Lazar wrote:

crank wrote:I fail to see how I read Mr. Samsa's post incorrectly. Can either of you point out how? It implies that expressing an emotion reinforces that emotion, I countered that the exact opposite happens when one masturbates. Then I hear, no you are misreading it, it is deeper, it reinforces the desire for that behaviour overall, long term, is that it? And there is an analogy made to anger, well, WTF, really, so anger and sexual desire are similar? I must be a real freak, then.

Well one could argue that the two are connected in violent sex crime but that is not the point your making (though I think it is kind of central to the thread itself so maybe it is worth coming back to). I read you to be positing a physical release (ah that feels better) vs. what I read Samsa talking about was the Freudian idea of pent up emotions twisting and turning in the sub-conscious and finding a way to be released (my sexual repression as a child has built over the years, its all my mothers fault and hence I hate all women).

I can only state again that analogies with anger are specious. Not getting into confrontations with the boss though he enrages you routinely is not the same as having parents tell you that sex is dirty and that touching yourself will send you to hell, thus growing up with conflicting emotions when you begin sexual maturity. What are we to make of the appalling suicide rates amongst gay teens? Is it unlikely that other pathologies could develop due to unfortunate early behavioural indoctrination about sex?

But, however a sexual dysfunction arises, say an urge to commit a sex crime, is it the case that you would posit that masturbation at that moment, would not lessen the chance that the urge would be carried out? And we are discussing access to porn, is it not unreasonable to suppose that one getting such urges may be 'tired' of playing the internal fantasies he is so used to, thus being more prone to carry through with the urge, whereas access to new, novel porn, may satisfy himself with a trip to the bedroom? The findings that porn increases the risk of committing a sex crime seem to assume that no masturbation occurs without the porn. Isn't this nonsensical? These people will masturbate without the porn, maybe at a reduced rate, but fantasies will still be there, often to worse scenarios than found in the porn.

Lazar wrote:

Now, as to masturbation increasing desire, how strong an effect is that, really? The sex drive is a very deep, primal urge, can it really be substantially increased by masturbation? This idea "Performing those behaviors consistently won't reduce the behaviors because they are reinforced by the very act, thus actually increasing the behaviors. ", how well is that supported in the literature, and I mean literature on sex drive, not anger?

And, this whole topic is about sex crimes, something that occurs now, not over time. Right now, if I masturbate, you guys are implying that makes me more likely to go and commit a sex crime, again, I say daft. If one is getting a sexual urge, the idea that masturbation will increase that urge, I would require heaps of very good data before I would believe that. Maybe masturbation has an increased desire overall(I don't believe it will be substantial), but overall ain't right now, show me real world data, not students watching videos and filling out forms.

Hardly. Knock yourself out. I don't think masturbation will make you more likely to commit a sex crime, nor will it make you blind, or will you grow hair on your hands. I just don't think not having access to porn is going to turn anyone into a rapist, which is what the OP is about.

No, I think the OP is about access to porn possibly reducing risk of sex crimes, your hyperbole is a bit much. See my response above for a hypothetical explanation.

Lazar wrote:

Then we have the idea that all researchers have an idea of how an experiment will come out beforehand and that they don't let this color their findings. I don't believe this at all when it comes to research on sex, it is one thing to think experiment X will find Y, it is another when to expect experiment X will prove support of a moral and religious viewpoint the experimenter holds deeply. Let's see, have we seen any evidence of religious view coloring objectivity? Hmmmm.........

hmm scientists hold very clear views about whatever they research. Sex is surely more emotional I suppose but then again I have been to conferences where people have almost come to blows over whether one should use statistical fit or relative fit measures in statistics. The point I was making was that there is no condition within science that scientists are unbiased, that is just silly, what the method does mean though is that when confronted with contradictory evidence they should change their views. I have not seen any really credible evidence that less porn = more violence and I don't think this is just because such a position is unpopular.

