Porn Up, Rape Down

[Varaj]

Abstract:
The incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85% in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults. The Nixon and Reagan Commissions tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials produced social violence. The reverse may be true: that pornography has reduced social violence.

Poorly written but interesting paper.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=913013

[Ancalagon]

down 85%?!?!

that's.... dramatic. It's great news, but I'm having a hard time believing it.

That paper is garbage btw. But I do wonder if the claim is truthful.

[Varaj]

down 85%?!?!

that's.... dramatic. It's great news, but I'm having a hard time believing it.

That paper is garbage btw. But I do wonder if the claim is truthful.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/rape.htm

Also this the author of the paper.
http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.edu/

ANTHONY D'AMATO is the Leighton Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law, where he teaches courses in international law, international human rights, analytic jurisprudence, and justice. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Tax Court, and several U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, and is a member of the New York Bar. Professor D'Amato was the first American lawyer to argue (and win) a case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and he has litigated a number of human rights cases around the world. He is the author of over 20 books and over 110 articles. Biographies of Professor D'Amato can be found in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Education, and Who's Who in American Law.

[Trainz]

That's awesome news. And supports my idea that nudity and sex isn't the traumatic mind shaterrer some make it to be.

Except stuff like 2 girls 1 cup. But that's hardly run of the mill porn.

[The Winslow]

If the correlation is proven (because it's not like there aren't a lot of other factors here), it would indeed be quite interesting; a reversal of many preconceived notions.

[Varaj]

If the correlation is proven (because it's not like there aren't a lot of other factors here), it would indeed be quite interesting; a reversal of many preconceived notions.

http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html

Within Japan itself, the dramatic increase in available pornography and sexually explicit materials is apparent to even a casual observer. This is concomitant with a general liberalization of restrictions on other sexual outlets as well. Also readily apparent from the information presented is that, over this period of change, sex crimes in every category, from rape to public indecency, sexual offenses from both ends of the criminal spectrum, significantly decreased in incidence.

Most significantly, despite the wide increase in availability of pornography to children, not only was there a decrease in sex crimes with juveniles as victims but the number of juvenile offenders also decreased significantly.

These findings are similar to, but are even more striking than, those reported with the rise of sexually explicit materials in Denmark, Sweden and West Germany. The findings from Europe were, in turn, more dramatic than those reported for the United States. Kutchinsky (1991) studied the situation in Denmark, Sweden, West Germany and the U.S.A. following the legalization or liberalization of the appropriate pornography laws in those countries. The first three countries mentioned, decriminalized the production and distribution of sexually explicit materials in 1969, 1970, and 1973 respectively. In the U.S.A. there was no widespread decriminalization or legalization but, as in Japan, interpretations of the laws seemed to change and prosecution against SEM decreased markedly. Concomitantly, the availability of pornography increased commensurably. Kutchinsky studied the course of sex crimes for the 20 year period 1964 to 1984. Thus his period of study overlaps with the first half of ours.