Porn Politics
The US controversy
A Comparison of the Findings of the President's Commission and the Meese Commission and the Resulting Response
Lockhart commission
Evidence of harm of exposure to sexually explicit images or words in childhood is inconclusive, even nonexistent. The 1970 US Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, the "Lockhart commission," uncovered no link between adult exposure to pornography and bad behaviour and called for dismantling legal restrictions on erotica. Not only did did the panellists fail to find harm to children in viewing erotica, moreover, they went so far as to suggest it could "facilitate much needed communication between parent and child over sexual matters."
The Meese Commission published 1986
The 1985 Commission on Pornography (the Meese Commission), chaired by Reagan's attorney general Edwin Meese and assembled specifically to overturn the 1970 findings, could not establish factual links between sexually explicit materials and antisocial behaviour either. Indeed, researchers have found more evidence that the opposite is true. Interviews of sex criminals including child molesters reveal that the children who eventually became rapists were usually exposed to pornography less than other kids; if they'd seen the same amount, the exposure had not occurred earlier in life that the other children's. According to Johns Hopkins University's John Money, one of the worlds foremost authorities on sexual abnormalities, "the majority of patients with paraphilias" - deviant sexual fantasies and behaviours - "described a strict anti-sexual upbringing in which sex was either never mentioned or was actively repressed or defiled."
Professor Kutchinsky
Published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, a report by Professor Kutchinsky.
Conclusion
The aggregate data on rape and other violent or sexual offenses from four countries where pornography, including aggressive varieties, has become widely and easily available during the period we have dealt with would seem to exclude, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this availability has had any detrimental effects in the form of increased sexual violence. Especially the data from West Germany are striking since here the only increase in the sexual violence takes place in the form which includes the least serious forms of sexual coercion and where there may have been increases in reporting frequency. As far as the other forms of sexual violence are concerned, the remarkable fact is that they decreased--the more so, the more serious the offence.
The finding is not so strange. Most other research data we have about pornography and rape suggest that the link between them is more than weak. And our knowledge about the contents, the uses and the users of pornography suggests that pornography does not represent a blueprint for rape, but is essentially an aphrodisiac, that is, food for the sexual fantasy of persons--mostly males--who like to masturbate.
The policy implications of this conclusion are, of course open to debate. But as mentioned earlier, the mainstream attitude would seem to be a combination of two movements; (1) To reduce the area of total prohibition and censorship to a minimum, and (2) to implement a variety of restrictions, suitable of each form of pornography, in order to obtain maximum protection of children, and of adults who want no confrontation with the material.
Professor Kutchinsky pdf report
Professor Kutchinsky gave a speech at the Australian Institute of Criminology. A report from the coordinator of the largest file on sex crime in the world in Michigan US, was requested, however, it was apparently unavailable on the grounds it never existed.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE POLICE
714 South Harrison Road, East Lansing, Michigan 48823
Col. Michael O Robinson, Director
December 2, 1991
Gael Parr
Acquisitions Librarian
J.V. Barry Library
2 Marcus Clarke Street
GPO Box 2944
Canberra ACT 2601, Australia
Dear Gael,
My office has received an order request from the Michigan State Police study on pornography and it's impact on sex motivated crime. This is truly the most distant request we have ever received. For several years I have responded to requests from all over the United States and Canada. This study was allegedly conducted by a former member of this Unit and presented in various public forums. Since his retirement, several attempts were made to locate this study. After years of investigation, the truth is that no such study was ever conducted.
The promise of the study was supposed to show that pornography causes sexual assault. Anyone who has ever studied human behaviour knows that this is extremely difficult, if not impossible to say that one things causes certain behaviour. The best one can show is a correlation. The Michigan State Police maintain the largest computerized sex motivated crime file in the world. This file was initiated in 1955 and continues to be present, with almost 75,000 cases on file. The information that we can glean from these reports is greater today than during the time that this study was allegedly conducted. I have attempted to replicate the information that was being offered about pornography. There is insufficient data to indicate anything other than a weak correlation between pornography and sexual assault, and even less information to suggest that pornography was used prior to or during sexual assault.
As the criminal personality profiler for the Michigan State Police, I can offer that pornography is used to enhance sexual fantasy and for arousal. That this material would cause one to work themself up into a frenzy and then commit a sexual assault would be a giant leap indeed. In fact, one of the most popular magazines in prison amongst child molesters is the J.C. Penney catalog (retail store), because it features young boys and girls in their underwear. I believe that the person who presented this study had a religious agenda. Wouldn't it be nice if all we had to do was eliminate pornography and we could eliminate sex crimes? Aside from the difficulty in defining pornography, I could show a stronger correlation between the use of alcohol and sexual assault than pornography and sexual assault.
I hope this answers any questions you might have had on our non-existent study. If I can ever be of further service to you, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
David Minzey, D/Sergeant
Michigan State Police
Investigation Resources Unit,
Violent Crimes.
Australian Institute of Criminology
The effects of Pornography: An International Perspective
report by Milton Diamond Ph.D. (source)
Pornography, Rape and Sex Crimes in Japan
report by Milton Diamond Ph.D. (source)
Regulation of Pornography
Sexual imagery, Censorship and the Law
Part 1 (source)
Part 2 (source)
The Dangers of Pornography?
Christopher D. Hunter (source)
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
Pornography and censorship (source)
Submission by Feminists Against Censorship to the Commons Home Affairs Committee - Avedon Carol
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill 1994 is Undemocratic, Unjustifiable and Dangerous
Civil Liberties and Research on the Effects of Pornography
Daniel Linz, Meil M. Malamuth, and Katherin Beckett
The Harm of Porn - Avedon Carol
Just another excuse to censor (source)
Pornography, Rape, and the Internet
Clemson University September, 2006
DOJ / NCEMEC report