Porn Goes Up, Rape Goes Down

I was just talking about this subject a coiuple days ago - in relation to prisons. I would tend to think that it would lower the incidents of rape in prisons. Though I would guess that it might also be something for prisoners to fight over so it might not be the most effective tool.

It would be very surprising if this was not the case. Whilst I believe there are other factors in play with these statistics, it just makes sense that if a potential rapist has other, easier outlets for their sexual frustration - they just might use it.

Both Ed and Treban are assuming that rape is a response to sexual frustration. In some cases it may be, but in a major part, probably the majority of cases, it seems to be more about power and violence, not sex. Therefore, if the question of the relationship of porn to rape is explored, shouldn't it sado-masochistic porn? And here -- I hate to point out this because the two types of porn can be easily confused and I am both an enjoyer of and a writer of consensually-based porn -- there does seem to be more of a link between this type of porn and sexual offenses.

But that still leads to a terribly difficult thing to explain - why then has rape been going down while the availability of sado-masochistic porn has skyrocketed? In fact, it's become more mainstreamed than ever before and very widely available.

Jim, why do you think that sado-masochistism is different that other fetishes? Do you really think that the people involved with sado-masochistic sex are not doing so consensually? I know a couple (two men) who have been together for more than 10 years and they are very much into sado-masochistism. They even have a "dungeon" at their house. Trust me on this it is consensual.

Well, what kind of metric are they using to reach the conclusion that rape actually HAS gone down? Has the legal definition of rape changed? Is it possible that rates of reporting have gone down? Rape is such a fraught, stigmatized, shameful, hurtful, complicated thing, I guess I'm saying I have little innate confience in the accuracy of a statistic that makes a claim about the incidence of rape going up, or down, or whatever.

Katherine wrote:

Well, what kind of metric are they using to reach the conclusion that rape actually HAS gone down?

Actual crime statistics.

Has the legal definition of rape changed?

Not that I am aware of. And this particular measure includes both completed rapes and attempted rapes.

Is it possible that rates of reporting have gone down?

Highly unlikely. If anything, the opposite is almost certainly true. Rape certainly doesn't hold the same stigma for the victim today as it did 35 years ago, and during that time we've seen the passage of all sorts of laws that protect the victims (rape shield laws, for example) that were designed to make women more likely to report rapes. We've seen much more attention get paid to date rape, particularly for younger women, and there is much more support available in communities for rape victims than there were previously. We know that most rapes are not reported, but given the changes in both the legal protections and the societal acceptance for rape victims, I can't conceive of any reason to believe that rapes are not reported more often today than they were 35 years ago, probably much more often. It would be extremely counter-intuitive to believe that they are reported less often today than before those changes were made.

Rape is such a fraught, stigmatized, shameful, hurtful, complicated thing, I guess I'm saying I have little innate confience in the accuracy of a statistic that makes a claim about the incidence of rape going up, or down, or whatever.

Rape is certainly all of those things, but it certainly shouldn't be surprising that rape has gone down significantly in the last couple decades. Bear in mind that all violent crime has been going down steadily over that period of time. Why should rape be any different?

Ed - Great catch ! I love it.

I've got a lot more along similar lines in the pipeline for the fall.

Ed said:

Jim, why do you think that sado-masochistism is different that other fetishes? Do you really think that the people involved with sado-masochistic sex are not doing so consensually?

I think that what Jim was referring to was depictions of rape where it is not clear to all the porn viewers that consent was involved (ie. those that have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy - a not insignificant percentage of the population). I have accidentally stumbled on a couple of those films that I found extremely disconcerting. However, I'm even more interested in another metric: the difference between stranger rape and acquaintance rape (aka date rape), which I think has significantly (but not entirely) different etiologies.

I have often questioned some on the rights views on pornography. It would seem to me that a man is least likely to commit rape or any sexual act including infidelity when porn is readily available. If only for the simple fact that after his 'release' he is generally placated for awhile.

Of course in my younger days, but then I'd sound like Bill O'Reilly.:-)

Ed :

The religous right is not the only group that claims porn increases rape .

Katherine wrote:
Has the legal definition of rape changed?

actually Katherine it has since the 70`s and more things can be considered rape according to the wording of many statistics . for example now if a woman is too drunk it can be considered rape and we now have "date rape " rape inside marriage and many other areas that were not considered rape in the 70`s ...

