Just as I wouldn’t trust a documentary on porn by Channel 5 (which is owned by a former pornographer) I wouldn’t trust a study by somebody biased either for or against pornography.
there is no evidence that states watching pornography leads to child pornography – ”important but unexplored link” is science talk for a waste of time
Is child pornography necessarily the high end of the spectrum? – not disagreeing with you – but I would place very violent and degrading sexual activity towards women at an extreme as well.
Thanks for a very well balanced and clearly expressed short article.
I think child pornography is necessarily at the high end of the spectrum. Children are much more vulnerable than adults and therefore the discrepancy and abuse of power is even higher than in pornography featuring adults. I would also assume that the psychological and physiological damage done to the children in the pornography are more harmful in terms of the impact on children’s development.
This does not mean that very violent, degrading or racist forms of pornography of adults cannot be on the high end of the spectrum too.
There is no difference whatsoever between so-called child porn and so-called adult porn – both forms are identical in that females are shown as dehumanised sexualised commodities and as such can be subjected to sadistic, callous male sexual violence because as pro-porners claim ‘it is just fantasy.’
Take a look at mainstream pornography which routinely depicts adult women as ‘childlike girls’ and girls under the age of 18 as ‘adult girl children.’ So child and so-called adult porn are all on a continuum – never separate.
Then too we must not forget focusing on these very old studies neatly deflects attention away from how with the now mainstreaming of pornography, innumerable men and boys have been desensitised and consider porn tells the ‘truth’ about women and female sexuality.
Not all men rape women but the fact is male violence against women is endemic and given pornography reinforces male-centric lies concerning women then clearly pornography is not a separate issue but is interconnected with regards as to how our male supremacist society views women.
Pornography does not cause men to rape women but pornography tells men women cannot suffer harm from men’s sexual violence because all women supposedly want and desire men to treat them as disposable sexual service stations. Dehumanising women as pornography does means women cannot be harmed -because as Catharine K. McKinnon says ‘are women human?’ Not according to the pornographers and their male consumers.
So focus on the innumerable harms women suffer because men demand the right to view pornography – rather than arguing whether pornography causes men to commit sexual violence against women.
By the way porn films ‘do not often verge on scenes of rape etc.’ Rather they are filmed acts of a male/males raping a woman because this is precisely what the male porn users demand and want. They want the rape scenes to be real because it enhances their sexual excitement at seeing a woman/women being raped by a male(s). Also claiming ‘people (you mean men of course so say it – women are not the ones raping other women) who are perhaps not fully mentally stable might well be moved by these movies to to act out their fantasies in reality.’ That statement is bigoted because this is precisely what male supremacy claims – namely that only ‘aberrant/deviant males commit sexual violence against women and girls – not normal “respectable” men.’ Lies of course since most acts of male violence against women, including rape are committed by men who know the female victims – not the mythical male monster with horns on his head.
Reality is pornography does reinforce men’s belief that women are indeed not human and that our sole value and reason for existence is to sexually service men 24/7 in whatever way or manner men demand and expect.
My ears pricked up when I heard Denmark (I live here).
I would like to know if the study measured that *reported* sex offenses went down or *actual* sex offenses.
Denmark has hardcore porn on the bottom shelves next to the kiddy magazines. Denmark has highly pornographic (as opposed to saucy), adverts.
Everyone is sexualised from a young age. There is enforced nudity in certain places and there are people who work in swimming pools who can demand they watch you wash your privates. The Danes are allowed to have sex with ANY animal they like as long as they are not “hurting it”. It is legal for 15 year old girls to have sexual relationships with much older men. Girls are put on the Pill as a matter of course at 13. Mothers pride themselves on “my daughter asked me to go with her to her first abortion”.
Had they considered that Danish women were no longer reporting sex attacks because they believed them to be “normal” because porn and warpy attitudes towards women are so widespread?
Actually, the answer is much simpler. The Danish research done on the effects of porn in the 1970s did not take into account ANY violent porn, because this was at that time restricted in Denmark.
The reported sex offences over the time that pornographic material became legal went down indeed. With this premise, I have no problems.
Obviously, we need research into modern-day violent (aka mainstream) porn and its effects on sexual relationships and behaviours.
