Experts ponder 'paradox of pornography'

Experts ponder 'paradox of pornography'

Pornography and Internet predators were prominent topics at the Riverview Center's community workshop and annual fundraising dinner Thursday.

Riverview Center Director Josh Jasper said the topics fit into the center's mission: to create a community free of sexual violence.

Among the speakers, University of Texas at Austin Associate Professor Robert Jensen talked about his research. He argued that as pornography becomes more acceptable in society, it creates harmful effects. Nonetheless, he tried to avoid hyperbole.

"Does pornography cause rape?" Jensen asked. "No."

In a simple sense, the two are not directly related, he said. However, he questioned whether there was a link when mass media affects attitudes, and attitudes influence behavior.

Jensen delivered a feminist critique of pornography, and he argued that as the heterosexual, mainstream pornography market becomes more accepted in society, it's become more cruel, degrading and racist.

"I call this the paradox of pornography," he said. "It's more acceptable,
but more cruel?"

http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=241197

If men can seek gratification without resorting to courting behaviors, does this not diminish the need for seeking sex overall and ultimately reduce the risks for women in the aggregate?

It just reinforces the idea that women are objects or commodities. For a man or a woman, it's much easier to deal with a photograph than it is a real person. ;-)

:rofl:

especially when the pic is anywhere from five to twenty years old and shopped! Such is the case online in a number of places. That's why I've never gotten into "online dating." The concept scares the hell out of me.

I have an ex who was really into porn. He had a suitcase full of the stuff. I knew he was into it before I married him and just figured he had some growing up to do.

He never grew up.

Not Relationships.

Satisfying sexual urges is quite different than interpersonal relationships.

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eom

Since you want to erase my reply, I will put it this way:

Sexual satiation equals masturbation, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the porn world portrays women as objects.

it is video, either live from a webcam, or taped. So you are dealing with a real person, similar to DU, a real person on another computer or internet connection. It is a much more straightforward 'relationship'. Man pays a certain amount of money to get a woman to dance naked for him (or other things, say, pleasure herself with a cucumber while he watches, etc.) or he finds/pays for some sort of video. In the dating world, looking for love/looking for sex/looking for a woman to dance naked for you is much more complicated.

The nation's full of puritanical pornographers who simulataneuously are obsessed with sex and use it to sell most anything, while at the same time being so fearful of women's breasts that they go apoplectic at the slightest glimpse during a sporting event- and make a row over the simple act of breast feeding.

I have experienced this, even when I nursed my kids with a blanket thrown over my shoulder.

If you can't see that the problem is with your reading comprehension and not the article.

Totally socialist, feminist society, yet they are as filthy-minded and as nasty in their choice of porn as anyone else. Openly so. Or how about the Japanese who favor that weird hentai rape, tentacled monster, overpowering type of porn? I don't think they even like anything that isn't fraught with teary-eyed underage models being subdued in some awful way. And yet, they have the lowest rape stats in the history of the entire universe. How about gay porn, which often depicts one or more servicing others? Is rape rampant among our gay brothers? Porn doesn't beget rape. That's just silly.

We seem to forget that those teary-eyed "models" are trafficked or otherwise coerced and are being truly double penetrated and forced into scat and nipple clamps and rope burns and choking and, I love this, watertank torture (thanks to Abu Gharaib, no doubt), and even worse stuff I won't mention.

The rape culture of pornography contributes to objectification--read Bob Jensen, because I'm not going to get into it with you--but what people seem to forget is that unless it is regulated 50% of pornography is ALREADY RAPE.

Not the real thing. Far as I know, Japanese porn depicting living people is strictly regulated. Somehow, they get off on cartoons. Maybe it's the life-like voiceovers that make up for the lack of real bodies.

All porn is objectification, and since for the most part it caters to the male population, it will be steeped in male fantasy. Nor is that a bad thing, after all, porn is mostly there to guide one's alone time to successful conclusion. It's "all about me" time. These fantasies are not necessarily what anyone would like, or proposes should happen, when there are two engaging in lust/love sessions. When/if women become enough of the market, pornographers will adjust for female alone time fantasy.

Thanks for the recommendation btw... I'll look to see what I can find on him.

because they couldn't use public transportation without being sexually assaulted?

I'm guessing if people were as packed as sardines in NYC subways, there'd be a bigger issue as well. We get jammed, but not as much. In addition, NY women have no problem yelling out in a crowd that they're going to rip someone's gonads off if they don't remove the offending hand pronto, which I'm guessing isn't the case in Japan.

The two recommended and often used defenses against groping in Japan are:
1) grabbing the perpetrators wrist and shouting: Whose hand is this? (dare no te desuka)
2) a 3 inch hat-pin kept handy specifically for the purpose.

although in a huge crowd of people, am not sure you always get the right person.

It's a remarkably misogynist culture. You have no idea what you're talking about.

on a per capita basis.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/rape_statistics_in_oslo_revisited/

Shocking, I know.

are supposedly committed by non-Western immigrants, coming from ultra-repressive societies. They should stay home and watch more porn.

