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PART TWO: CHAPTER 5
A central part of our mission has been to examine the question of whether pornography is harmful. In attempting to answer this question, we have made a conscious decision not to allow our examination of the harm question to be constricted by the existing legal/ constitutional definition of the legally obscene. As explained in Chapter 3, we agree with that definition of principle, and we believe that in most cases it allows criminal prosecution of what ought to be prosecuted and prohibits criminal prosecution of what most of us believe is material properly protected by the First Amendment. In light of this, our decision to look at the potential for harm in a range of material substantially broader than the legally obscene requires some explanation. One reason for this approach was the fact that in some respects existing constitutional decisions permit non-prohibitory restrictions of material other than the legally obscene. With respect to zoning, broadcast regulation, and liquor licensing, existing Supreme Court case law permits some control, short of total prohibition, of the time, place, and manner in which sexually explicit materials that are short of being legally obscene may be distributed. When these non-prohibitory techniques are used, the form of regulation is still constrained by constitutional considerations, but the regulation need not be limited only to that which has been or would be found legally obscene. To address fully the question of government regulation, therefore, requires that an examination of possible harm encompass a range of materials broader than the legally obscene.
Moreover, the range of techniques of social control is itself broader than the scope of any form of permissible or desirable governmental regulation. We discuss in Chapter 8 many of these techniques, including pervasive social condemnation, public protest, picketing, and boycotts. It is appropriate here, however, to emphasize that we do not see any necessary connection between what is protected by law (and therefore protected from law), on the one hand, and what citizens may justifiably object to and take non-governmental action against, on the other. And if it is appropriate for citizens justifiably to protest against some sexually explicit materials despite the fact that those materials are constitutionally protected, then it is appropriate for us to broaden the realm of our inquiry accordingly.[44]
Most importantly, however, we categorically reject the idea that material cannot be constitutionally protected, and properly so, while still being harmful. All of us, for example, feel that the inflammatory utterances of Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and racists of other varieties are harmful both to the individuals to whom their epithets are directed as well as to society as a whole. Yet all of us acknowledge and most of us support the fact that the harmful speeches of these people are nevertheless constitutionally protected. That the same may hold true with respect to some sexually explicit materials was at least our working assumption in deciding to look at a range of materials broader than the legally obscene. There is no reason whatsoever to suppose that such material is necessarily harmless just because it is and should remain protected by the First Amendment. As a result, we reject the notion that an investigation of the question of harm must be restricted to material unprotected by the Constitution.
The converse of this is equally true. Just as there is no necessary connection between the constitutionally protected and the harmless, so too is there no necessary connection between the constitutionally unprotected and the harmful. We examine the harm question with respect to material that is legally obscene because even if material is therefore unprotected by the First Amendment, it does not follow that it is harmful. That some sexually explicit material is constitutionally regulable does not answer the question of whether anything justifies its regulation. Accordingly, we do not take our acceptance of the current constitutional approach to obscenity as diminishing the need to examine the harms purportedly associated with the distribution or use of such material.
We thus take as substantially dissimilar the question of constitutional protection and the question of harm. Even apart from constitutional issues, we also take to be separate the question of the advisability of governmental regulation, all things considered, and the question of the harmfulness of some or all sexually explicit materials. The upshot of all of this is that we feel it entirely proper to identify harms that may accompany certain sexually explicit material before and independent of an inquiry into the desirability and constitutionality of regulating even that sexually explicit material that may be harmful. As a result, our inquiry into harm encompasses much material that would not generally be considered "pornographic" as we use that term here.
What is a harm? And why focus on harm at all? We do not wish in referring repeatedly to "harm" to burden ourselves with an unduly narrow conception of harm. To emphasize in different words what we said in the previous section, the scope of identifiable harms is broader than the scope of that with which government can or should deal. We refuse to truncate our consideration of the question of harm by defining harms in terms of possible government regulation. And we certainly reject the view that the only noticeable harm is one that causes physical or financial harm to identifiable individuals. An environment -physical, cultural, moral, or aesthetic-can be harmed, and so can a community, organization, or group be harmed independent of identifiable harms to members of that community.
Most importantly, although we have emphasized in our discussion of harms the kinds of harms that can most easily be observed and measured, the idea of harm is broader than that. To a number of us, the most important harms must be seen in moral terms, and the act of moral condemnation of that which is immoral is not merely important but essential. From this perspective there are acts that need be seen not only as causes of immorality but as manifestations of it. Issues of human dignity and human decency, no less real for their lack of scientific measurability, are for many of us central to thinking about the question of harm. And when we think about harm in this way, there are acts that must be condemned not because the evils of the world will thereby be eliminated, but because conscience demands it.
We believe it useful in thinking about harms to note the distinction between harm and offense. Although the line between the two is hardly clear, most people can nevertheless imagine things that offend them, or offend others, that still would be hard to describe as harms. In Chapter 6 our discussion of laws and their enforcement will address the question of the place of governmental regulation in restricting things that some or many people may find offensive, but which are less plainly harmful; but at this point it should be sufficient to point out that we take the offensive to be well within the scope of our concerns.
In thinking about harms, it is useful to draw a rough distinction between primary and secondary harms. Primary harms are those in which the alleged harm is commonly taken to be intrinsically harmful, even though the precise way in which the harm is harmful might yet be further explored. Nevertheless, murder, rape, assault, and discrimination on the basis of race and gender are all examples of primary harms in this sense. We treat these acts as harms not because of where they will lead, but simply because of what they are.
In other instances, however, the alleged harm is secondary, not in the sense that it is in any way less important, but in the sense that the concern is not with what the act is, but where it will lead. Curfews are occasionally imposed not because there is anything wrong with people being out at night, but because in some circumstances it is thought that being out at night in large groups may cause people to commit other crimes. Possession of "burglar tools" is often prohibited because of what those tools may be used for. Thus, when it is urged that pornography is harmful because it causes some people to commit acts of sexual violence, because it causes promiscuity, because it encourages sexual relations outside of marriage, because it promotes so-called "unnatural" sexual practices, or because it leads men to treat women as existing solely for the sexual satisfaction of men, the alleged harms are secondary, again not in any sense suggesting that the harms are less important. The harms are secondary here because the allegation of harm presupposes a causal link between the act and the harm, a causal link that is superfluous if, as in the case of primary harms, the act quite simply is the harm.
Thus we think it important, with respect to every area of possible harm, to focus on whether the allegation relates to a harm that comes from the sexually explicit material itself, or whether it occurs as a result of something the material does. If it is the former, then the inquiry can focus directly on the nature of the alleged harm. But if it is the latter, then there must be a two-step inquiry. First it is necessary to determine if some hypothesized result is in fact harmful. In some cases, where the asserted consequent harm is unquestionably a harm, this step of the analysis is easy. With respect to claims that certain sexually explicit material increases the incidence of rape or other sexual violence, for example, no one could plausibly claim that such consequences were not harmful, and the inquiry can then turn to whether the causal link exists. In other cases, however, the harmfulness of the alleged harm is often debated. With respect to claims, for example, that some sexually explicit material causes promiscuity, encourages homosexuality, or legitimizes sexual practices other than vaginal intercourse, there is serious societal debate about whether the consequences themselves are harmful.