The reported sex offences over the time that pornographic material became legal went down indeed. ~ do you know the paper/publisher of this study
Psychiatrist Dr.Linnea Smith(who has an excellent informative web site,talkingtrash Another Look At Centerfolds which has tons of excellent more recent studies than you mentioned on the harms of pornography and sexual assault of women and children) sent me just the photocopied chapter called,The Link To Pornography which was in a book,Criminal Neglect Why Sex Offenders Go Free by psychologist Dr.William Marshall who treats sex offenders and Sylvia Barrett. In it , it says, that Dr.Gene Abel found that more than 50% of sex offenders used pornography,and that the offenders who used it were less able to control their sexually abusive and deciant behavior than those who did not.Psycologist William Marshall found that in a study of convicted rapists 86% rapists were regular users of pornography and 57% imitated pornographic scenes they enjoyed in commiting their rapes and used pornography immediately before at least one of their crimes.Rhea Becker from the sadly former Women’s Alliance Against Pornography Education Project in Cambridge,sent me a lot of research on the harms of pornography back in December 1990.Also DR.Marshall found in a study of child molesters in prision in Ontario Canada that 77% of those who molested boys and 87% who molested girls were regular users of hard-core pornography.
One of the things Rhea sent me included information that North Carolina State Representavie Richard Wright-Democrat,while announcing enactment of anti-pornography legislation he sponsored,cited a N.C. State Police study which found:defendants in 75% of the violent sex crimes in the state”had some kind of hard-core pornographic material” in their homes or vechicles.”I’m talking about S&M (sadistic & masochistic) material,bondage he said,that came from The New York Times 1/26/86 & 10/13/85;The Virginian Pilot 10/20/85 and the articles were contributed by Alexandra Bassil,Ray Lynn Oliver;Barbara Sparrow.
Also included,was information about interviews with 50 Boston women who had been victims of marital rape,nearly 10% of their husbands were obssed with pornography;wanted their wives to help them make it.Many could only get aroused by staging a rape.”There was a sense that many of these men needed violence or strugle in order to have sex.They found the humiliation very stimulating.The women felt as though they were being used as masturbatory objects.There was a definite sadistic component to some.”Approximately 45% of the rapes were categorized as “Battering rapes”- Address to the NY County Lawyer’s Assoc.by David Finkelhor,Ph.D Associate Director-Family Violence Research Program,University of New Hampshire
The information also included a study conducted by the Michigan State Police in which 38,000 sexual assaults from 1956 to 1979 were analyzed found that in at least 41% of those crimes,pornography was used or imitated just prior to or during the act this came from Ladies Home Journal October 1985.The information Rhea sent me also included that a study of 36 convicted sexually oriented murderers/serial killers,found the single most common trait amongst them was 81% listed their primary sexual interest as pornography,71% voyeurism.The study’s objective,conducted by the FBI’s behavioral science unit in Quantico,Virginia,was to develop a psychological profile on sex killers in order to track them faster.The researchers concluded,after interviews with the 36 who collectively provided information on 1,188 murders,that the killers were characteristically immeresed in fantasy,this came from NY Daily News 6/26/85 and This World 7/14/85.
Feminist psychologist Phyllis Chesler says in her book,Patriarchy:Notes Of An Expert Witness that serial killers are obessed with pornography and woman hatred and sexually use their victims both before and after killing them,and she said most wife beaters,pedaphiles,rapists and serial killers of women are addicted to pornography.Nobody would need to do studies to prove that racist and anti-semetic pornography is very harmful to Blacks and Jews and it would never have been made so mainstreamed and acceptable!
There was also major study in 2002 by psychologists too on the harms of pornography including the 2002 big study with over 12,000 people exposed to pornography and analysis of all of the studies ever done on pornography’s harm by University of Calgary psychologist Dr.Claudio Violato and Dr.Mark Genuis and Dr.Elizabeth Oddone-Paolucci that found it was very harmful. and re-enforced rape myths and connected to sexual violence and unhealthy relationships. Dr.Violato said “Our study involved more than 12,000 participants and very rigorous analyses.” “I can think of no beneficial effects of pornography whatsoever as a society we need to move towards eradicating it.”
I even emailed Dr.Violato in 2003 and he said there is no question that pornography is harmful and unhealthy for people and he said but the pornography industry isn’t going to tell the public this because they don’t care,they only care about making money.
There is also psychologist and sex therapist Dr.Victor Cline’s great report,Pornography’s Effects On Adults And Children.And an excellent report by Enough Is Enough called,Pornography Just Harmless Fun which has a lot of excellent academic research studies on the harms of pornography and it’s increasing and teaching rape myths and sexual assaults.