I have never been to a scientific conference, but read of many examples of what you speak, and it is unfortunate, but we is humans. It is not that sex is more emotional, it is of a different kind of emotion, to say that sex is 'just another emotion' is to deny the blatantly obvious. Then, throw in how religion is tied up so intimately with sexual mores, and I say you are dealing with a source of bias far beyond clutching to your pet theory at a conference. I have seen no credible evidence that porn=more or less violence/sex crimes, this is evidence almost impossible to obtain, as far as I know, much of the data is from test subjects watching videos and reporting their feelings on cards. How do you get decent data on porn viewing so as to compare sex offenders vs. non-sex offenders?

crank wrote:(...) How do you get decent data on porn viewing so as to compare sex offenders vs. non-sex offenders?

One way is to do research in prisons.

Federico wrote:Absolutely not. Pedophilia is an incurable mental disease, and exposing pedophiles to child pornography would only arouse them. The only treatment for this paraphilia is castration, surgical or chemical.

... or you could let them get on with their lives in peace.



Just sayin'.

Reading the interesting comments, I think we may be missing a key ingredient, which some researchers may have understandably missed as well. Regardless of what a hardcore feminist would have you believe, all porn is not the same. In a typical porn film, the actress is depicted as a willing participant, actually enjoying the act. I believe it is quite a different story when the actress is shown to be unwilling, dominated or in pain. I will admit to having watched my share of porn (dunno who hasn't) and the vast majority of the material belongs to the first category. I doubt that mainstream porn has very much to do with violent sex crimes and expect that violent/nonconsensual material should be the one scrutinized.

I will look back to the studies reviewed in my first link and see how many of them actually make the distinction. Lazar, any luck finding those links?

Ok, saw the following there...

Donnerstein & Linz (1986) and Donnerstein, Linz & Penrod (1987) have extensively studied different relationships between violent and nonviolent pornography and violence against women. They basically suggest that aggressive images rather than sexual images may be the primary instigation toward sexual offense. Work by Boeringer (1994) seems to support this. He studied the differential attitudinal effects of hard-core and soft-core porn. He concluded that the most significant attitudinal response was related to force rather than sex. Gillen and Muncer (1995) have done related work. They found that male’s cases of date rape appear motivated more by a need for dominance rather than for sex and Boeringer (1994) has reported high correlations of aggressive attitudes of force rather than sex-rape attitudes in his study of pornography.

...but I have a problem with this:

Other research findings argue against exposure to pornographic material fostering negative attitudes toward women. Fisher and Grenier (1994) tried to experimentally provoke men to negative, aggressive and violent attitudes in their fantasies, attitudes and behaviors toward women. Using female accomplices they prepared situations to negatively bias men who would then be shown aggressive and even violent videos, in which women were degraded, objectified or raped. Their efforts produced essentially no measurable misogynistic effects. And Bogaert (1993) has shown that, in a free choice setting where men were offered choice of 14 different video types to view, their least common choices, in this free-choice setting, were to see sexually violent videos (4%) or child pornography (3%). The majority given a free choice chose non-violent videos with common sexual acts with sexually interested women.

Now, I don't think there is any question that fully grown adults already have their beliefs and the availability of violent porn would not really matter (quite a different story when it comes to teenagers). The question is whether the people who will actively look for the violent material will be less likely to become violent offenders. The first set of studies seems to indicate otherwise.

So I'm coming to the conclusion that my idea of computer-generated child pornography would probably be bad. Child molesters are essentialy violent offenders. The only good thing to come out of such a program would probably be an increased supply of the material, causing prices to plummet and reducing the incentives for the producers of the real stuff (hence fewer children hurt to produce them). But since the simulated material would find its way into the hands of easily swayed teenagers, I think it would actually do more damage than good.

RichardPrins wrote:

crank wrote:(...) How do you get decent data on porn viewing so as to compare sex offenders vs. non-sex offenders?

