Virginia Gun Massacre

[Mr. Tea]

I wouldn't say porn is *inherently* bad - yes, some of it's mysogynistic, but plenty of it is just fairly straightforward, two-people-having-sex kind of stuff. Especially either the really professional stuff or the completely 'amateur' home-made kind - it seems to be the semi-professional, low-budget sort that's most likely to be nasty. I don't watch it because I don't like it, but should it be banned? I don't know, I'm against most kinds of censorship in general, unless a clear link could be shown between watching (or seeing/hearing/reading/playing) something and violent or criminal behaviour.

 

[Guybrush]

A lot of good objections raised, and I’m happy to discuss the pernicious effects of current porn (which is the yardstick we should use—it has changed a lot over the last fifteen years). However, this study only examined porn usage as it relates to instances of rape, and the result seems unambiguous: porn does reduce rape. As I stated above, increased porn consumption comes both at a price and with a prize. This positive effect, I suggested, we can count in its favour, and then continue discussing what should be held against it.

 

[Guybrush]

An eerie coincidence: A few days before the shooting, Momus wrote a piece, «No Sex Please, We’re South Korean», where South Koreans were exposed as being the world leaders in spending money on porn: on average $526.75 a year.

 

[Mr. Tea]

They're also obsessed with Starcraft. A week or two ago some guy collapsed and died after playing it for several days straight. OMG ZERG RUSH!!!! kekekekekekeke ^_^

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

A lot of good objections raised, and I’m happy to discuss the pernicious effects of current porn (which is the yardstick we should use—it has changed a lot over the last fifteen years). However, this study only examined porn usage as it relates to instances of rape, and the result seems unambiguous: porn does reduce rape. As I stated above, increased porn consumption comes both at a price and with a prize. This positive effect, I suggested, we can count in its favour, and then continue discussing what should be held against it.

The problem with these types of lumpen-empirical studies, imagining and constructing a direct causal immediacy, much like Skinnerian behaviourism/stimulus-response/operant conditioning "studies", is of course not only their self-serving selectivity, but their intoxicating ignorance of political, social, economic and cultural forces. The sheer, contradictory hilarity of, for instance, such reasoning as (in the article quoted by Guybrush above): "Next, violence. What happens when a particularly violent movie is released? Answer: Violent crime rates fall. Instantly " is indicative of this myopic, what-you-see-is-what-you-get mindset.

Well, along similar lines, what happened instantly when everyone watched 9/11 as a reality TV show on 9/11? Crime in the U.S. collapsed. Instantly. Do we therefore conclude, therefore reason, that terrorism is a "cure" for violent crime? Or do we possibly conclude the very opposite (based on a wider, cultural, analysis, not to mention the subsequent events, an explosion of violence throughout the world, still growing***)?

Isn't, instead, terrorism (perceived to be) violence at its most horrific, at its purest? Just as porn is rape/sexual violence at its purest? It is meaninglass double-speak to therefore claim that porn "reduces" rape, or alternatively that violence reduces crime, war reduces conflict, etc. This is (suicidal) replicant ideology at its purest: the very thing causing the problem is the solution to the problem.

***As we know, that event in the U.S. led to a (racial) displacement of crime/violence. Changes in the public's perception of Muslims, Arabs, and related groups quickly after 9/11 began manifesting on the streets and in offices. In the months immediately following 9-11, hate crimes against Muslims shot up to 34 times their pre-attack levels, according to FBI reports. The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), based in Washington, D.C., reported that hate crimes against people believed to be of Middle Eastern descent increased 40 times before dropping to about double the former rate—and that rate has held steady.

EDIT: "meaninglass": oh, what a wonderful Freudian slip.

 

[Guybrush]

I think I see what you mean: the would-be rapists actually are raping someone, even though that someone happens to be a virtual person. It also seems like you are thinking that the increase in pornography usage increases the number of presumptive rapists, while simultaneously curtailing them, confining their activities to the virtual world. That may well be so, but isn’t that preferable to a situation with a higher rate of ‘off-line’ rapes? An acceptable intermediary solution until the underlying, fundamental problems have been unwounded.

Here is the link to the original report, again, right click, and ‘save as’. It’s very pedagogically written, and some of the methodological imperfections are addressed.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Just as porn is rape/sexual violence at its purest?

Just what the hell kind of porn do you watch, exactly? Must be far more repulsive than the worst stuff I've ever seen...still, each to their own.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Anyway, isn't it about time we put this whole thing in context: surely violence, both sexual and otherwise, is FAR more common in third-world countries, where most people have never seen a VCR or a computer, let alone watched porn - than in the developed world? What percentage of rapists in South Africa or Pakistan have ever watched Back Door Sluts 9 or played GTA: San Andreas, do you suppose?