I also wrote about what psychiatrist Dr.Linnea Smith sent me which was a speech made by forensic psychiatrist and law professor called,PORNOGRAOHY,HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHTS:LEGISLATIVE RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S COMMISSION ON PORNOGRAPHY and he explains a lot of research and examples out of the 1,000′s of women and children who testified,but he said he only used a small sample,who were victimized by men who used by pornography and women who were sexually harassed in the workplace by men who showed them pornography.He says many times that pornography is a health and human rights issue because so much of it teaches false,misleading,and even dangerous information about human sexuality. He also said that pornography is health problem and human rights issue because it increases the probability that members of the exposed population will acquire attitudes that are detrimental to the physical and mental health of both those exposed and those around them.He also said that pornography is a health problem and human rights issue because it encourages patterns of social behavior that have adverse health consequences and that violate basic human riights.He also said that pornography is a health problem and human rights issue because it is used as instrument of sexual abuse and sexual harassment.
Dr.Park Elliott Dietz’s, lecture was given before the National Conference of State Legislators on August 5 1986 and was videotaped by C-Span. Dr. Dietz served as a commissioner on the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. He was professor of law,professor of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry,and Medical Director of The Institute of Law,Psychiatry and Medical Director of The Institute of Law,Psychiatry and Public Policy at The University of Virginia School of Law and School of Medicine.
This is what he said a person would learn about sexuality from pornography, “A person who learned about human sexuality in the “adults only” pornography outlets of America would be a person,who had never conceived of a man and woman marrying or even falling in love before having intercourse,who had never conceived of two people making love in privacy without guilt or fear of discovery,who had never conceived of tender foreplay,who had never conceived of vaginal intercourse with ejaculation during intromission,and who had never conceived of procreation as a purpose of sexual union.,
Instead,such a person would be one who had learned that sex at home meant sex with one’s children,stepchildren,parents,stepparents,siblings,cousins,nephews,nieces,aunts,uncles,and pets,and with neighbors,milkmen,plumbers,salesmen,burglars,and peepers,who had learned that people take off their clothes and have sex within the first 5 minutes of meeting one another,who had learned to misjudge the percentage of women who prepare for sex by shaving their pubic hair,having their breasts,buttocks or legs tattooed,having their nipples or labia pierced,or donning leather,latex,rubber,or childlike costumes,who had learned to misjudge the proportion of men who prepare for sex by having their genitals or nipples pierced,wearing women’s clothing,or growing breasts.
Who had learned that about 1 out of 5 sexual encounters involves spankning,whipping,fighting,wrestling,tying,chaining,gagging,or torture,who had learned that more than 1 in 10 sexaul acts involves a party of more than 2,who had learned that the purpose of ejaculation is that of soiling the mouths,faces,breasts,abdomens,backs,and food at which it’s always aimed,who had learned that body cavities were designed for the insertion of foreign objects,who had learned that the anus was a genital to be licked and penetrated,who had learned that urine and excrement are erotic materials,who had learned that the instruments of sex chemicals,handcuffs,gags,hoods,restraints,harnesses,police badges,knives,guns,whips,paddles,toilets,diapers,enema bags,inflatable rubber women,and disembodied vaginas,breasts,and penises,who had learned that except with the children,where secrecy was required,photographers and cameras were supposed to be present to capture the action so that it could be spread abroad.
He said if these were the only adverse consequences of pornography,the most straightforward remedy would be to provide factually accurate information on human sexuality to people before they are exposed to pornography,if only we could agree on what that information is,on who should provide it to the many children whose parents are incapable of doing so,and on effective and acceptable means by which to ensure that exposure not precede education. In the absence of such a remedy,the probable consequences in this area alone are sufficient to support recommendations that would reduce the dissemination of that pornography which teaches false,misleading or dangerous information about human sexuality. And these are not the only adverse consequences of pornography.
He then says before he gives more examples and research,that pornography is a health problem and human rights issue because it increases the probability that members of the exposed population will acquire attitudes that are detrimental to the physical and mental health of both those exposed and those around them,pornography is a health problem and human rights issue because it is used as an instrument of sexual abuse and sexual harassment.
And look where we are now!