One way is to do research in prisons.

Well, that is interesting, to say the least, and a little frightening. There will be those who want to use brain scan data well before the science is well established, on either side of the courtroom.

But, how is that at all relevant?

The porn I prefer watch is lesbian erotica and similar, sometimes amateur but more often from videos produced by producers that tend to specialize more in those areas. There are a few I can think of. In practically all that I have seen the woman are portrayed as willing participants. And not just your typical suck, fuck, facial while pulling hair or choking and saying things like "You're a dirty little slut, aren't you?" and stuff that seems so prevalent in M/F porn, the women appear to be really intimately into it. There is still F/F porn that portray domination and things like that as well, just nothing I really care for. But I've never really seen any M/F porn that portrayed any sensuality or intimacy in the same way that some of the lesbian porn does.

As far as any relationship, I wonder which way it would go. One can say that porn that portrays women in negative ways being dominated or such causes negative attitudes towards women. But one can also say the reverse, that negative attitudes towards women results in the production of porn that portrays women in such ways as well as the viewing of such porn. So, which is the cause, which is the effect? Porn portraying negative depictions of woman cause negative views of women and possibly more violence? Or negative views of women already existing in society and already cause more violence, and those views lead to production and viewing of porn portraying those negative depictions of women? Or both?

just bookmarking. Interesting topic

crank wrote:But, how is that at all relevant?

It's one example of how you could get data from prison research (i.e. with sex-offenders), which was the answer to your question.

RichardPrins wrote:

crank wrote:But, how is that at all relevant?

It's one example of how you could get data from prison research (i.e. with sex-offenders), which was the answer to your question.

My question dealt with how to get reliable data on porn watching and sex crimes, how does brain research on prisoners have anything to do with how much porn somebody watches and whether that leads to a higher rate of sex crimes?

One of the difficulties with any of these types of data is that you can't really escape from self-reporting and we all know how reliable that can be.

crank wrote:

RichardPrins wrote:

crank wrote:But, how is that at all relevant?

It's one example of how you could get data from prison research (i.e. with sex-offenders), which was the answer to your question.

My question dealt with how to get reliable data on porn watching and sex crimes (...)

And the answer was: by doing research in prisons.

cakrit wrote:Reading the interesting comments, I think we may be missing a key ingredient, which some researchers may have understandably missed as well. Regardless of what a hardcore feminist would have you believe, all porn is not the same. In a typical porn film, the actress is depicted as a willing participant, actually enjoying the act. I believe it is quite a different story when the actress is shown to be unwilling, dominated or in pain. I will admit to having watched my share of porn (dunno who hasn't) and the vast majority of the material belongs to the first category. I doubt that mainstream porn has very much to do with violent sex crimes and expect that violent/nonconsensual material should be the one scrutinized.

I will look back to the studies reviewed in my first link and see how many of them actually make the distinction. Lazar, any luck finding those links?

Getting there. My RDF posts I can not find. The ones I have found so far seem to support the imitation model (see below) but that is neither here nor there given the slim picking. The pines article, if you can access it gives a theoretical overview of the different frameworks. Sorry i could not be more helpful, I had a few more on RDF but I can not find them again.

I have this from google scolar:
1. Exposure to pornography and the rape myth
2. Not sure if this ispublic access or not but you can try the link and see.

