Subject: IS PORNOGRAPHY HARMFUL?
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FINAL REPORT OF THE
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S COMMISSION ON PORNOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
by Micahel J. McManus
[Excerpted]
When Attorney General Edwin Meese III announced formation of a
Commission on Pornography on May 20, 1985, he asked it to
"determine the nature, extent, and impact on society of
pornography in the United States, and to make specific
recommendations to the Attorney General concerning more effective
ways in which the spread of pornography could be contained,
consistent with constitutional guarantees."
This Final Report answers that mandate. When it was released the
American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] called it "censorship...a
national crusade against dirty pictures." But the Commissioner's
Chairman, Henery Hudson, now a U.S. Attorney in Virgina, says
"Those looking for censorship in this Report will be gravely
disappointed."
More important, the Report could spark a major assault against
illegal obscenity in the United States. Commissioner James
Dobson, President of Focus on the Family, says in his personal
statement, "America could rid itself of hard core pornography in
18 months if the recommendations offered in (the Final Report)
are implemented...But that will occur only if American citizens
demand action from their government. Nothing short of a public
outcry will motivate our slumbering representatives to defend
community standards of decency."
[...]
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE RESEARCH ANALYSIS
..sex offenders themselves told social science researchers
astounding facts about themselves and the influence of
pornography.
[Short summary of a few of their findings follows:]
1. Interviews with 411 sex offenders "revealed a staggering
number" of victims. [These are men under the influence of
pornography] In a study conducted partly by Commissioner Becker,
each criminal had "attempted an average of 581 sex offenses and
completed typically 533 offenses each, with a mean number of 336
sex offenses each"
2. Since 1970, pornographers have quoted a Danish study by
Kutchinsky which alleged that the number of reported sex crimes
dropped after legalization. Kutchinsky argued that the
availability of pornography siphons off potentially dangerous sex
impulses---the safety valve theory. But many subsequent studies
of his work show that he lumped together voyeurism and
homosexuality, which police stopped reporting after legalization,
with rapes, which actually incrased in number.
3. "Cross-national data from areas as disparate as England,
Australia, Singapore and South Africa" found that "rape reports
have increased where porn laws have been liberalized while the
same steep rise is not in evidence where restrictions exist."
4. Rapist are fifteen times as likely as non-offenders to have
had exposure to "hard-core" pornography "during childhood or
between six to ten years old. They also tended to report an
earlier age of `peak experience' with pornography.
5. Even non-violent, soft-core pornography may "ligitmate rape."
The eight major men's magazines (Chic, Club, Gallery, Genesis,
Hustler, Oui, Playboy, and Penthouse) have sales that are five
times higher per capita in Alaska and Nevad than in other states,
such as North Dakota. And rape rates are six times higher per
capita in Alaska and Nevada than North Dakota.
[...]
6. Sexually violent films affect "normal" people as well as
criminals. What may be surprising is that the most dangerous
material is not X-rated movies of fornication, but R-rated
"slasher" films like the "Toolbox Murders" in which a naked women
in a tub masturbates and then is killed by a man with a power
drill.
After seeing one such film per day for five days, college males
"were asked to participate in what was presented as a different
study--a pretest of a law schooldocumentary" of a rape tril.
Antoerh group saw X-rated nonviolent films and were asked the
same questions about the rape victim. "Those massively exposed to
sexual vilence judged the victim of the assault to be
significantly less injured and evaluated her as less worthy than
did the control group."
7. One study not mentioned by the Commission is worth noting. The
FBI interviewed two dozen sex murders in prison who had killed
multiple times. Some eighty-one percent said their biggest sexual
interest was in reading pornography. They acted out sex fantasies
on real people. For example, Arthur Gary Bishop, convicted of
sexually abusing and killing five young boys said, "If
pornographic material would have been unavailable to me in my
early states, it is most probably that my sexual activities would
not have escalated to the degree they did." He said pornography's
impact on him was "devastating...I am a homosexual pedophile
convicted of murder and pornography was a determining factor in
my downfall."
In fact, the Commission has two studies in which over half of
rapists say they were "incited to commit an offense" by
pornography and forty-two percent of child molesters "implicated
pornography" in their crimes.
[...]
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