I would highly doubt that the mere availability of porn would decrease the incidence of rape - because it truly is an act of violence and power over the victim, but the fact that it clearly does not increase the incidence is important. I would guess the reason rape has declined has been the rise in the status of women in this country in the last century, and certainly since the advent of the modern women's movement, which gained real steam right around 1970. By valuing and respecting women as individuals, and as a result talking about sex crimes more, we have reduced the number of men who think of women as their possessions, and therefore suitable for attack.

I'm not sure it's true that rape is purely a matter of violence and power. I know that's the prevailing conventional wisdom, but is it really true? If it's true, then why are the victims of rape overwhelmingly between the ages of 18 and 25 and why is that also the prime age for rapists? Do they suddenly resolve their issues of power at 25 or 30 years old? Sexual desire must play some role in it, and I don't know why people are so reluctant to admit that. It doesn't excuse the heinousness of rape in any way.

That rape is strictly about violence and power is text book 60-70s feminist thought. I think in a lot of cases it is... but I think in a lot of cases it's probably about pure sexual frustration.

Of course there's probably lots of other reasons that rape has gone down... Everything from education to better access to mental health for most people...

but I think the old saw that porn someone causes rape is dead... otherwise the United States would be awash with rapists... I think a lot of feminists have let that one go a long time ago too...

As pointed out, the rate of all violent crimes has been falling steadily. This is mostly a demographic effect, but there are some social forces at work as well.

The demographic fact is that the US population as a whole is aging, and hence the cohort most likely to engage in violent crime, males age 15-25, is declining in percentage terms. Where this cohort has not declined, such as some inner cities, there hasn't been that much change in crime rates.

Social factors have also contributed to the decline. Most of these have to do with there being fewer situations where a rape is likely to occur. I'm not blaming the victims here, just pointing out that a woman who gets really drunk around men has a really high risk of rape compared to one who doesn't.

Most studies show that binge-type drinking is in decline, hence fewer rapes. Also as the rate of crimes associated with rape go down (burglary, kidnapping) rape decreases as well.

Id like to think that education and women's liberation have had an effect, but I'm not aware of a lot of research to support the idea. I suppose the fact that so many women drive their own vehicles has helped; that's a point for feminism.

Hey, maybe it's the punishment. Maybe using sentencing guidelines and overcrowded prisons really works to deter and reduce crime and get rapists off the streets.

Or maybe it's the sex-offender registries working. I don't recall that we had any back in the 70s and no ability to surf the web to see which of your neighbors was a little dodgy.

I hear that being put on a registry really cuts into recidivism. Maybe.

There was a great story about registries working so well that they're planning to do a meth-registry in a number of states.

But these registries are different and more useful; I've always wondered where I can score some good meth, and now I can locate the people that would have this valuable info.

Talk about government providing a useful service.

Certainly in the case of stranger rape the primary motivation for rape is power - I doubt anyone would attack and rape a complete stranger to get off. But the vast majority of rapes are commited by rapists who know the victim and have a reasonable reason to be alone with them - often a date and among younger people. In the vast majority of those cases I would speculate that sexual desire plays the biggest role.

I also agree with CPT Doom and Kehrsham that there are a lot of factors involved in the lower rate of rape - CPT had a list I agree with entirely. But that does not mean that there is no corolation between the availability of porn and incidents of rape. I wouldn't dream of saying that there is a connection but I do suspect strongly that there is - it just makes sense.

Though to put a crimp in convincing anyone that my supposition is correct. Keep in mind that even while rape is on the decrease we have expanded the definition and it is far more likely that someone raped on a date or by someone they know is going to report it now than they were 30 years ago. Rape was usually only reported then, when it was an assault by a stranger. So all the faactors that CPT listed have had enormous impact on the incidents of rape.

Treban,

I can't make sense of what your trying to say here. You seem to be contradicting yourself.

Keep in mind that even while rape is on the decrease we have expanded the definition and it is far more likely that someone raped on a date or by someone they know is going to report it now than they were 30 years ago.

Exactly which would result in an increase in reported rapes if in fact such an increase was occuring but it appears not to be the case.

I wouldn't dream of saying that there is a connection but I do suspect strongly that there is - it just makes sense.

