Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Porn and Society
It is predictable now. Some pornography-associated business tycoon donates money to a political party ( a recent case is of Richard Desmond donating to the Labour party). An uproar follows.
Soon enough, there are two camps on either side of the question 'Is porn good for soceity'? This question is gaining in importance with ever increasing distribution channels for (explicit) content. It is only obvious how answering this question is more important in a world with TVs, internet and cam-phones. Moreover, the catalyst triggering this question - political donations -is only likely to occur more frequenlty as the porn business, currently a $10bn business in the US alone, heads towards greater sales.
The camp that believes that porn is good for society believes that exposure to porn provides a channel, that in turn reduces sexual crime. In academic circles this theory is known as "catharsis". Japan and Scandinavia are pointed to as supporting cases, where liberal attitudes accompany low crime rates against women. As an older BBC article points out
The "Danish experience" is often held up as good example. In 1969 Denmark lifted all restrictions on pornography, and sex crimes declined. For example, between 1965 and 1982 sex crimes against children went from 30 per 100,000 to about 5 per 100,000. Similar evidence was found for rape rates.
However, it must be noted that, some of this may be due to a lack of reporting by these countries to keep their image intact - see, for example, a recent New York Times article emphasizing that domestic abuse is an unspoken problem in Sweden!
On the other end of the hanging balance are views that porn exploits women and promotes crime against them. A vocal group of feminists have subscribed to this view. One of them is Andrea Dworkin, who recently passed away, and another is Robin Morgan who famously proclaimed: "Pornography is the theory and rape is the practice." While this might be extreme it clearly cannot be dismissed as Gore Vidal did when he said "The only thing pornography is known to cause is the solitary act of masturbation".
While one can argue one way or another based on factors of cultural attitudes, social interaction, population density etc., I think the true answer will lie only in the kind of brain research that is now booming.
Perhaps the MIT Brain Lab needs to just see how the brain changes with high exposure to porn and whether such changes tend to make an 'unexposed' brain look more like the scans from someone who has committed sexual crimes (with and without impetus from porn). I really hope someone does this soon.
Soon enough, there are two camps on either side of the question 'Is porn good for soceity'? This question is gaining in importance with ever increasing distribution channels for (explicit) content. It is only obvious how answering this question is more important in a world with TVs, internet and cam-phones. Moreover, the catalyst triggering this question - political donations -is only likely to occur more frequenlty as the porn business, currently a $10bn business in the US alone, heads towards greater sales.
The camp that believes that porn is good for society believes that exposure to porn provides a channel, that in turn reduces sexual crime. In academic circles this theory is known as "catharsis". Japan and Scandinavia are pointed to as supporting cases, where liberal attitudes accompany low crime rates against women. As an older BBC article points out
The "Danish experience" is often held up as good example. In 1969 Denmark lifted all restrictions on pornography, and sex crimes declined. For example, between 1965 and 1982 sex crimes against children went from 30 per 100,000 to about 5 per 100,000. Similar evidence was found for rape rates.
However, it must be noted that, some of this may be due to a lack of reporting by these countries to keep their image intact - see, for example, a recent New York Times article emphasizing that domestic abuse is an unspoken problem in Sweden!
On the other end of the hanging balance are views that porn exploits women and promotes crime against them. A vocal group of feminists have subscribed to this view. One of them is Andrea Dworkin, who recently passed away, and another is Robin Morgan who famously proclaimed: "Pornography is the theory and rape is the practice." While this might be extreme it clearly cannot be dismissed as Gore Vidal did when he said "The only thing pornography is known to cause is the solitary act of masturbation".
While one can argue one way or another based on factors of cultural attitudes, social interaction, population density etc., I think the true answer will lie only in the kind of brain research that is now booming.
Perhaps the MIT Brain Lab needs to just see how the brain changes with high exposure to porn and whether such changes tend to make an 'unexposed' brain look more like the scans from someone who has committed sexual crimes (with and without impetus from porn). I really hope someone does this soon.