Thus, the analysis of the hypothesis that pornography causes harm must start with the identification of hypothesized harms, proceed to the determination of whether those hypothesized harms are indeed harmful, and then conclude with the examination of whether a causal link exists between the material and the harm. When the consequences of exposure to sexually explicit material are not harmful, or when there is no causal relationship between exposure to sexually explicit material and some harmful consequence, then we cannot say that the sexually explicit material is harmful. But if sexually explicit material of some variety is causally related to, or increases the incidence of, some behavior that is harmful, then it is safe to conclude that the material is harmful.
In dealing with these questions, the standard of proof is a recurrent problem. How much evidence is needed, or how convinced should we be, before reaching the conclusion that certain sexually explicit material causes harm? The extremes of this question are easy. Whenever a causal question is even worth asking, there will never be conclusive proof that such a causal connection exists, if "conclusive" means that no other possibility exists. We note that frequently, and all too often, the claim that there is no "conclusive" proof is a claim made by someone who disagrees with the implications of the conclusion.
Few if any judgments of causality or danger are ever conclusive, and a requirement of conclusiveness is much more rhetorical device than analytical method. We therefore reject the suggestion that a causal link must be proved "conclusively" before we can identify a harm.
The opposite extreme is also easily dismissed. The fact that someone makes an assertion of fact to us is not necessarily sufficient proof of that fact, even if the assertion remains uncontradicted. We do not operate as a judge sitting in a court of law, and we require more evidence to reach an affirmative conclusion than does a judge whose sole function might in some circumstances be to determine if there is sufficient evidence to send the case to the jury. That there is a bit of evidence for a proposition is not the same as saying that the proposition has been established, and we do not reach causal conclusions in every instance in which there has been some evidence of that proposition.
Between these extremes the issues are more difficult. The reason for this is that how much proof is required is largely a function of what is to be done with an affirmative finding, and what the consequences are of proceeding on the basis of an affirmative finding. As we deal with causal assertions short of conclusive but more than merely some trifle of evidence, we have felt free to rely on less proof merely to make assertions about harm than we have required to recommend legal restrictions, and similarly we have required greater confidence in our assertions if the result was to recommend criminal penalties for a given form of behavior than we did to recommend other forms of legal restriction. Were we to have recommended criminal sanctions against material now covered by the First Amendment, we would have required proof sufficient to satisfy some variant of the "clear and present danger" standard that serves to protect the communication lying at the center of the First Amendment's guarantees from government action resting on a less certain basis.
No government could survive, however, if all of its actions were required to satisfy a "clear and present danger" standard, and we openly acknowledge that in many areas we have reached conclusions that satisfy us for the purposes for which we draw them, but which would not satisfy us if they were to be used for other purposes. That we are satisfied that the vast majority of depictions of violence in a sexually explicit manner are likely to increase the incidence of sexual violence in this country, for example, does not mean that we have concluded that the evidence is sufficient to justify governmental prohibition of materials that both meet that description and are not legally obscene.
It would be ideal if we could put our evidentiary standards into simply formulas, but that has not been possible. The standards of proof applicable to the legal process preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing evidence, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt-are not easily transferred into a non-judicial context. And the standards of justification of constitutional law-rational basis, compelling interest, and clear and present danger, for example-relate only to the constitutionality of governmental action, not to its advisability, nor to the standards necessary for mere warnings about harm. Thus we have felt it best to rely on the language that people ordinarily use, words like "convinced," "satisfied," and "concluded," but those words should be interpreted in light of the discussion in this section.
The world is complex, and most consequences are "caused" by numerous factors. Are highway deaths caused by failure to wear seat belts, failure of the automobile companies to install airbags, failure of the government to require automobile companies to install airbags, alcohol, judicial leniency towards drunk drivers, speeding, and so on and on? Is heart disease caused by cigarette smoking, obesity, stress, or excess animal fat in our diets? As with most other questions of this type, the answers can only be "all of the above," and so too with the problem of pornography. We have concluded, for example, that some forms of sexually explicit material bear a causal relationship both to sexual violence and to sex discrimination, but we are hardly so naive as to suppose that were these forms of pornography to disappear the problems of sex discrimination and sexual violence would come to an end.
If this is so, then what does it mean to identify a causal relationship? It means that the evidence supports the conclusion that if there were none of the material being tested, then the incidence of the consequences would be less. We live in a world of multiple causation, and to identify a factor as a cause in such a world means only that if this factor were eliminated while everything else stayed the same then the problem would at least be lessened. In most cases it is impossible to say any more than this, although to say this is to say quite a great deal. But when we identify something as a cause, we do not deny that there are other causes, and we do not deny that some of these other causes might bear an even greater causal connection than does some form of pornography. That is, it may be, for example, and there is some evidence that points in this direction, that certain magazines focusing on guns, martial arts, and related topics bear a closer causal relationship to sexual violence than do some magazines that are, in a term we will explain shortly, "degrading." If this is true, then the amount of sexual violence would be reduced more by eliminating the weaponry magazines and keeping the degrading magazines than it would be reduced by eliminating the degrading magazines and keeping the weaponry magazines.
Why, then, do we concentrate on pornography? For one thing, that is our mission, and we have been asked to look at this problem rather than every problem in the world. We do not think that there is something less important in what we do merely because some of the consequences that concern us here are caused as well, and perhaps to a greater extent, by other stimuli. If the stark implications of the problem of multiple causation were followed to the ultimate conclusion of casting doubt on efforts relating to anything other than the "largest" cause of the largest problem, few of us could justify doing anything in our lives that was not directly related to feeding the hungry. But the world does not operate this way, and we are comfortable with the fact that we have been asked to look at some problems while others look at other problems. And we are equally comfortable with the knowledge that to say that something is one of many causes is not to say that it is not a cause. Nor is it to say that the world would not be better off if even this one cause were eliminated.
When faced with the phenomenon of multiple causation, cause is likely to be attributed to those factors that are within our power to change. Often we ignore larger causes precisely because of their size. When a cause is pervasive and intractable, we look elsewhere for remedies, and this is quite often the rational course. A careful look at the available evidence can give us some idea of where the problems are, what different factors are causing them, which remedies directed at which causes are feasible, and which remedies directed at which causes are futile, unconstitutional, or beyond available means. We acknowledge that all of the harms we identified have causes in addition to the ones we identify. But if we are correct with respect to the causes we have identified, then we can take confidence in the fact that lessening those causes will help alleviate the problem, even if lessening other causes might very well alleviate the problem to a great extent.
