Archive for the ‘Refutations’ Category

This study throws cold water on the claims that pornography is harmful and linked with criminal behavior. Milton Diamond, a professor of anatomy and reproductive biology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, was the lead on a study called “Pornography, Public Acceptance and Sex Related Crime: A Review.” Published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. A metastudy, it looked at study over many years on porn’s impact on both individuals and society. A metastudy looks at the overall results of mountains of peer reviewed research, providing a snapshot of the conclusions of scientists overall, and the general consensus they have reached. Yeah know, just like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report showing the consensus on climate change, so we know conservatives will ignore this study as well, just as they do most science that does not conform to their own bias. And this study definitely does not. Based on the research of a lot of scientists, there is no objective verifiable evidence that exposure to pornography by itself causes societal harm- including sex crimes, abuse of women, and destroying. In fact, it shows just the opposite. Where pornography is readily available, these problems are reduced.

According to Diamond: “With these data from a wide variety of communities, cultures and countries we can better evaluate the thesis that an abundance of sexual explicit material invariably leads to an increase of illegal sexual activity and eventually rape. Similarly we can now better reconsider the conclusion of the Meese Commission and others that there exists ‘a causal relationship to antisocial acts of sexual violence and … unlawful acts of sexual violence’ Indeed, the data reported and reviewed suggests that the thesis is myth and, if anything, there is an inverse causal relationship between an increase in pornography and sex crimes.”

Yes, my conservative friends, pornography does not turn you into a rapist or wife abuser. This has been one of the key claims against pornography- a direct link to actual harm to society and an increase in violent crime, and it is full of hot air. The vast majority of sex offenders had strict religious upbringings, and while we can see a pattern there, we can’t say that religion creates rapists. We also know that rapists and child molesters tend to view less pornography than the average male- but we can’t say that not viewing porn turns you into a rapist. The factors that cause men to abuse women, or rape women, or even lead to divorce are a lot more complicated than that. Its easy to just say porn did it, but it is not very scientific. And it certainly isn’t a justification for the level of censorship that conservatives would like to impose on all of us.

That still leaves the claim that pornography destroys marriages. People make the claim, but there has to be evidence. If someone divorces and claims it was because of pornography, we need to be able to say that pornography was the cause and not a symptom or an escape or simply irrelevant to the real problems that caused the divorce. The problem is, we just don’t have objective proof that that is the case, and if pornography were causing that level of harm on a societal basis, there would be enough available data for us to find that proof. It isn’t there. Isolated instances of supposed harm are not a valid reason to claim that something causes general or overall harm. Especially when almost everyone is exposed to pornography. We’d see a huge spike in the divorce rate over the last few years, when, in fact, the divorce rate has been going down in the U.S. Claiming that your husband’s obsession with sports destroyed your marriage does not mean that watching sports is harmful, even if it was true that his constantly watching sports and ignoring you did in fact destroy the marriage. Smoking cigarettes is harmful. We have a mountain of data showing a causal relationship. We don’t have that with porn, but if a causal relationship actually existed, we would see it in the dataThe scary thing is that the same anti-science attitude that conservatives have used against pornography, including their own junk science, is the same that they have used against teaching actual sex education in schools, the same anti-science they have used against evolution, and the same that they are now trying to use against climate science. Instead of finding their bliss in their faith, they seek it in their ignorance, and try to enforce it on the rest of us. And its worked. We are now a nation that is essentially scientifically illiterate. They can’t find qualified scientists and engineers to replace the aging NASA scientists. We are falling behind other countries in many areas related to science. Science is the true engine of a nation’s economy, and our engine is starting to sputter. The U.S. took the technology lead after the launch of Sputnik, which created a governmental panic that lead to an emphasis on science in the schools. For the last 60 years we have been a technology and science powerhouse. Recent conservative battles have led to a diminishing of science education in the schools. I guess we need another scare to shake us out of our stupor.

Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse, from the University of Montreal, Canada, had what he thought was a great idea for a study. He wanted to see what the impact of porn was on male sexuality. First, they needed a control- men in their twenties who had never watched porn. Turns out that they could not find any. So he instead turned to studying young men who did watch porn. He found that single young men viewed porn for 40 minutes three times a week, compared with those in committed relationships who watch it 1.7 times a week for 20 minutes. Bad news for DVD sales: He also found that 90 percent of porn was viewed on the Internet compared to just 10 percent from the video store. What he failed to find was any pathological sexuality amongst the porn viewers. Nor did he find any evidence that it changed their perceptions of women or of their relationship. And he did not find evidence that porn viewers seek out more extreme porn as they become bored with it. Instead, he found that men watched porn that matched their own view of sexuality, and quickly discarded anything that did not. All test subjects supported gender equality. Nor did it lock them into a world of fantasy expectations, as they did not want their real life partner to look or act like a porn star. Amazingly, they were able to differentiate between fantasy and reality, an ability that seems completely lost to anti-porn advocates.