From psych info only four articles were returned with the key words "meta analysis" and "pornography". Some are useless some are books and thus the abstract says nothing of value. Only that a chapter on meta analysis and pornography is in the book. The details and abstract of the only one of value are here:

A meta-analysis summarizing the effects of pornography: II. Aggression after exposure.
Allen, Mike; D'Alessio, Dave; Brezgel, Keri.
Human Communication Research. Vol.22(2), Dec 1995, pp. 258-283.
[Journal; Peer Reviewed Journal]
Year of Publication
1995

AB Conducted a meta-analysis of 30 studies, published 1971-1985, to examine the effect of exposure to pornography on aggressive behavior under laboratory conditions, considering a variety of moderating conditions (level of sexual arousal, level of prior anger, type of pornography, gender of S, gender of the target of aggression, and medium used to convey the material). Results indicate that pictorial nudity induces subsequent aggressive behavior, that consumption of material depicting nonviolent sexual activity increases aggressive behavior, and that media depictions of violent sexual activity generate more aggression than those of nonviolent sexual activity. No other moderator variable produced homogeneous findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

Having had a quick look it reminded me of the major competing theories.
1. The cathartic model suggests porn can provide a release of pent up sexual energy(?) as suggested by crank and the OP.
2. The imitation model suggests porn encourages men to view women in a more subservient position who are occasionally deserving of violence.
3. The acceptance model suggests that porn increases the likelihood that individuals will accept the position that women who are raped deserve it.

pcCoder wrote:The porn I prefer watch is lesbian erotica and similar, sometimes amateur but more often from videos produced by producers that tend to specialize more in those areas. There are a few I can think of. In practically all that I have seen the woman are portrayed as willing participants. And not just your typical suck, fuck, facial while pulling hair or choking and saying things like "You're a dirty little slut, aren't you?" and stuff that seems so prevalent in M/F porn, the women appear to be really intimately into it. There is still F/F porn that portray domination and things like that as well, just nothing I really care for. But I've never really seen any M/F porn that portrayed any sensuality or intimacy in the same way that some of the lesbian porn does.

As far as any relationship, I wonder which way it would go. One can say that porn that portrays women in negative ways being dominated or such causes negative attitudes towards women. But one can also say the reverse, that negative attitudes towards women results in the production of porn that portrays women in such ways as well as the viewing of such porn. So, which is the cause, which is the effect? Porn portraying negative depictions of woman cause negative views of women and possibly more violence? Or negative views of women already existing in society and already cause more violence, and those views lead to production and viewing of porn portraying those negative depictions of women? Or both?

Good point, not all erotica is the same. The differences of the type of erotica and frequency of viewing among frequent users might have more varied effects than the difference between a person who occasionally views it and someone who rarely or never watches it.

One would also have to allow for differences in the prevailing attitude towards gender in the person's culture and subculture.

I believe that most of these test involve people sitting in a lab watching a movie or looking at pix, and then taking some form of assessment test, filling out a form. It is problematic to extrapolate that to behaviour in the real world. For one, how permanent is this change in how you feel, will it last longer than it takes you to reach sunshine? Plus, how you answer a question in a lab is not the same as how you would treat another person when they, a real flesh and blood human being, is right there, looking at you, breathing the same air as you, .....

RichardPrins wrote:

crank wrote:

RichardPrins wrote:

crank wrote:But, how is that at all relevant?

It's one example of how you could get data from prison research (i.e. with sex-offenders), which was the answer to your question.

My question dealt with how to get reliable data on porn watching and sex crimes (...)

And the answer was: by doing research in prisons.

Can you explain this, at all? What exactly are you going to do to get data on porn watching and risk of committing sex crimes? Surely you don't mean to ask those imprisoned for sex crimes how much porn they watched? That really is nonsense, do you not see this? Self-reported data out of prisons is suspect, especially if it has anything to do with why the prisoner is inside to begin with.
And, your linked study had to do with brain scans, again, how does that get you data on the porn watching habits of the public at large and whether that may or may not contribute as a risk factor leading to committing sex crimes? I am at a loss as to how any of it is relevant in the least.

Took a look at the links Lazar included, but Wikipedia was even more helpful. The following has a nice summary of the opposing views:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_pornography_and_child_sexual_abuse

In addition, the article on Child pornography includes the following gruesome statement:

The United States Department of Justice estimates that pornographers have recorded the abuse of more than one million children in the United States alone

Once again, I am ambivalent. If millions of children are already being abused to cater to the needs of these sickos, the increase in supply I mentioned earlier might actually do more good than harm. In fact, if the viewers are quietly monitored to establish the likelihood of them becoming child abusers themselves, we might actually be able to prevent harm as well.