You seem to have missed that point in the article.

I haven't missed anything btw. I'll read and think. :)

It's Saturday night and you posted someone's opinion, based on whatever stats someone else posted, I guess, didn't look that far. Possibly if this thread hasn't died six pages from now, I'll come back with a thought, as I truly don't believe porn has changed in any way how people act or do.

Most acquaintance and so-called "date rapes" are never reported because of the stigma attached the victims and people's effed-up ideas about what consent is.

I lived in Japan for 3 years and learned that, basically, if a woman allows a man to kiss her she has for all intents and purposes consented to sex with him, according to the prevalent mores there. How do you suppose that would impact rape statistics there, porn or no?

Your article appears to be based on some crime wave wherein it was noted that immigrants seem to be feasting on women. The article I found states that apparently in that one year 2001, 111 men were charged with rape in Oslo. Even if you allow for the "nine times out of ten someone gets away with it" comment in the story, doesn't come close to the numbers of rapes committed in the US.

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article190268.ece

In 2001, 3,546 women were raped in NYC.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm

Of course NYC has more total rapes; their population is higher. That's not statistically helpful at all.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita

# 1 South Africa: 1.19538 per 1,000 people
# 2 Seychelles: 0.788294 per 1,000 people
# 3 Australia: 0.777999 per 1,000 people
# 4 Montserrat: 0.749384 per 1,000 people
# 5 Canada: 0.733089 per 1,000 people
# 6 Jamaica: 0.476608 per 1,000 people
# 7 Zimbabwe: 0.457775 per 1,000 people
# 8 Dominica: 0.34768 per 1,000 people
# 9 United States: 0.301318 per 1,000 people
# 10 Iceland: 0.246009 per 1,000 people
# 11 Papua New Guinea: 0.233544 per 1,000 people
# 12 New Zealand: 0.213383 per 1,000 people
# 13 United Kingdom: 0.142172 per 1,000 people
# 14 Spain: 0.140403 per 1,000 people
# 15 France: 0.139442 per 1,000 people

We're discussing Oslo and NYC. Specifically, we're discussing the hypothesis that Norway's rape rate is low because they have access to extreme amounts of hardcore porn (according to the poster - haven't seen evidence of that, but it's the claim), when in fact in their capital - EVEN WHEN IMMIGRANTS ARE DISCOUNTED - there appears to be a substantial amount of rape occurring.

norway = #18, us = #9.

whatever the # of rapes, the porn claim can't be proved or disproved.

And you're right. People may not like porn, but regardless, the connection to rape can't be proved at all.

And Hannah Bell's stats are relevant in that you can see Norway rates 18th on the list versus the US which is at number 9. The article you posted yourself discusses the huge upwards turn in rape crime as being due to the fact that two thirds of it is committed by immigrants that come from societies which are completely backwards in their attitudes toward sex, and where access to porn is non-existent.

arab countries have lower rates of rape than the west.

btw, aftenpost = racist rag.

:eyes:

Are there no rapists elsewhere?

The per capita rape stats for Norway are .1 and in the US they are .4. Back in the 70s the stats were 2.8. Since Americans have wayyyy more access to porn today than they did back then, that's remarkable drop isn't it? Considering how badly porn is affecting the population.


http://www.ncdsv.org/images/Statistics%20Show%20Drop%20in%20US%20Rape%20Cases.pdf

Because, yeah, the rape stats for Japan are way lower than in the U.S.

Women and girls generally do not report date rapes, or at least that was my understanding when I lived there for 3 years back in the 90s.

and i'd like to see some actual study of rates of non-reporting here v. there.

the difference in the level of safety is pretty obvious if you've lived there.

They are usually done by assailants that the victims know well or are acquainted. My information re Japan comes from feminists who were active in women's issues in the country. According to them, "date rape" was extremely common because the view was that if you kissed a man, let alone God forbid inviting him in for a drink, you had de facto consented to sex with him.

different than in the US, e.g.:

http://www.aaets.org/arts/art13.htm.

Only 27 percent of those women whose sexual assault met the legal definition of rape thought of themselves as rape victims.

42 percent of the rape victims did not tell anyone about their assaults.

Only five percent of the rape victims reported the crime to the police.

Only five percent of the rape victims sought help at rape-crisis centers.



I don't believe there's a significant cultural difference in this regard. Accusing someone you know of rape is very difficult for many reasons.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita

japan = "notorious" for low violence generally, though it's changing.

when someone says "sexual violence".

i suspect, although i have no proof at all, that many rapes would go unreported in a culture like japan's.

rapists and pedophiles. A direct link between rape or pedophilia will never be established, yet the fact remains that many rapists and pedophile use pornography, often before attacking a victim.

Pornography has an effect on many peoples' brains, causing the release of brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine. A person can become addicted to this "rush". Since this rush and this behavior is usually reinforced by orgasm, it is not outlandish that people can become so habituated that pornography, rather than real-life relationships, becomes a person's sexual and emotional outlet. Even before this point, people can find themselves viewing material they once would have objected to, because milder forms of pornography no longer stimulate them, or deal with anxiety or depression when they try to cease viewing.