All those stats are very well and good, but even together they dont provide a deterministic link between porn and the crimes compared. All these crimes happened before porn and will continue after porn. People with any ‘deviant’ (wtf??) violence or hateful attitudes to women will seek out more deviant and violent porn
Also Mark Wukas wrote in the Chicago Tribune March 21 1993 that back in 1989 research by psychologist Dr.James Check at York University’s psychology department Toronto Canada found 29% of boys indicated that pornography was the most useful source of sex information including school.parents teachers and peers.He said that to find out what children were learning from the pornography, Check devised a questionnaire that asked under what circumstances is it OK for a boy to hold a girl down and force her to have sexual intercourse.Check found that 43# of the boys and 16% of the girls said that holding a woman down and forcing sexual intercourse is at least maybe OK if she gets him sexually excited.His findings also found that one third of 14-year old boys and 2% of girls watch video pornography regularly.
Also, Robert Jensen explains in his great important book,Getting Off:Pornography And The End Of Masculinity whatever the genesis of the cum shot in the history of pornography we can ask why it continues.He then asks what does the cum shot mean? He says in one of the first films he watched for his study of pornography was the 1990 porn video Taboo VIII and one of the male characters offers an answer.He says that when this man refuses the request of a woman(whom he feels is a slut) to have intercourse with her he tells her,”I don’t f*ck sluts I jerk off on them.Take it or leave it.” He then ejaculates on her breasts.Robert Jensen says that this suggests that ejaculating onto a woman is a method by which she is turned into a slut,something -not really someone-whose purpose is to be sexual with men.He then says ejaculating onto her body marks her as a “slut” which in pornography is synonymous with “woman”.
He then says that that assessment was echoed by a veteran of the pornography industry (porn star and director Bill Margold),who told an interviewer:I’d like to really show what I believe the men want to see:violence against women.I firmly believe that we serve a purpose by showing that.The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face.Men get off behind that,because they get even with the women they can’t have.We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face.
Bill Morgold also said,My whole reason for being in the Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up.I strongly believe this,and the Industry hates me for saying it…So when we come on a woman’s face or somewhat brutalize her sexually :we’re getting even for their lost dreams.I believe this.I’ve heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen.When I’ve strangled a person,or brutalized a person,the audience is cheering my action,and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped desire,the audience applauds.
Feminist anti-porn educator Sociologist Dr.Gail Dines said that many of her female students told her that their boyfriends are constantly pressuring them to the things they see in pornography,that they have seen it in the pornograohy and now they want to experience it in real life.She said that many young women are so desperate to have a man in their lives that they will often give in and do these things even though their instincts are telling them don’t do it.
Dr.Chyng Sun also reports that many women have told her that their boyfriends and husbands are constantly asking them to the things they have seen in pornography and they don’t want to.On quite a few message boards over the years I have seen posts by men asking women if they like to have or will let their boyfriends or husbands cum on their faces like they do in the porn videos.One women made a topic about 5 years ago called,Some Men’s Disgusting Obsession and she said her boyfriend constantly wants her to let him ejaculate on her face and she said she feels it’s disgusting and degrading and she said he watches a lot of porn videos and she knows thats where he got the idea. A guy responded and said that a lot of young men are watching a lot of pornography on the internet today and they learn to think it’s sexy to ejaculate on a woman’s face or body.
Another guy posted on an “Adult” Site where they had advice questions and anwers and he posted that he ejaculated on his girfriend’s face and she was very angry and upset and she left him for good.But he couldn’t understand why and what he did wrong because he said his girl friend was always wild in bed and he said he watches a lot of porn videos and all of the porn stars love facials.On LoveShack.org a guy said that he and other men he knew said that it never occurred or appealed to them to ejaculate on a woman’s face or body,only inside her vaginally,until they saw it in pornography.Many women have also said their husbands and boyfriends are pressuring them to have anal sex after seeing women in pornography portrayed as if they love it.
Anti Pornography: STUDY PROVES “PORNOGRAPHY IS HARMFUL”
Anti Pornography’s Notes
STUDY PROVES “PORNOGRAPHY IS HARMFUL” 2002
Monday, July 13, 2009 at 7:40am
A new study has found that viewing pornography is harmful to the viewer and society. In a meta-analysis (a statistical integration of all existing scientific data), researchers have found that using pornographic materials leads to several behavioral, psychological and social problems.
One of the most common psychological problems is a deviant attitude towards intimate relationships such as perceptions of sexual dominance, submissiveness, sex role stereotyping or viewing persons as sexual objects. Behavioral problems include fetishes and excessive or ritualistic masturbation. Sexual aggressiveness, sexually hostile and violent behaviours are social problems as well as individual problems that are linked to pornography.