We have looked at a wide range of types of evidence. Some has come from personal experience of witnesses, some from professionals whose orientation is primarily clinical, some from experimental social scientists, and some from other forms of empirical science. We have not categorically refused to consider any type of evidence, choosing instead to hear it all, consider it all, and give it the weight we believe in the final analysis it deserves. No form of evidence has been useless to us, and no form is without flaws. A few words about the advantages and disadvantages of various types of evidence may help to put into perspective the conclusions we reach and the basis on which we reach them.
Most controversial has been the evidence we have received from numerous people claiming to be victims of pornography, and reporting in some way on personal experiences relating to pornography. In later portions of this Report concerned with victimization and with the performers in pornographic material we discuss this evidence in more detail. We have considered this firsthand testimony, much of it provided at great personal sacrifice, quite useful, but it is important to note that not all of the first-hand testimony has been of the same type.
Some of the first-hand testimony has come from users of pornography, and a number of witnesses have told us how they became "addicted" to pornography, or how they were led to commit sex crimes as a result of exposure to pornographic materials. Although we have not totally disregarded the evidence that has come from offenders, in many respects it was less valuable than other victim evidence and other evidence in general. Much research supports the tendency of people to externalize their own problems by looking too easily for some external source beyond their own control. As with more extensive studies based on self-reports of sex offenders, evidence relying on what an offender thought caused his problem is likely to so overstate the external and so understate the internal as to be of less value to us than other evidence.
Most of the people who have testified about personal experiences, however, have not been at any point offenders, but rather have been women reporting on what men in their lives have done to them or to their children as a result of exposure to certain sexually explicit materials. As we explained in the introduction, we do not deceive ourselves into thinking that the sample before us is an accurate statistical reflection of the state of the world. Too many factors tended to place before us testimony that was by and large in the same direction and concentrated on those who testified about the presence rather than the absence of consequences. Nevertheless, as long as one does not draw statistical or percentage conclusions from this evidence, and we have not, it can still be important with respect to identification and description of a phenomenon. Plainly some of these witnesses were less credible or less helpful than others, but many of the stories these witnesses told were highly believable and extremely informative, leading us to think about possible harms of which some of us had previously been unaware. Many witnesses have urged us to draw conclusions about prevalence exclusively from anecdotal evidence of this variety, but we have refused to do so. But that we have refused to make invalid statistical generalizations does not mean that we cannot learn from the stories of those with personal experiences. Many of their statements are summarized in the victimization section of this Report, and we urge people to consider those statements as carefully as we did. We can and we have learned from many of these witnesses, and their testimony has provided part of the basis for our conclusions. As in many other areas of human behavior, the most complete understanding emerges when a phenomenon is viewed from multiple perspectives. One important perspective is the subjective meaning that individuals attribute to their own experiences. This perspective and the unique experiences of individuals are less amenable to objective or statistical inquiry than certain other perspectives, and thus can be valuably examined through the kinds of witnesses whose statements we summarize later in this Report.
The evidence provided by clinical professionals carries with it some of the same problems. Although filtering the evidence through a trained professional, especially one who described to us the experience of numerous cases, eliminates some of the credibility problems, the problem of statistical generalization remains. Because people without problems are not the focus of the clinician's efforts, evidence from clinical professionals focuses on the aberrational. Consequently, clinical evidence does not help very much in answering questions about the overall extent of a phenomenon, because it too is anecdotal, albeit in a more sophisticated way and based on a larger sample. Still, clinical evidence should not be faulted for not being what it does not purport to be. What it does purport to be is sensitive professional evaluation of how some people behave, what causes them to behave in that manner, and what, if anything, might change their behavior. Clinical evidence helps us to identify whether a problem exists, although it does not address the prevalence of the problem. We have looked at the clinical evidence in this light, and have frequently found it useful.
The problems of statistical generalization diminish drastically when we look to the findings of empirical social science. Here the attempt is to identify factors across a larger population, and thus many of the difficulties associated with any form of anecdotal evidence drop out when the field of inquiry is either an entire population, some large but relevant subset of a population, or an experimental group selected under some reliable sampling method.
Some of the evidence of this variety is correlational. If there is some positive statistical correlation between the prevalence of some type of material and some harmful act, then it is at least established that the two occur together more than one would expect merely from random intersection of totally independent variables. Some of the correlational evidence is less "scientific" than others, but we refuse to discount evidence merely because the researcher did not have some set of academic qualifications. For example, we have heard much evidence from law enforcement personnel that a disproportionate number of sex offenders were found to have large quantities of pornographic material in their residences. Pornographic material was found on the premises more, in the opinion of witnesses, than one would expect to find it in the residences of a random sample of the population as a whole, in the residences of a random sample of non-offenders of the same sex, age, and socioeconomic status, or in the residences of a random sample of offenders whose offenses were not sex offenses. To the extent that we believe these witnesses, then there is a correlation between pornographic material and sex offenses. We have also read and heard evidence that is more scientific. Some of this evidence has related to entire countries, where researchers have looked for correlations between sex offenses and changes in a country's laws controlling pornography or changes in the actual prevalence of pornographic materials. Other evidence of this variety has been conducted with respect to states or regions of the United States, with attempts again being made to demonstrate correlations between use or non-use of certain sexually explicit materials and the incidence of sex crimes or other anti-social acts.
Correlational evidence suffers from its inability to establish a causal connection between the correlated phenomena. It is frequently the case that two phenomena are positively correlated precisely because they are both caused by some third phenomena.
We recognize, therefore, that a positive correlation between pornography and sex offenses does not itself establish a causal connection between the two. It may be that some other factor, some sexual or emotional imbalance, for example, might produce both excess use of pornographic materials as well as a tendency to commit sex offenses. But the fact that correlational evidence cannot definitively establish causality does not mean that it may not be some evidence of causality, and we have treated it as such. The plausibility of hypothesized independent variables causing both use of pornography and sex offenses is one factor in determining the extent to which causation can be suggested by correlational evidence. So too is the extent to which research design has attempted to exclude exactly these possible independent variables. The more this has been done, the safer it is to infer causation from correlation, but in no area has this inference been strong enough to justify reliance on correlational evidence standing alone.
The problem of the independent variable drops out when experiments are conducted under control group conditions. If a group of people is divided into two subgroups randomly, and if one group is then exposed to a stimulus while the other is not, then a difference in result between the stimulus group and the control group will itself establish causation. As long as the two groups are divided randomly, and as long as the samples are large enough that randomness can be established, then any variable that might be hypothesized other than the one being tested will be present in both the stimulus group and the control group. As a result, the stimulus being tested is completely isolated, and positive results are very strong evidence of causation.