 

[vimothy]

I think I see what you mean: the would-be rapists actually are raping someone, even though that someone happens to be a virtual person. It also seems like you are thinking that the increase in pornography usage increases the number of presumptive rapists, while simultaneously curtailing them, confining their activities to the virtual world. That may well be so, but isn’t that preferable to a situation with a higher rate of ‘off-line’ rapes? An acceptable intermediary solution until the underlying, fundamental problems have been unwounded.

Eh? How can you rape a "virtual person"?

 

[IdleRich]

"Isn't, instead, terrorism (perceived to be) violence at its most horrific, at its purest? Just as porn is rape/sexual violence at its purest"

That's not right, porn is not to rape what terrorism is to violence, that analogy just doesn't make sense. Someone watching porn is, I dunno, nasty, unpleasant etc but it is clearly going too far to say that it is actually rape and certainly not the ultimate form of rape.
But I broadly agree with your wider point, if watching pornography reduces rape in the short-term that doesn't mean that you should stop wondering about what that pornography does to the viewers, "actors" and society in the long term.

It is meaninglass double-speak to therefore claim that porn "reduces" rape

Only if you accept that porn is rape and it has to be "is", not related to or similar to but "is". I don't know anyone who would (except you obviously).

"I think I see what you mean: the would-be rapists actually are raping someone, even though that someone happens to be a virtual person. It also seems like you are thinking that the increase in pornography usage increases the number of presumptive rapists, while simultaneously curtailing them"

Surely it would have to be virtually (not actually) raping a virtual person. Again, the thing is that most people (not HMLT) would be able to recognise that virtual squared rape while still a bad thing is not the same as actual rape. The second part (about the increase in potential rapists) follows without having to conflate the two though so again I broadly agree.

 

[vimothy]

It is meaninglass double-speak to therefore claim that porn "reduces" rape, or alternatively that violence reduces crime, war reduces conflict, etc. This is (suicidal) replicant ideology at its purest: the very thing causing the problem is the solution to the problem.

I'm not sure that I'm convinced by the Landsburg article, but I'm also not so sure about this either: violence doesn't cause crime, war doesn't cause conflict (it is conflict), and porn doesn't cause rape - because if it did cause rape, there would have been no rape before the invention of the moving picture, and really, no rape before the '70s (or whenever porn took off), which is clearly not true.

 

[Guybrush]

if it did cause rape, there would have been no rape before the invention of the moving picture, and really, no rape before the '70s (or whenever porn took off), which is clearly not true.

Yes, but the implication is that it exacerbates attitudes and behaviours that lead to rape, not that it is the sole reason for it.

 

[vimothy]

If you have hideous desires, good luck to you. To think about sexual violence is nothing. If, however, you choose to act on those desires, you are no better than an animal, and deserve whatever the law can throw at you. Don't blame pornography for your own lack of control, don't blame Grand Theft Auto for your thuggish behavior.

 

[vimothy]

Yes, but the implication is that it exacerbates attitudes and behaviours that lead to rape, not that it is the sole reason for it.

Hm, so we would have seen an increase in the total number of rapes since the advent of pronography and an even greater increase since the era of gonzo-style porn, because pornography encourages rape. Has this happened?

 

[Guybrush]

Hm, so we would have seen an increase in the total number of rapes since the advent of pronography and an even greater increase since the era of gonzo-style porn, because pornography encourages rape. Has this happened?

Not in America, but, as hundredmillionlifetimes pointed out above, that could be because the would-be rapists are content with indulging in ‘virtual rape’: their increased desires are hedged by the same phenomenon that creates them.

 

[Guybrush]

If you have hideous desires, good luck to you. To think about sexual violence is nothing. If, however, you choose to act on those desires, you are no better than an animal, and deserve whatever the law can throw at you. Don't blame pornography for your own lack of control, don't blame Grand Theft Auto for your thuggish behavior.

Don’t forget that there also is a treadmill effect: your desire create an urge for something, which, in some cases, in turn reinforces this desire, and so on.

 

[vimothy]

Not in America, but, as hundredmillionlifetimes pointed out above, that could be because the would-be rapists are content with indulging in ‘virtual rape’: their increased desires are hedged by the same phenomenon that creates them.

*Scoffs* Virtual rape!? "Baudrillard does Dallas" - with shades of PKD - Gee o'er lad...

 

[Guybrush]

*Scoffs* Virtual rape!? "Baudrillard does Dallas" - with shades of PKD - Gee o'er lad...

Come on! Is that so hard a concept to understand?

 

[vimothy]

Don’t forget that there also is a treadmill effect: your desire create an urge for something, which, in some cases, may in turn reinforce this desire, and so on.

And the reverse is also true ("don't think about pink elephants") - like how when I'm trying to give up smoking, my thoughts constantly turn to cigarettes and how much I want one, but can't have one, whereas at other times I don't think about cigarettes at all, and hardly smoke anything.

 

[vimothy]

Come on! Is that so hard a concept to understand?

Ok, but:

1. What makes them would-be rapists if they don't act on their desires?
2. How can you measure their increase in desire for sexual violence?
3. What does it mean to "virtually rape" anyone/thing/thought construct in any case?