Dunno people. I guess the jury is still out on this one.

Lazar wrote:A meta-analysis summarizing the effects of pornography: II. Aggression after exposure.
Allen, Mike; D'Alessio, Dave; Brezgel, Keri.
Human Communication Research. Vol.22(2), Dec 1995, pp. 258-283.
[Journal; Peer Reviewed Journal]
Year of Publication
1995

AB Conducted a meta-analysis of 30 studies, published 1971-1985, to examine the effect of exposure to pornography on aggressive behavior under laboratory conditions, considering a variety of moderating conditions (level of sexual arousal, level of prior anger, type of pornography, gender of S, gender of the target of aggression, and medium used to convey the material). Results indicate that pictorial nudity induces subsequent aggressive behavior, that consumption of material depicting nonviolent sexual activity increases aggressive behavior, and that media depictions of violent sexual activity generate more aggression than those of nonviolent sexual activity. No other moderator variable produced homogeneous findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

crank wrote:I believe that most of these test involve people sitting in a lab watching a movie or looking at pix, and then taking some form of assessment test, filling out a form. It is problematic to extrapolate that to behaviour in the real world. For one, how permanent is this change in how you feel, will it last longer than it takes you to reach sunshine? Plus, how you answer a question in a lab is not the same as how you would treat another person when they, a real flesh and blood human being, is right there, looking at you, breathing the same air as you, .....

Worse than that. It could be said that many of these studies are not only unlike real world situations, but produce results that are the diametric opposite of the real world.

That's because, as everyone knows, the whole point of pornography for most people is as an aid to masturbation. Yes, the porn increases tension, aggression, testosterone levels - and probably a whole lot else. That's part of the journey to orgasm, and after orgasm is reached those things subside, to a LOWER level than they were at in the first place.

These studies typically work by showing people some porn and then saying "right, how to do feel NOW?" Of course they are going to feel more tense, more aggressive etc. They're half-way through the process of how porn is actually consumed in the real world. It's like taking people who haven't eaten for five hours, showing them a hamburger and saying, "how do you feel NOW?" Then when they reply, "Gee, I feel a bit more hungry now", publishing your results as proof that "Food makes you hungry".

I don't know whether this is true of Lazar's example but I've seen a few "studies" like this and they are patently ridiculous.

cakrit wrote:Took a look at the links Lazar included, but Wikipedia was even more helpful. The following has a nice summary of the opposing views:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_pornography_and_child_sexual_abuse

In addition, the article on Child pornography includes the following gruesome statement:

The United States Department of Justice estimates that pornographers have recorded the abuse of more than one million children in the United States alone

Once again, I am ambivalent. If millions of children are already being abused to cater to the needs of these sickos, the increase in supply I mentioned earlier might actually do more good than harm. In fact, if the viewers are quietly monitored to establish the likelihood of them becoming child abusers themselves, we might actually be able to prevent harm as well.

Dunno people. I guess the jury is still out on this one.

The topic is not just about child porn, but that is a highly charged part of it. The link you gave basically says that it is not known. One of the big studies purporting to show a link from looking at child porn to committing child sexual abuse has this line in it:

studies and case reports indicate that 30% to 80% of individuals who viewed child pornography . .. had molested a child

Now, tell me, how could they possibly get reliable data on this? And, there is still no reliable way to determine the causal nature of the correlation. If viewing porn can have such effects as to cause someone who wouldn't commit such an act to do so, wouldn't we see a multitude of other similar effects? Why not make gays watch straight porn, that would be a sure way to turn us straight, wouldn't it? Or, make pedophiles watch a lot of non-child porn, that will turn them off kids, shouldn't it? Isn't it far more likely that anyone that is going to molest a child, is going to look at pornography?