The difficulty with experimental evidence of this variety, however, is that it is virtually impossible to conduct control group experiments outside of a laboratory setting. As a result, most of the experiments are conducted on those who can be induced to be subjects in such experiments, usually college-age males taking psychology courses. Even a positive result, therefore, is a positive result only, in the narrowest sense, for a population like the experimental group. Extrapolating from the experimental group to the population at large involves many of the same problems as medical researchers encounter in extrapolating from tests on laboratory animals to conclusions about human beings. The extrapolation is frequently justified, but some caution here must be exercised in at least noting that the extrapolation requires assumptions of relevant similarity between college age males and larger populations, as well as, in some cases, assumptions of causality between the effects measured in the experiment and the effects with which people are ultimately concerned.
Perhaps more significantly, enormous ethical problems surround control group experiments involving actual anti-social conduct. If the hypothesis is that exposure to certain materials has a causal relationship with rape, for example, then the "ideal" experiment would start with a relatively large group of men as subjects, would then divide the large group randomly into two groups, and would then expose one of the two groups to the pornographic materials and the other to control materials. Then the experimenter would see if the stimulus groups committed more rapes than the control group. Of course such an experiment is inconceivable, and as a result most experiments of this variety have had to find a substitute for counting sexual offenses. Some have used scientific measures of aggression or sexual arousal, some have used questionnaires reflecting self-reported tendency to commit rape or other sex offenses, some have used experiments measuring people's willingness to punish rapists, and some have used other substitutes. With respect to any experiment of this variety, drawing conclusions requires making assumptions between, for example, measured aggression and an actual increased likelihood of committing offenses. Sometimes these assumptions are justified, and sometimes they are not, but it is always an issue to be examined carefully. One final point about the experimental evidence presented to us is in order. Even with control group experiments, the ultimate conclusions will depend on the ability of the researcher to isolate single variables. For example, where there is evidence showing a causal relationship between exposure to violent pornography and aggressive behavior, the stimulus as just described contains two elements, the violence and the sex. It may be that the cause is attributable solely to the violence, or it may be that the cause is attributable solely to the sex. Good research attempts to examine these possibilities, and we have been conscious of it as we evaluated the research presented to us.
Taking into account all of the foregoing methodological factors, it has become clear to all of us that excessively broad terms like "pornography" or "sexually explicit materials" are just too encompassing to reflect the results of our inquiry. That should come as no surprise. There are different varieties of sexually explicit materials, and it is hardly astonishing that some varieties may cause consequences different from those caused by other varieties.
Our views about subdivision as a process, if not about the actual divisions themselves, reflect much of the scientific evidence, and we consider the willingness of scientists to subdivide to be an important methodological advance over the efforts of earlier eras. So too with our own subdivision. We have unanimously agreed that looking at all sexually explicit materials, or even all pornographic materials, as one undifferentiated whole is unjustified by common sense, unwarranted on the evidence, and an altogether oversimplifying way of looking at a complex phenomenon. In many respects we consider this one of our most important conclusions. Our subdivisions are not intended to be definitive, and particularly with respect to the subdivision between non-violent but degrading materials and materials that are neither violent nor degrading, we recognize that some researchers and others have usually employed broader or different groupings. Further research or-thinking, or just changes in the world-may suggest finer or different divisions. To us it is embarking on the process of subdivision that is most important, and we strongly urge that further research and thinking about the question of pornography recognize initially the way in which different varieties of material may produce different consequences.
We cannot stress strongly enough that our conclusions regarding the consequences of material within a given subdivision are not a statement about all of the material within a subdivision. We are talking about classes, or categories, and our statements about categories are general statements designed to cover most but not all of what might be within a given category. Some items within a category might produce no effects, or even the opposite effects from those identified. Were we drafting laws or legal distinctions, this might be a problem, but we are not engaged in such a process here. We are identifying characteristics of classes, and looking for harms by classes, without saying that everything that is harmful should be regulated, and without saying that everything that is harmful may be regulated consistent with the Constitution.
We present in the following sections our conclusions regarding the harms we have investigated with respect to the various subdividing categories we have found most useful. To the extent that these conclusions rest on findings from the social sciences, as they do to a significant extent, we do not in this part of the Report describe and analyze the individual studies or deal in specifics with their methodologies. For that we rely on our analysis of the social science research which is included later in this Report. Each of us has relied on different evidence from among the different categories of evidence, and specific studies that some of us have found persuasive have been less persuasive to others of us. Similarly, some of us have found evidence of a certain type particularly valuable, while others of us have found other varieties of evidence more enlightening. And in many instances we have relied on certain evidence despite some flaws it may have contained, for it is the case that all of us have reached our conclusions about harms by assimilating and amalgamating a large amount of evidence. Many studies and statements of witnesses have both advantages and disadvantages, and often the disadvantages of one study or piece of testimony has been remedied by another. Thus, the conclusions we reach cannot be identified with complete acceptance or complete rejection by all of us of any particular item of evidence. As a result, we consider the social science analysis, which is much more specific than what we say in this section, to be an integral part of this Report, and we urge that it be read as such. We have not relied totally on that analysis, as all of us have gone beyond it in our reading. And we cannot say that each of us agrees with every sentence and word in it. Nevertheless, it seems to us a sensitive, balanced, comprehensive, accurate, and current report on the state of the research. We have relied on it extensively, and we are proud to include it here.
The category of material on which most of the evidence has focused is the category of material featuring actual or unmistakably simulated or unmistakably threatened violence presented in sexually explicit fashion with a predominant focus on the sexually explicit violence. Increasingly, the most prevalent forms of pornography, as well as an increasingly prevalent body of less sexually explicit material, fit this description. Some of this material involves sado-masochistic themes, with the standard accoutrements of the genre, including whips, chains, devices of torture, and so on. But another theme of some of this material is not sado-masochistic, but involves instead the recurrent theme of a man making some sort of sexual advance to a woman, being rebuffed, and then raping the woman or in some other way violently forcing himself on the woman. In almost all of this material, whether in magazine or motion picture form, the woman eventually becomes aroused and ecstatic about the initially forced sexual activity, and usually is portrayed as begging for more. There is also a large body of material, more "mainstream" in its availability, that portrays sexual activity or sexually suggestive nudity coupled with extreme violence, such as disfigurement or murder. The so-called "slasher" films fit this description, as does some material, both in films and in magazines, that is less or more sexually explicit than the prototypical "slasher" film.
It is with respect to material of this variety that the scientific findings and ultimate conclusions of the 1970 Commission are least reliable for today, precisely because material of this variety was largely absent from that Commission's inquiries. It is not, however, absent from the contemporary world, and it is hardly surprising that conclusions about this material differ from conclusions about material not including violent themes.
When clinical and experimental research has focused particularly on sexually violent material, the conclusions have been virtually unanimous. In both clinical and experimental settings, exposure to sexually violent materials has indicated an increase in the likelihood of aggression. More specifically, the research, which is described in much detail later in this Report, shows a causal relationship between exposure to material of this type and aggressive behavior towards women.
