| Shadow1980 said: https://web.archive.org/web/20070302130918/http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_ovrvw.html There has been no convincing case for a clear, causual relationship between increased consumption of pornography and increased rates of sexual crimes like rape. Some studies have shown at best a weak correlation, and no strong case for a causal link. Nobody has been able to clearly establish that consumption of pornography leads people to commit rape or other sexual crimes; in fact, it could easily be the case that sexual predators simply seek out pornography as a matter of course, but would still commit their crimes regardless of what kind of media they consume. In many ways, the research into the relationship between pornography and sexual crimes mirrors that which investigates the relationship between violent media (including video games) and violent crimes. Nobody has been able to clearly establish a link between consumption of violent video games, movies, or TV shows and violent crime rates. In fact, the violent crime rate across all age groups declined substantially in the 90s in the U.S., a period when graphically violent video games first started to proliferate. Consumption of pornography no more leads people to commit sexual crimes than consumption of violent entertainment leads people to commit violent crimes. Even if there was a correlation and an established casual link, that in and of itself still might not be grounds to outlaw either pornography or violent media. We must still weight the costs and benefits to society of any kind of prohibition. Alcohol was prohibited largely on the grounds that it was a terrible social ill. Indeed, alcohol results in broken families, violent conduct, and a multitude of deaths from motor vehicle accidents and both chronic and acute physiological effects of alcohol abuse to the human body. However, prohibition led to an increase in violent crime as organized criminal sydicates found a lucrative new revenue stream with bootleg alcohol. Eventually, prohibition was repealed and for the better part of the past century we've simply learned to deal with the ill effects of alcohol on society. The people decided that it was better to err on the side of liberty and to not drain considerable government resources into policing the alcohol industry (other prohibited recreational drugs have faced a bigger uphill battle for decriminalization as they lack the societal prevalence, cultural acceptance, and large-scale commercial availability of alcohol or tobacco, and some, but not all, are considerably more harmful than alcohol is). In the case of "objectionable" sexual or violent content in media, there are serious First Amendment concerns, and to abolish either or both would expand the power of the government over our private lives, consume taxpayer money that could go towards other more pressing concerns, and turn millions of law-abiding citizens into criminals overnight, all for the sake of possibly preventing a handful of deranged individuals from possibly committing a crime because sexual or violent media may have triggered them into doing so. But there is no clearly established causal link suggesting sexual or violent media results in criminally sexual or violent acts, and therefore any laws banning such media possess exactly zero merit and thus have absolutely no moral or practical reason for existing. Period. |
*Claps Thanks. You saved me the trouble and frankly, I'm too lazy to dig all that up. It's virtually common sense that viewing/reading/playing violent or pornographic materials does not lead to increased violence, criminal or depraved behavior.
