This blog is not about pornography. However, I came across some recent research about pornography and violence that I would like to share with you. It is Pornography and Sexual Aggression: Can Meta-Analysis Find a Link? The main conclusion is that "evidence did not suggest that nonviolent pornography was associated with sexual aggression". They found a weak link with violent pornography, but didn't know if this is just because violent people select violent pornography. This is especially interesting: "Population studies suggested that increased availability of pornography is associated with reduced sexual aggression at the population level".
So what journalist Libby Purves wrote recently in The Times is untrue. She wrote "Yet research across the world makes it clear that selling sex is not only an immediate risk but reduces the safety of all women. Men who buy it, whether online or physically, are significantly more likely than other men to rape or commit other violence against women." I'm not sure what she means by 'online' as opposed to 'physically', but it seems she is talking about pornography.
She doesn't give a reference for this 'research across the world' but it seems that she means the research done by Melissa Farley. I have dealt with this in a previous post. I am offended by the false allegation that someone like me 'reduces the safety of all women'. It is prudish journalists with their false statistics who endanger the safety of women: you can't have good laws based on fabricated statistics.
I have blogged about Sara Pascoe's book Sex Power Money. What I wrote is that I feel she has been very fair on the subject of pornography but unfair on the subject of prostitution. People might say why are you quoting a comedian, what would she know, but she has looked at the research.
page 198. "Some heartening statistics: if porn encouraged rape, then we'd expect rape rates to rise along with the availability of the internet. The 'Porn Up, Rape Down' study conducted at Northwestern University School of Law found that the incidence of reported rape declined by 85 per cent in the United States after technology made porn freely available."
page 200. "For comparison, twenty-eight thousand people completed the University of Chicago's General Social Survey between 1974 and 2010, and they found no connection between porn and sexism."
page 202. "The truth is that while there are plenty of hairless pussies, there is a rainforest of unshavens and anyone who is watching porn regularly has seen everything. Some interesting evidence against the influence of porn on young people is that all recent surveys have reported that up to 90 per cent of men prefer their partner to have pubic hair."
page 204. "The received wisdom is that porn is becoming alarmingly aggressive because easily bored consumers are demanding it. If this concerns you, the study 'Harder and Harder' published by the Journal of Sex Research in 2018 might put your mind at rest. Sociologists from McGill University in Canada studied the most popular videos on Pornhub, assessed the aggressive content in a random selection and found it wasn't true that viewers preferred aggressive content, or that the content was becoming more aggressive over time. They actually found, when measuring the length of time spent on visible aggression (biting, slapping, choking etc.) in these videos, that violence was a declining trend. And films where the female performer seemed to be enjoying herself were far more popular (in views and 'likes') than any in which women simulated or experienced distress."
page 224. "All I've found in my own research is middle ground. And that's reassuring - there is loads of middle ground, with extremes at either end."
page 227. "Hollywood releases about six hundred films per annum, so if you wanted to find out how many of those are violent (answer: loads) at least you could watch them all."
These are real researchers, not like biased Radical Feminist Melissa Farley. Real journalists (not Libby Purves) would look at real researchers (not Melissa Farley).