Finding a link between aggressive behavior towards women and sexual violence, whether lawful or unlawful, requires assumptions not found exclusively in the experimental evidence. We see no reason, however, not to make these assumptions. The assumption that increased aggressive behavior towards women is causally related, for an aggregate population, to increased sexual violence is significantly supported by the clinical evidence, as well as by much of the less scientific evidence.[45] They are also to all of us assumptions that are plainly justified by our own common sense. This is not to say that all people with heightened levels of aggression will commit acts of sexual violence. But it is to say that over a sufficiently large number of cases we are confident in asserting that an increase in aggressive behavior directed at women will cause an increase in the level of sexual violence directed at women.
Thus we reach our conclusions by combining the results of the research with highly justifiable assumptions about the generalizability of more limited research results. Since the clinical and experimental evidence supports the conclusion that there is a causal relationship between exposure to sexually violent materials and an increase in aggressive behavior directed towards women, and since we believe that an increase in aggressive behavior towards women will in a population increase the incidence of sexual violence in that population, we have reached the conclusion, unanimously and confidently, that the available evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that substantial exposure to sexually violent materials as described here bears a causal relationship to antisocial acts of sexual violence and, for some subgroups, possibly to unlawful acts of sexual violence.
Although we rely for this conclusion on significant scientific empirical evidence, we feel it worthwhile to note the underlying logic of the conclusion. The evidence says simply that the images that people are exposed to bears a causal relationship to their behavior. This is hardly surprising. What would be surprising would be to find otherwise, and we have not so found. We have not, of course, found that the images people are exposed to are a greater cause of sexual violence than all or even many other possible causes the investigation of which has been beyond our mandate. Nevertheless, it would be strange indeed if graphic representations of a form of behavior, especially in a form that almost exclusively portrays such behavior as desirable, did not have at least some effect on patterns of behavior.
Sexual violence is not the only negative effect reported in the research to result from substantial exposure to sexually violent materials. The evidence is also strongly supportive of significant attitudinal changes on the part of those with substantial exposure to violent pornography. These attitudinal changes are numerous. Victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence are likely to be perceived by people so exposed as more responsible for the assault, as having suffered less injury, and as having been less degraded as a result of the experience. Similarly, people with a substantial exposure to violent pornography are likely to see the rapist or other sexual offender as less responsible for the act and as deserving of less stringent punishment.
These attitudinal changes have been shown experimentally to include a larger range of attitudes than those just discussed. The evidence also strongly supports the conclusion that substantial exposure to violent sexually explicit material leads to a greater acceptance of the "rape myth" in its broader sense-that women enjoy being coerced into sexual activity, that they enjoy being physically hurt in sexual context, and that as a result a man who forces himself on a woman sexually is in fact merely acceding to the "real" wishes of the woman, regardless of the extent to which she seems to be resisting. The myth is that a woman who says "no" really means "yes," and that men are justified in acting on the assumption that the "no" answer is indeed the "yes" answer. We have little trouble concluding that this attitude is both pervasive and profoundly harmful, and that any stimulus reinforcing or increasing the incidence of this attitude is for that reason alone properly designated as harmful.
Two vitally important features of the evidence supporting the above conclusions must be mentioned here. The first is that all of the harms discussed here, including acceptance of the legitimacy of sexual violence against women but not limited to it, are more pronounced when the sexually violent materials depict the woman as experiencing arousal, orgasm, or other form of enjoyment as the ultimate result of the sexual assault. This theme, unfortunately very common in the materials we have examined, is likely to be the major, albeit not the only, component of what it is in the materials in this category that causes the consequences that have been identified.
The second important clarification of all of the above is that the evidence lends some support to the conclusion that the consequences we have identified here do not vary with the extent of sexual explicitness so long as the violence is presented in an undeniably sexual context. Once a threshold is passed at which sex and violence are plainly linked, increasing the sexual explicitness of the material, or the bizarreness of the sexual activity, seems to bear little relationship to the extent of the consequences discussed here. Although it is unclear whether sexually violent material makes a substantially greater causal contribution to sexual violence itself than does material containing violence alone, it appears that increasing the amount of violence after the threshold of connecting sex with violence is more related to increase in the incidence or severity of harmful consequences than is increasing the amount of sex. As a result, the so-called "slasher" films, which depict a great deal of violence connected with an undeniably sexual theme but less sexual explicitness than materials that are truly pornographic, are likely to produce the consequences discussed here to a greater extent than most of the materials available in "adults only" pornographic outlets. Although we have based our findings about material in this category primarily on evidence presented by professionals in the behavioral sciences, we are confident that they are supported by the less scientific evidence we have consulted; and we are each personally confident on the basis of our own knowledge and experiences that the conclusions are justified. None of us has the least doubt that sexual violence is harmful, and that general acceptance of the view that "no" means "yes" is a consequence of the most serious proportions. We have found a causal relationship between sexually explicit materials featuring violence and these consequences, and thus conclude that the class of such materials, although not necessarily every individual member of that class, is on the whole harmful to society.
Current research has rather consistently separated out violent pornography, the class of materials we have just discussed, from other sexually explicit materials. With respect to further subdivision the process has been less consistent. A few researchers have made further distinctions, while most have merely classed everything else as "non-violent." We have concluded that more subdivision than that is necessary. Our examination of the variety of sexually explicit materials convinces us that once again the category of "nonviolent" ignores significant distinctions within this category, and thus combines classes of material that are in fact substantially different.
The subdivision we adopt is one that has surfaced in some of the research. And it is also one that might explain a significant amount of what would otherwise seem to be conflicting research results. Some researchers have found negative effects from nonviolent material, while others report no such negative effects. But when the stimulus material these researchers have used is considered, there is some suggestion that the presence or absence of negative effects from non-violent material might turn on the nonviolent material being considered "degrading," a term we shall explain shortly.[46] It appears that effects similar to, although not as extensive as that involved with violent material, can be identified with respect to such degrading material, but that these effects are likely absent when neither degradation nor violence is present.
An enormous amount of the most sexually explicit material available, as well as much of the material that is somewhat less sexually explicit, is material that we would characterize as "degrading," the term we use to encompass the undeniably linked characteristics of degradation, domination, subordination, and humiliation. The degradation we refer to is degradation of people, most often women, and here we are referring to material that, although not violent, depicts[47] people, usually women, as existing solely for the sexual satisfaction of others, usually men, or that depicts people, usually women, in decidedly subordinate roles in their sexual relations with others, or that depicts people engaged in sexual practices that would to most people be considered humiliating. Indeed, forms of degradation represent the largely predominant proportion of commercially available pornography.
