The Sex Myth: Why Everything We're Told Is Wrong (20 page)

If the needle on your Agenda Setter detection meter isn’t going off the charts, it should be. The agenda here is very, very clear.

The Social Costs of Pornography
reads as if it had decided the
outcome before assessing the evidence – a research no-no in responsible circles. But it also
admits that the evidence for porn causing harm as such is thin on the ground. ‘The few statistics available about the use of pornography by children and adolescents are even more difficult to
assess than those concerning adults . . . Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that children and adolescents are far more exposed to pornography via the internet than they ever have been
before.’ How is it possible to make such sweeping conclusions when there are no data to prove it?

What the report does offer is a hotchpotch of statistics, some of which are at least ten years old. It then reflects again: ‘But is there evidence that this exposure is harmful to
children? For some people, no more evidence is needed.’ This in spite of failing to show or imply the existence of a single study showing a cause-and-effect relationship between viewing
pornography and harm. You’ll excuse me for thinking
a lot more
evidence is needed!

It continues, ‘However, even sceptics could not deny the evidence of harmfulness that is emerging in clinical settings.’ Actually, yes, they would. A sceptic would point out that
unless you have presented evidence, you cannot subsequently claim the evidence exists. You can’t admit the evidence doesn’t exist and then claim no more evidence is needed. You
can’t. It’s logically impossible. It bends space-time and makes the Baby Jesus weep.

The
Sunday Times
coverage of young people and their online habits tried ever so hard to be up to date. It went on about the ‘new’ evidence in the Witherspoon report. It was
even illustrated with a photo of porn star Jenna Jameson. Unfortunately, they chose a photo of Jenna that’s ten years old. How up to date is that? (I know this because I watch loads of porn,
by the way. Her look has changed a lot in that time.)

So, one must ask whether any of the source material from the Witherspoon report is, as claimed in the
Sunday Times,
‘new’. It isn’t. The report is riddled with
anachronisms worthy of Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar.
For instance, ‘Many people first encounter pornography on television in a hotel room,’ is one observation. Which the
eagle-eyed will note is neither an internet phenomenon, nor a recent one, nor likely to be true for young people born after, say, the 1970s. In terms of pop culture, it’s about as relevant as
citing Calvin Klein adverts . . .
which the
Sunday Times
piece does on its very first page.

Close examination of the Witherspoon report makes its aim clear: ‘Political leaders should use the bully pulpit’. Celebrities, too, are urged to apply pressure. And finally, the
Witherspoon report returns to the necessary admission that the data do not support its cause: ‘Some of the most important parts of our laws could not be justified if they had to hinge on a
proof of material injuries.’

The thought of policy being created off the back of this kind of publication shows how out of touch the politicians are. Special interests appear to be lobbying and organising meetings for them,
and all but writing the Hansard themselves.

Like many think-tanks, Witherspoon has a strong bias. They also admit – repeatedly – that the evidence is insubstantial. Are they a good source of information for journalists? For
policy makers? Are the people who hope Perry and Vaizey will do right by young people at all concerned how this looks? Because it looks like UK policy is being spoon-fed to the current government
by some of America’s most extreme social conservatives.

Many sources keep the focus of the discussion consistently on people’s fears about what might happen in some dystopian sci-fi future, rather than looking at data about
what does happen in our world right now. Partly, this fulfils a certain unease people seem to have with new technology.

But there are reliable studies that contradict any connection between porn and violence. ‘There’s absolutely no evidence that pornography does anything negative,’ says Milton
Diamond, a professor at the University of Hawaii in a recent interview in
Scientific American.
⁸⁷
‘It’s a moral issue, not a factual
issue.’

A number of studies by Aleksandar Štulhofer at the University of Zagreb have examined sexual compulsivity. One of them surveyed 650 men about pornography and their sex lives.
⁸⁸
Results showed that viewers of mainstream pornography were just as sexually satisfied as non-users. Both groups reported the same levels of intimacy in their
relationships. They even shared the same range of sexual experiences.