For some, pornography can be a way to lose inhibitions or become stimulated, much like alcohol. The only difference is that we as a society know that alcohol can be addictive for some people and one should be aware that this can happen, whereas we don't believe that the same thing can happen with pornography.

I don't believe censorship is the answer (with the exception that pornography depicting sexual acts with those who cannot or do not consent - minors, animals, torture or rape scenes - should not be legal), mostly because pornography is too hard to define, too variable. I do think awareness that this can be a problem is needed, along with awareness of what moderate use is, and how one can get help if it becomes a problem.

That said, I also believe that when there are minor children in the home, computers should have filters and parents should frankly discuss responsible use of the internet with their children.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita

Rank Countries Amount
# 1 South Africa: 1.19538 per 1,000 people
# 2 Seychelles: 0.788294 per 1,000 people
# 3 Australia: 0.777999 per 1,000 people
# 4 Montserrat: 0.749384 per 1,000 people
# 5 Canada: 0.733089 per 1,000 people
# 6 Jamaica: 0.476608 per 1,000 people
# 7 Zimbabwe: 0.457775 per 1,000 people
# 8 Dominica: 0.34768 per 1,000 people
# 9 United States: 0.301318 per 1,000 people
# 10 Iceland: 0.246009 per 1,000 people
# 11 Papua N.Guinea: 0.233544 per 1,000 people
# 12 New Zealand: 0.213383 per 1,000 people
# 13 United Kingdom: 0.142172 per 1,000 people
# 14 Spain: 0.140403 per 1,000 people
# 15 France: 0.139442 per 1,000 people
# 16 Korea, South: 0.12621 per 1,000 people
# 17 Mexico: 0.122981 per 1,000 people
# 18 Norway: 0.120836 per 1,000 people
# 19 Costa Rica: 0.118277 per 1,000 people
# 20 Venezuela: 0.115507 per 1,000 people
# 21 Finland: 0.110856 per 1,000 people
# 22 Netherlands: 0.100445 per 1,000 people
# 23 Denmark: 0.0914948 per 1,000 people
# 24 Germany: 0.0909731 per 1,000 people
# 25 Bulgaria: 0.0795973 per 1,000 people
# 26 Chile: 0.0782179 per 1,000 people
# 27 Thailand: 0.0626305 per 1,000 people
# 28 Kyrgyzstan: 0.0623785 per 1,000 people
# 29 Poland: 0.062218 per 1,000 people
# 30 Sri Lanka: 0.0599053 per 1,000 people
# 31 Hungary: 0.0588588 per 1,000 people
# 32 Estonia: 0.0547637 per 1,000 people
# 33 Ireland: 0.0542829 per 1,000 people
# 34 Switzerland: 0.0539458 per 1,000 people
# 35 Belarus: 0.0514563 per 1,000 people
# 36 Uruguay: 0.0512295 per 1,000 people
# 37 Lithuania: 0.0508757 per 1,000 people
# 38 Malaysia: 0.0505156 per 1,000 people
# 39 Romania: 0.0497089 per 1,000 people
# 40 Czech Republic: 0.0488234 per 1,000 people
# 41 Russia: 0.0486543 per 1,000 people
# 42 Latvia: 0.0454148 per 1,000 people
# 43 Moldova: 0.0448934 per 1,000 people
# 44 Colombia: 0.0433254 per 1,000 people
# 45 Slovenia: 0.0427648 per 1,000 people
# 46 Italy: 0.0402045 per 1,000 people
# 47 Portugal: 0.0364376 per 1,000 people
# 48 Tunisia: 0.0331514 per 1,000 people
# 49 Zambia: 0.0266383 per 1,000 people
# 50 Ukraine: 0.0244909 per 1,000 people
# 51 Slovakia: 0.0237525 per 1,000 people
# 52 Mauritius: 0.0219334 per 1,000 people
# 53 Turkey: 0.0180876 per 1,000 people
# 54 Japan: 0.017737 per 1,000 people
# 55 Hong Kong: 0.0150746 per 1,000 people
# 56 India: 0.0143187 per 1,000 people
# 57 Qatar: 0.0139042 per 1,000 people
# 58 Macedonia: 0.0132029 per 1,000 people
# 59 Greece: 0.0106862 per 1,000 people
# 60 Georgia: 0.0100492 per 1,000 people
# 61 Armenia: 0.00938652 per 1,000 people
# 62 Indonesia: 0.00567003 per 1,000 people
# 63 Yemen: 0.0038597 per 1,000 people
# 64 Azerbaijan: 0.00379171 per 1,000 people
# 65 Saudi Arabia: 0.00329321 per 1,000 people

by ignoring the fact many go unreported in some countries.

Like I'm supposed to believe that a country that treats women so badly and where a woman can be gang raped and it's considered her fault for daring to step outside her door without a male family member has so much less raping going on than these other countries. Please. These stats are rubbish.