With respect to material of this variety, our conclusions are substantially similar to those with respect to violent material, although we make them with somewhat less assumption than was the case with respect to violent material. The evidence, scientific and otherwise, is more tentative, but supports the conclusion that the material we describe as degrading bears some causal relationship to the attitudinal changes we have previously identified. That is, substantial exposure to material of this variety is likely to increase the extent to which those exposed will view rape or other forms of sexual violence as less serious than they otherwise would have, will view the victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence as significantly more responsible, and will view the offenders as significantly less responsible. We also conclude that the evidence supports the conclusion that substantial exposure to material of this type will increase acceptance of the proposition that women like to be forced into sexual practices, and, once again, that the woman who says "no" really means "yes."
With respect to material of this type, there is less evidence causally linking the material with sexual aggression, but this may be because this is a category that has been isolated in only a few studies, albeit an increasing number. The absence of evidence should by no means be taken to deny the existence of the causal link. But because the causal link is less the subject of experimental studies, we have been required to think more carefully here about the assumptions necessary to causally connect increased acceptance of rape myths and other attitudinal changes with increased sexual aggression and sexual violence. And on the basis of all the evidence we have considered, from all sources, and on the basis of our own insights and experiences, we believe we are justified in drawing the following conclusion: Over a large enough sample of population that believes that many women like to be raped, that believes that sexual violence or sexual coercion is often desired or appropriate, and that believes that sex offenders are less responsible for their acts, will commit more acts of sexual violence or sexual coercion than would a population holding these beliefs to a lesser extent.
We should make clear what we have concluded here. We are not saying that everyone exposed to material of this type has his attitude about sexual violence changed. We are saying only that the evidence supports the conclusion that substantial exposure to degrading material increases the likelihood for an individual and the incidence over a large population that these attitudinal changes will occur. And we are not saying that everyone with these attitudes will commit an act of sexual violence or sexual coercion. We are saying that such attitudes will increase the likelihood for an individual and the incidence for a population that acts of sexual violence, sexual coercion, or unwanted sexual aggression will occur. Thus, we conclude that substantial exposure to materials of this type bears some causal relationship to the level of sexual violence, sexual coercion, or unwanted sexual aggression in the population so exposed.
We need mention as well that our focus on these more violent or more coercive forms of actual subordination of women should not diminish what we take to be a necessarily incorporated conclusion: Substantial exposure to materials of this type bears some causal relationship to the incidence of various nonviolent forms of discrimination against or subordination of women in our society. To the extent that these materials create or reinforce the view that women's function is disproportionately to satisfy the sexual needs of men, then the materials will have pervasive effects on the treatment of women in society far beyond the incidence of identifiable acts of rape or other sexual violence. We obviously cannot here explore fully all the forms in which women are discriminated against in contemporary society. Nor can we explore all of the causes of that discrimination against women. But we feel confident in concluding that the view of women as available for sexual domination is one cause of that discrimination, and we feel confident as well in concluding that degrading material bears a causal relationship to the view that women ought to subordinate their own desires and beings to the sexual satisfaction of men.
Although the category of the degrading is one that has only recently been isolated in some research, in the literature generally, and in public discussion of the issue, it is not a small category. If anything, it constitutes somewhere between the predominant and the overwhelming portion of what is currently standard fare heterosexual pornography, and is a significant theme in a broader range of materials not commonly taken to be sexually explicit enough to be pornographic. But as with sexually violent materials, the extent of the effect of these degrading materials may not turn substantially on the amount of sexual explicitness once a threshold of undeniable sexual content is surpassed. The category therefore includes a great deal of what would now be considered to be pornographic, and includes a great deal of what would now be held to be legally obscene, but it includes much more than that. Since we are here identifying harms for a class, rather than identifying harms caused by every member of that class, and since we are here talking about the identification of harm rather than making recommendations for legal control, we are not reluctant to identify harms for a class of material considerably wider than what is or even should be regulated by law.
Our most controversial category has been the category of sexually explicit materials that are not violent and are not degrading as we have used that term. They are materials in which the participants appear to be fully willing participants occupying substantially equal roles in a setting devoid of actual or apparent violence or pain. This category is in fact quite small in terms of currently available materials. There is some, to be sure, and the amount may increase as the division between the degrading and the non-degrading becomes more accepted, but we are convinced that only a small amount of currently available highly sexually explicit material is neither violent nor degrading. We thus talk about a small category, but one that should not be ignored.
We have disagreed substantially about the effects of such materials, and that should come as no surprise. We are dealing in this category with "pure" sex, as to which there are widely divergent views in this society. That we have disagreed among ourselves does little more than reflect the extent to which we are representative of the population as a whole. In light of that disagreement, it is perhaps more appropriate to explain the various views rather than indicate a unanimity that does not exist, within this Commission or within society, or attempt the preposterous task of saying that some fundamental view about the role of sexuality and portrayals of sexuality was accepted or defeated by such-and-such vote. We do not wish to give easy answers to hard questions, and thus feel better with describing the diversity of opinion rather than suppressing part of it.
In examining the material in this category, we have not had the benefit of extensive evidence. Research has only recently begun to distinguish the non-violent but degrading from material that is neither violent nor degrading, and we have all relied on a combination of interpretation of existing studies that may not have drawn the same divisions, studies that did draw these distinctions, clinical evidence, interpretation of victim testimony, and our own perceptions of the effect of images on human behavior. Although the social science evidence is far from conclusive, we are, on the current state of the evidence, persuaded that material of this type does not bear a causal relationship to rape and other acts of sexual violence. We rely once again not only on scientific studies outlined later in the Report, and examined by each of us, but on the fact that the conclusions of these studies seem to most of us fully consistent with common sense. Just as materials depicting sexual violence seem intuitively likely to bear a causal relationship to sexual violence, materials containing no depictions or suggestions of sexual violence or sexual dominance seem to most of us intuitively unlikely to bear a causal relationship to sexual violence. The studies and clinical evidence to date are less persuasive on this lack of negative effect than they are persuasive for the presence of negative effect for the sexually violent material, but they seem to us of equal persuasive power as the studies and clinical evidence showing negative effects for the degrading materials. The fairest conclusion from the social science evidence is that there is no persuasive evidence to date supporting the connection between non-violent and non-degrading materials and acts of sexual violence, and that there is some, but very limited evidence, indicating that the connection does not exist. The totality of the social science evidence, therefore, is slightly against the hypothesis that non-violent and non-degrading materials bear a causal relationship to acts of sexual violence.
That there does not appear from the social science evidence to be a causal link with sexual violence, however, does not answer the question of whether such materials might not themselves simply for some other reason constitute a harm in themselves, or bear a causal link to consequences other than sexual violence but still taken to be harmful. And it is here that we and society at large have the greatest differences in opinion.
One issue relates to materials that, although undoubtedly consensual and equal, depict sexual practices frequently condemned in this and other societies. In addition, level of societal condemnation varies for different activities; some activities are condemned by some people, but not by others. We have discovered that to some significant extent the assessment of the harmfulness of materials depicting such activities correlates directly with the assessment of the harmfulness of the activities themselves. Intuitively and not experimentally, we can hypothesize that materials portraying such an activity will either help to legitimize or will bear some causal relationship to that activity itself. With respect to these materials, therefore, it appears that a conclusion about the harmfulness of these materials turns on a conclusion about the harmfulness of the activity itself. As to this, we are unable to agree with respect to many of these activities. Our differences reflect differences now extant in society at large, and actively debated, and we can hardly resolve them here.