How does it make sense in any way shape or form? How does looking at a naked picture of another human make one want to go out and assault another human? If that is the case why then aren't rapes of the charts given the amount of porn readily available. I'm sorry this doesn't make even the remotest sense.

Pornography is another of the demonized things in our society that is an easy scapegoat for things it has nothing to do with. As I emntioned earlier I suspect someone who looks at porn and perhaps uses it as a sexual release would be less likely to rape just simply due to the physiological processes involved at the time.

Psychos are psychos and looking at the naked human form isn't the cause.

I happen to know that, for reporting purposes, the federal legal definition of rape has only changed in one way 1976, and this was to add that men may be raped as well as women.

Yet the legal and the social definitions of rape don't always coincide, and what was said above about the increasing willingness to identify date rape, spousal rape, and the like, is certainly correct: Generally speaking, we do call more things "rape" now than we would have in 1976.

I would like to point out that the argument that rape is about power & violence does not preclude it also being sexual. Sexuality in humans is a somewhat complicated thing (yeah, I'm going for the understatement here) which can be connected inside the psyche to any number of other affects: many people would associate it with romantic dinner by candlelight, whereas others would link sexual arousal to shoes, to being dressed like a baby, to only being able to be sexually aroused when one is actually /hurting/ someone. As such, it could be classed as a paraphilia (and often is). However, the significant component is the fact that sexual arousal is actually attained from having the other person helpless and hurting. As such -- it is about power & violence, yes.

Second thing I would like to point out:
The availability of porn has accompanied an increasing openness in society about sexuality, which has brought with it other societal changes -- the fact that women are allowed to have sexual appetites, and do not need to be "seduced" or "overcome", and that when women say "No", well, maybe they actually MEAN it; increasing insistence that women do not necessarily have "rape fantasies" and that rape fantasies do not necessarily mean that they actually want to be raped (see previous); the insistence that when they ARE raped, it is not a "just lie back and enjoy it" thing, but actually traumatic and damaging; the fact that society has actually begun to punish rape as such and that it is no longer accepted (at least by reasonable people) as a "boys will be boys" thing.

That is still an oversimplification, and leaves out a lot; however, I hope it is enough to point out to you that you are skirting dangerously close to forgetting that, indeed, correlation does not equal causation.

And for Ed Brayton -- if you factor in "sexual assault" (as in, not full penetration) with rape, then the mean age of assault victims is no longer 22 -- it is 12-13. It is not purely a "sexual desire" thing by any stretch of the imagination. Young women are more vulnerable: they tend to spend their days in places where older women would not necessarily "hang out", and they are inexperienced enough to make decisions which put them at risk, and often not confident enough to fight back when attacked and can easily be intimidated. All of these things play into it.

Also, Ed -- you have the "prime age" for rapists wrong, I believe. From http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/vfluc.txt:

"A third of rapists were under age 25: 18% were
under 21 and 4% were under 18. Nineteen percent
were 40 or older. The mean age of those convicted
of rape was 31."

luna, thanks for those thoughts, much of which I agree with. I think you're dead on in your analysis of all of the other changes that have come about in the last 30 years that contribute to the decrease in rape. I really don't believe that more porn means less rape, but I think they are both symptoms, somewhat ironically, of a healthy trend in society toward more sexual openness. My only real disagreement, I think, is that I would classify sexual assault on anyone 12 or 13 as something very different from rape of an adult (equally heinous, in fact even worse, but I think the psychological roots are quite different). Genuine pedophilia is, I think, a unique form of mental illness, distinct from the urge to rape. I could well be wrong, this is hardly an area of expertise for me, but that's always been my sense of it.

I would have to dig back into some research I did on serial offenders about 6 years ago, but I don't think that you can separate sexual attacks on children and sexual attacks against adults perfectly or cleanly; it's kind of like trying to separate "autism" and "Asperger's". There are obvious differences between some low-functioning autistics and Asberger's, and then there are other forms of high-functioning autism which are not quite Asberger's, but.....it part of a spectrum, with no neat or easy delineation.

Certainly, there are a significant number of serial sex offenders who do not confine themselves to any particular age group and may have victims ranging from 10-17 years of age, or 8-25. The trend with these, however, is that as they offend more, their victims actually tend to get younger; I'm not entirely sure what this means about their psychology.