Regular pornography use does not seem to encourage sexism. In 2007, a survey on sexist tendencies was included in mail-order porn
deliveries sent out across Australia.
Responses from 1023 people showed that the amount of pornography they consumed was not correlated with negative attitudes towards women. Other factors, such as level of education and political
tendencies, were more indicative of whether someone was sexist.
⁸⁹

Simon-Louis Lajeunesse is a professor at the University of Montreal who attempted to design a study of the impact of pornography on the sexuality of men, and how it shapes their perception of
men and women. In a prospective study of twenty students, Lajeunesse found most of the men questioned sought out porn by the age of ten, when they become sexually curious. He also found they
quickly discarded what they didn’t like and things they found offensive. As adults, they looked for content that was compatible with their sex preferences.
⁹⁰

All of Lajeunesse’s subjects supported gender equality and felt victimised by criticism of pornography. ‘Pornography hasn’t changed their perception of women or their
relationship, which they all want as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,’ says Lajeunesse. His subjects reiterated that they wanted real women, not fantasy women. And watching porn did not
change their tastes or relationship goals in any significant way. ‘If pornography had the impact that many claim it has, you would just have to show heterosexual films to a homosexual to
change his sexual orientation.’ His interesting observations, however, never fully developed as a research project, since he was unable to find control subjects: young men who had not seen
any porn.

Perhaps the most serious accusation is that pornography inspires sexual assaults. But not only do rape statistics suggest otherwise, some experts believe the consumption of pornography may
actually offer a safe outlet for deviant sexual desires.

Rates of rapes and sexual assault in the US are at their lowest levels since the 1960s. The same is true for countries such as Japan, China, and Denmark, which once heavily restricted porn
access. In the past forty years, as porn has become more prevalent, rape statistics have fallen. Studies show that in the US, the introduction of internet access corresponded with a decrease in
rape (and no effect on other violent crimes). A 10 per cent increase in online access corresponded with a 7.3 per cent decrease in reported rapes.
⁹¹
States slowest to adopt internet technology experienced a 53 per cent increase in rape incidence,
whereas the states with the most access experienced a 27 per cent drop in
the number of reported rapes. And the effects remain even when taking into account confounders such as alcohol use, law enforcement, income, employment, and population density.
⁹²

There’s an interesting similarity between such results and research into violence. When a violent film is released at the cinema, crime rates – surprisingly enough – go
down.
Apparently movie violence doesn’t increase real-life violence after all. The theory is that people disposed to violence like watching violent films, and given the choice between
the latest shoot-’em-up thriller and going out to commit crime, plump for the popcorn option.
⁹³

What’s more, work in the 1960s showed sexual criminals tend to be exposed to pornographic materials at a later age than non-criminals. In 1992, Richard Green of Imperial College wrote how
patients in a sex offenders’ clinic cited pornography as a tool to keep desires within the confines of their imagination.
⁹⁴
Pornography seems to be
protective, perhaps because exposure correlates with lower levels of sexual repression, a potential rape risk factor.

Does this prove that, in fact, internet access and violent films actually reduce rape and violent crime? No, not really. Not yet. There would have to be a lot more research – from many
more angles – to even begin to support such a claim. Again, correlation is not causation.

Loads of people claim that porn incites violence. The data do not support these claims. Porn’s gone up, rape’s fallen. And as the internet has increased access to erotic material,
the effect has not only been enhanced, but measurable. So either they’re related but in the opposite way to how people previously expected, or they’re not actually related at all.
Either way, it’s a far better outcome than anyone could have predicted.

There is a shadowy other in the discussion about online lives. That is the availability not only of mainstream erotica, but also the spectre of material that is illegal with
good reason. It raises the question of who might access such material, and whether this results in violence against other people.

Just to make clear, I’m not even going to entertain the ridiculous notion that ‘all’ or even ‘most’ porn is violent. That slippery slope
argument is best left to people who just want to ban all adult entertainment anyway. What I’m talking about is material depicting violent crimes: actual murders, actual
rapes.