A larger issue is the very question of promiscuity. Even to the extent that the behavior depicted is not inherently condemned by some or any of us, the manner of presentation almost necessarily suggests that the activities are taking place outside of the context of marriage, love, commitment, or even affection. Again, it is far from implausible to hypothesize that materials depicting sexual activity without marriage, love, commitment, or affection bear some causal relationship to sexual activity without marriage, love, commitment, or affection. There are undoubtedly many causes for what used to be called the "sexual revolution," but it is absurd to suppose that depictions or descriptions of uncommitted sexuality were not among them.[48] Thus, once again our disagreements reflect disagreements in society at large, although not to as great an extent. Although there are many members of this society who can and have made affirmative cases for uncommitted sexuality, none of us believes it to be a good thing. A number of us, however, believe that the level of commitment in sexuality is a matter of choice among those who voluntarily engage in the activity. Others of us believe that uncommitted sexual activity is wrong for the individuals involved and harmful to society to the extent of its prevalence. Our view of the ultimate harmfulness of much of this material, therefore, is reflective of our individual views about the extent to whether sexual commitment is purely a matter of individual choice.
Even insofar as sexually explicit material of the variety being discussed here is not perceived as harmful for the messages it carries or the symbols it represents, the very publicness of what is commonly taken to be private is cause for concern.[49] Even if we hypothesize a sexually explicit motion picture of a loving married couple engaged in mutually pleasurable and procreative vaginal intercourse, the depiction of that act on a screen or in a magazine may constitute a harm in its own right (a "primary harm" in the terminology introduced earlier in this Chapter) solely by virtue of being shown. Here the concern is with the preservation of sex as an essentially private act, in conformity with the basic privateness of sex long recognized by this and all other societies. The alleged harm here, therefore, is that as soon as sex is put on a screen or put in a magazine it changes its character, regardless of what variety of sex is portrayed. And to the extent that the character of sex as public rather than private is the consequence here, then that to many would constitute a harm.
In considering the way in which making sex public may fundamentally transform the character of sex in all settings, it seems important to emphasize that the act of making sex public is as an empirical matter almost always coincident with the act of making sex a commercial enterprise. Whether the act of making sex public if done by a charitable institution would be harmful is an interesting academic exercise, but it is little more than that. For in the context we are discussing, taking the act of sex out of a private setting and making it public is invariably done for someone's commercial gain. To many of us, this fact of commercialization is vital to understanding the concern about sex and privacy.
We are again, along with the rest of society, unable to agree as to the extent to which making sex public and commercial should constitute a harm. We all agree for ourselves on the fundamental privateness of sex, but we disagree about the extent to which the privateness of sex is more than a matter of individual choice. And although we all to some extent think that sexuality may have in today's society become a bit too public, many of us are concerned that in the past it has been somewhat too private, being a subject that could not be talked about, could not constitute part of the discourse of society, and was treated in some way as "dirty." To the extent that making sex more public has, while not without costs, alleviated some of these problems of the past, some of us would not take the increased publicness of sexuality as necessarily harmful, but here again we are quite understandably unable to agree.
The discussion of publicness in the previous paragraph was limited to the necessary publicness consequent in making a picture of a sexual act, regardless of whether the picture is made public in the broader sense. But to the extent that this occurs, we are once again in agreement. While some might argue that it is desirable for sexual explicitness to be publicly displayed to both willing and unwilling viewers, and while some might argue that this is either a positive advantage for the terrain of society or of no effect, we unanimously reject those conclusions. We all agree that some large part of the privateness of sex is essential, and we would, for example, unanimously take to be harmful to society a proliferation of billboards displaying even the hypothesized highly explicit photograph of a loving married couple engaged in mutually pleasurable and procreative vaginal intercourse. Thus, to the extent that materials in this category are displayed truly publicly, we unanimously would take such a consequence to be harmful to society in addition to being harmful to individuals. Even if unwilling viewers are offended rather than harmed in any stronger sense, we take the large scale offending of the legitimate sensibilities of a large portion of the population to be harmful to society.
A number of witnesses have testified about the effects on their own sexual relations, usually with their spouses, of the depiction on the screen and in magazines of sexual practices in which they had not previously engaged. A number of these witnesses, all women, have testified that men in their lives have used such material to strongly encourage, or coerce, them into engaging in sexual practices in which they do not choose to engage. To the extent that such implicit or explicit coercion takes places as a result of these materials, we all agree that it is a harm. There has been other evidence, however, about the extent to which such material might for some be a way of revitalizing their sex lives, or, more commonly, simply constituting a part of a mutually pleasurable sexual experience for both partners. On this we could not agree. For reasons relating largely to the question of publicness in the first sense discussed above, some saw this kind of use as primarily harmful. Others saw it as harmless and possibly beneficial in contexts such as this. Some professional testimony supported this latter view, but we have little doubt that professional opinion is also divided on the issue.
Perhaps the most significant potential harm in this category exists with respect to children. We all agree that at least much, probably most, and maybe even all material in this category, regardless of whether it is harmful when used by adults only, is harmful when it falls into the hands of children. Exposure to sexuality is commonly taken, and properly so, to be primarily the responsibility of the family. Even those who would disagree with this statement would still prefer to have early exposure to sexuality be in the hands of a responsible professional in a controlled and guided setting. We have no hesitancy in concluding that learning about sexuality from most of the material in this category is not the best way for children to learn about the subject. There are harms both to the children themselves and to notions of family control over a child's introduction to sexuality if children learn about sex from the kinds of sexually explicit materials that constitute the bulk of this category of materials.
We have little doubt that much of this material does find its way into the hands of children, and to the extent that it does we all agree that it is harmful. We may disagree about the extent to which people should, as adults, be tolerated in engaging in sexual practices that differ from the norm, but we all agree about the question of the desirability of exposing children to most of this material, and on that our unanimous agreement is that it is undesirable. For children to be taught by these materials that sex is public, that sex is commercial, and that sex can be divorced from any degree of affection, love, commitment, or marriage is for us the wrong message at the wrong time. We may disagree among ourselves about the extent to which the effect on children should justify large scale restrictions for that reason alone, but again we all agree that if the question is simply harm, and not the question of regulation by law, that material in this category is, with few exceptions, generally harmful to the extent it finds its way into the hands of children. Even those in society who would be least restrictive of sexually explicit materials tend, by and large, to limit their views to adults. The near unanimity in society about the effects on children and on all of society in exposing children to explicit sexuality in the form of even non-violent and non-degrading pornographic materials makes a strong statement about the potential harms of this material, and we confidently agree with that longstanding societal judgment.