“Our findings are very alarming”, said Dr. Claudio Violato one of the co-authors of the study. Dr. Violato, Director of Research at the National Foundation for Family Research and Education (NFFRE) and a professor at the University of Calgary, said “This is a very serious social problem since pornography is so widespread nowadays and easily accessible on the internet, television, videos and print materials”.
Studies have shown that almost all men and most women have been exposed to pornography. An increasing number of children are also being exposed to explicitly sexual materials through mass media. The rise in sexual crimes, sexual dysfunction and family breakdown may be linked to the increased availability and use of pornography. The rape myth (belief that women cause and enjoy rape, and that rapists are normal) is very widespread in habitual male users of pornography according to the study.
“There has been some debate among researchers about the degree of negative consequences of habitual use of pornography, but we feel confident in our findings that pornography is harmful”, Violato noted. “Our study involved more than 12,000 participants and very rigorous analyses. I can think of no beneficial effects of pornography whatsoever. As a society we need to move towards eradicating it”.
The authors of the study concluded that exposure to pornography puts viewers at increased risk for developing sexually deviant tendencies, committing sexual offences, experiencing difficulties in intimate relationships, and accepting of the rape myth. Dr. Elizabeth Oddone-Paolucci and Dr. Mark Genuis, researchers at the National Foundation for Family Research and Education, are co-authors of the study that was published in the scientific journal Mind, Medicine and Adolescence.
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Pornography and Rape Culture
Question: Pornography helps to create a rape culture.
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Agree 22.7%
Some pornography does 18.8%
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Dr.John Court an Australian psychologist debunked the Denmark claims and he found that as constraints on the availability of pornography were lifted in Sweden,Denmark,Great Britain ,the United States,New Zealand and Australia the rates of rapes in those countries increased.
If you click on the highlighted link,you can read the rest of this extensive excellent report which has a lot of great important studies done in the late 1980′s to mid 1990′s(this report came out in 2000) on how pornography re-enforces and teaches rape myths,and sexist attitudes,and is related to sexual violence and sexual harassment of women and girls.
http://www.enough.org/objects/justharmlessfun.pdf.
Last July, I found out my husband was a porn addict and had been viewing porn very regularly for a number of years. He assured me (at that time) of several things. 1 – he had never looked at deviant porn, 2 – he had stopped and would never look at it again. For some time prior to finding out, I had noticed changes in his personality. He was becoming more aggressive, mainly to women and particularly to me. Since then, has has constantly assured me that he was no longer looking at porn and no longer wanted to.
Yesterday, I found out that, no only had he been looking at porn again (at work now because he can’t really do it at home anymore). But, even worse, he is now starting to look at / get turned on by images and videos portraying extreme and real violence. This was unexpected because I had not seen any return to the violent episodes that I had experienced with him before.
Some of the material he has been looking at is so disgusting that it would make most people vomit if they were forced to look at it.
Although I presented him with all the evidence, he still tried to deny it. He claims that he cannot remember doing it. I am wondering whether this may actually be true and he is blocking it out, unable to face the monster that he is becoming.
I fully believe that if he doesn’t get professional help quickly, it won’t be long before looking at violence on the screen is no longer enough and he starts doing it for real. The only reason that I have not got my bags packed and am leaving right now, is that I cannot bear to think of what he may do in the future, if I don’t stay now and help him to get treatment for this problem.
I don’t want to have the suffering and death of his future victims on my conscience.
So, please don’t tell me that porn is harmless. Although I do accept that not everybody who indulges will end up like my husband, there are probably a significant number of people out there who have a monster inside of them like he does, and porn is just what it needs to feed off.
I know my story sounds dramatic & extreme but, every word of it is true. I only tell it in the hope that it may act as an early warning for certain individuals or their partners who may be approaching the truly horrible place where we are now.
Thanks for a powerful post. I turned my addiction round before it got to this stage; I don’t know if I was just lucky or whether there other factors were at work. But I certainly went through a long period of denying that my porn use was a problem; society’s ingrained negativity towards sex made it easier to keep doing porn than face the situation.
Personally, as a bisexual male, I find it very boring when I hear about men finding gratification in seeing women degraded. When raunchy degradation is such a male obsession, why can’t they watch gay porn and leave the poor women alone? Take piss play, for instance, which most poignantly reduce grown men to little boys.
Correction: Perhaps not boring, but unimaginative!