The 2003 murder of Jane Longhurst, a teacher who was raped and strangled by an acquaintance, sparked controversy about the nature of violent pornography. Her killer, Graham Coutts, admitted to
watching a considerable amount of porn around the time that he killed Miss Longhurst. At the trial it was strongly implied that pornography was not only an arousal to Coutts, but also what drove
him to kill. In other words, watching porn was the slippery slope that ended in murder. That he might have murdered even without porn did not seem to be considered. The fact that he had a
strangulation fetish for a number of years before he started accessing the porn in question also throws doubt on this assumption.

Just to reiterate, the rape and murder of a young woman is a terrible crime. On that everyone is agreed. But I would also go so far as to say let’s not let a murderer off the hook by
claiming, ‘It was porn that made him do it.’ What a weak and mealy-mouthed defence. He’s a monster, end of. Anything else is relieving him of his responsibility for the death of a
human being.

Following a campaign by Ms Longhurst’s mother, a Home Office consultation took place. The majority (63 per cent) of groups and members of the public who replied to the consultation saw no
need to strengthen existing laws regarding porn. A new law was made anyway – Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. This was in spite of the fact that there is almost no
evidence to back the claim that exposure to pornography alone provokes violence.

Let’s take a different example. In late October 2011, Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak was convicted of murder by strangulation of Jo Yeates in Bristol. After the verdict was recorded, it
emerged that the prosecution had tried to enter evidence that Tabak subscribed to domination porn sites and had visited sex workers in the past.

The judge on the case ruled this as inadmissible and potentially prejudicial; as a result, it was not considered by the jury when coming to their verdict.

So, in spite of the fact that Tabak – who had admitted manslaughter – was convicted of murder, the papers had a field day. Since obviously
his use of
pornography must have inspired the killing, right?

Erm, no. There is still no causal connection between porn and murder. Just because someone used porn, and then killed someone, it does not follow that the porn caused the crime. Let’s
remember, the vast majority of porn users are not violent and do not commit murder. Trying to claim otherwise, as the papers tried to do? Texas sharpshooter syndrome at its finest.

There is no evidence connecting porn with incitement to violence or murder in people who are not already inclined to violence or murder. If there was any such connection, surely the prosecution
would have dug up a credible expert witness to bolster that assumption. Or maybe they would have presented generally accepted academic proof of a connection. They didn’t. One can only
speculate why they didn’t, but it’s not hard to imagine that’s because no such expert or proof exists.

As unpleasant as violent pornography may be to most people, it is not in any way common sense to assume that those watching it want to participate. We all fantasise about things we would never
do in real life. Some fantasies are innocent, some less so. It’s human nature. We must be held responsible for our actions, not our thoughts.

The content of edgy porn is proscribed in other ways as well. In January 2012, Michael Peacock stood trial for distributing allegedly ‘obscene’ DVDs, containing scenes of men fisting
each other, urination, and bondage. The rather delicious irony is that not only are such acts relatively common in the ‘kinky’ community (I’ve even written about all of them),
they’re perfectly legal for consenting adults to participate in and watch in person. The outcome of the trial was therefore important, because if the material Peacock is alleged to have
distributed was judged ‘not obscene’, porn produced and sold in the UK will theoretically be free to contain scenes of fisting and urination.

The Obscene Publications Act 1959, under which Peacock was prosecuted, aims to judge content on whether it is liable to ‘deprave and corrupt’. One of the interesting things about the
interpretation of this law is that while it isn’t written to single out sex acts specifically, the acts considered to be prosecutable under the Obscene Publications Act are all of a sexual
nature. So, for instance, you might consider images of a man being beaten and shot to be obscene if published in
a newspaper; yet this happens with some frequency and the law
is not invoked against it. Watching jumpy video of Gaddafi’s last moments is fine; consensual watersports is not.