Perhaps the largest question, and for that reason the question we can hardly touch here, is the question of harm as it relates to the moral environment of a society. There is no doubt that numerous laws, taboos, and other social practices all serve to enforce some forms of shared moral assessment. The extent to which this enforcement should be enlarged, the extent to which sexual morality is a necessary component of a society's moral environment, and the appropriate balance between recognition of individual choice and the necessity of maintaining some sense of community in a society are questions that have been debated for generations. The debates in the nineteenth century between John Stuart Mill and James Fitzjames Stephen, and in the twentieth century between Patrick Devlin and H. L. A. Hart, are merely among the more prominent examples of profound differences in opinion that can scarcely be the subject of a vote by this Commission. We all agree that some degree of individual choice is necessary in any free society, and we all agree that a society with no shared values, including moral values, is no society at all. We have numerous different views about the way in which these undeniably competing values should best be accommodated in this society at this time, or in any society at any time. We also have numerous different views about the extent to which, if at all, sexual morality is an essential part of the social glue of this or any other society. We have talked about these issues, but we have not even attempted to resolve our differences, because these differences are reflective of differences that are both fundamental and widespread in all societies. That we have been able to talk about them has been important to us, and there is no doubt that our views on these issues bear heavily on the views we hold about many of the more specific issues that have been within the scope of our mission.
Thus, with respect to the materials in this category, there are areas of agreement and areas of disagreement. We unanimously agree that the material in this category in some settings and when used for some purposes can be harmful. None of us think that the material in this category, individually or as a class, is in every instance harmless. And to the extent that some of the materials in this category are largely educational or undeniably artistic, we unanimously agree that they are little cause for concern if not made available to children are foisted on unwilling viewers. But most of the materials in this category would not now be taken to be explicitly educational or artistic, and as to this balance of materials our disagreements are substantial. Some of us think that some of the material at some times will be harmful, that some of the material at some times will be harmless, and that some of the material at times will be beneficial, especially when used for professional or nonprofessional therapeutic purposes. And some of us, while recognizing the occasional possibility of a harmless or beneficial use, nevertheless, for reasons stated in this section, feel that on balance it is appropriate to identify the class as harmful as a whole, if not in every instance. We have recorded this disagreement, and stated the various concerns. We can do little more except hope that the issues will continue to be discussed. But as it is discussed, we hope it will be recognized that the class of materials that is neither violent nor degrading, as it stands, is a small class, and many of these disagreements are more theoretical than real. Still, this class is not empty, and may at some point increase in size, and thus the theoretical disagreements may yet become germane to a larger class of materials actually available.
We pause only briefly to mention the problem of mere nudity. None of us think that the human body or its portrayal is harmful. But we all agree that this statement is somewhat of an oversimplification. There may be instances in which portrayals of nudity in an undeniably sexual context, even if there is no suggestion of sexual activity, will generate many of the same issues discussed in the previous section. There are legitimate questions about when and how children should be exposed to nudity, legitimate questions about public portrayals of nudity, and legitimate questions about when "mere" nudity stops being "mere" nudity and has such clear connotations of sexual activity that it ought at least to be analyzed according to the same factors that we discuss with respect to sexually explicit materials containing neither violence nor degradation.
In this respect nudity without force, coercion, sexual activity, violence, or degradation, but with a definite provocative element, represents a wide category of materials. At the least explicit end of the spectrum, we could envision aesthetically posed, airbrushed photographs of beautiful men or women in a provocative context. The provocation derives from the power of sex to attract the attentions and stir the passions of all of us. Such materials may have, in most uses, little negative effect on individuals, families, or society. But at the other end of the continuum, we see materials specifically designed to maximize the sexual impact by the nature of the pose, the caption, the seductive appearance, and the setting in which the model is placed. For example, consider a woman shown in a reclining position with genitals displayed, wearing only red feathers and high heeled shoes, holding a gun and accompanied by a caption offering a direct invitation to sexual activity. With respect to such more explicit materials, we were unable to reach complete agreement. We are all concerned about the impact of such material on children, on attitudes towards women, on the relationship between the sexes, and on attitudes towards sex in general; but the extent of the harms was the subject of some difference of opinion.
None of us, of course, finds harmful the use of nudity in art and for plainly educational purposes. Similarly, we all believe that in some circumstances the portrayal of nudity may be undesirable. It is therefore impossible to draw universal conclusions about all depictions of nudity under all conditions. But by and large we do not find the nudity that does not fit within any of the previous categories to be much cause for concern.
Although we have mentioned it throughout this report, it is appropriate here to emphasize especially the importance of further research by professionals into the potential and actual harms we have discussed in this Chapter. We are confident that the quality and quantity of research far surpasses that available in 1970, but we also believe that the research remains in many respects unsystematic and unfocused. There is still a great deal to be done. In many respects research is still at a fairly rudimentary stage, with few attempts to standardize categories of analysis, self-reporting questionnaires, types of stimulus materials, description of stimulus materials, measurement of effects, and related problems.
We recognize that the ethical problems discussed above will inevitably place some cap on the conclusions that can be drawn from the research in this area. But apart from this inherent and incurable limitation, much can still be done. The research that has led to further subdivision of the large category of sexually explicit materials has perhaps been the most important development in recent years, and we strongly encourage research that will deal more precisely with different varieties of materials. We also believe that many other specific questions are in need of further research. There needs to be more research, for example, about the effect of pornography on the marriage relationship, about the nature of appetites for pornographic material and how those appetites are developed, about the effect of depictions of particular sexual practices on the sexual preferences of those who view them, and about the effects of exposure to pornographic material on children. This list could be much longer, but the point is only to show that much more needs to be done.
Some of the professionals who have provided evidence to us have been quite outspoken in their views about what the government in general or the legal system in particular ought to do about pornography. This phenomenon has been about equally divided between those researchers who have advocated fewer legal controls and those who have advocated more. While we do not deny to citizens the right to speak out on matters of public concern, we ought to note that we have tended to rely mostly on evidence provided by those who seem less committed to a particular point of view beyond their scientific expertise. We deal in an area in which a great deal must be taken on faith, including description of stimulus materials, description of experimental environments, questionnaire design, and description of what may or may not have been told to subjects. At no time have we suspected any scientist of deliberately or even negligently designing an experiment or reporting its results, but it remains nevertheless the case that there is room for judgment and room for discretion. Where a researcher has taken on the role as active crusader, one way or another, on the issue of governmental control of pornography, we are forced to question more than we would otherwise have done, the way in which this judgment and discretion has been exercised. We will not suggest how any researcher should balance the issue of his or her own credibility against his or her own strong feelings about an issue of importance. But we will note that the more that is expected to be taken on trust, the more likely it is that active involvement with respect to what is to be done with the results of the research will decrease the amount of trust.
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