I don't think the jury is out on this, it may be hung, but if there was such a significant effect as is loudly expressed routinely by the anti-porn crusaders, it could and would have been found by now, instead of the nebulous if not often fraudulent test results that are all that is available now. You will find behind a vast majority of the anti-porn crusade a religious motivation to stamp out the evils of pornography.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

crank wrote:
Are saying that masturbating does not provide some relief from sexual frustration? Surely not, that would be daft. Repressed anger and and frustrated horniness ain't exactly the same thing. Slinking off to the bedroom with a porn mag, when you return, if you are feeling even more craving, you're not doing it right.

No, the claim is sort of at a different level than what you're thinking. Whether consistent masturbation provides relief, or whether going to the gym to take your anger out on the punching bag calms you down or not, is besides the point. The argument is that if you masturbate a lot or take your anger a lot then you will desire sex less or get angry less. And this simply isn't the case. Performing those behaviors consistently won't reduce the behaviors because they are reinforced by the very act, thus actually increasing the behaviors.

But all you're showing here is that having a wank won't make you wank less. Not any effect that it may or may not have on your likelihood to commit a sex crime.

There are several levels of crossed wires here I think. But I have to agree with crank that it's a pretty straightforward bet that someone who has masturbated to orgasm within, say, the last 24 hours, is less likely to commit a sex crime - all else being equal - than somebody who has had no sexual release of any kind for a year.

No one is claiming that sexual release is permanent, or even cumulative. But as long as one gets a continuous enough supply of it - in whatever form one gets - that doesn't really matter.

But then another of the crossed wires is that masturbation doesn't equal pornography. The question of the effect of masturbation on sex crime levels is different from the question of the effect of pornography (particularly violent pornography) on sex crime levels.

But while I admit I haven't read the OP's link yet, I can well imagine that there could be some connection between religious condemnation of masturbation as a sin, and sex crime levels. Just look at the Catholic church FFS.

crank wrote:Common sense is a poor guide, but is it likely that one who masturbates often is more likely to commit a sex crime than that same person who is denied even that outlet?

I think so. If you're denied the opportunity to take your anger out in some situation (say you're at work where such behavior is unacceptable), then would this make you more likely to kill someone?

[/quote]

I don't quite get how your answer relates to the question, but we have to consider that the progression repressed anger > violent crime is not the same as the progression repressed sex urge > sex crime.

Most people tend to get angry about certain things, and if those things can be dealt with in a more constructive way than violence then there is no need for them to commit violence. It's only a minority of individuals who are said to have various kinds of "anger problems", that lead them to seek out or be unable to resist the urge for violence in itself.

By contrast, virtually everyone has a sex urge, and there is no way to satisfy that urge except by some kind of sexual act. Telling someone to go and "ponder" what's causing their sex urge for a week is not the same - and not as wise - as telling them to go and ponder what might be making them angry. The urge is more innately physical by nature and not as subject to intellectual abstraction.

Then there's the fact that while the urge itself doesn't imply anything to do with anger, the sheer fact of repressing it for long enough may well do, and bring with it feelings of resentment, entitlement etc that contribute to it being expressed through crime, that simply wouldn't have been there if it could be expressed as freely as necessary, as often as necessary.

I found something in my social psychology book (Brehm & Kassin: Social Psychology, 3rd ed.), but it's really old.

Apparently there is a difference between non-violent and violent pornography.

Non-violent pornography

Brehm & Kassin wrote:After seeing [non-violent] pornography, participants who had been exposed to a large number of pornographic films were less aggressive than control participants in response to provocation by a same-sex confederate. That's the good news.
But now here's the bad news. In the second follow-up session, participants read about a rape trial; they also expressed their opinion of the women's liberation movement. Those who had previously been exposed to a large number of pornographic films recommended a lighter sentence for the rapist and indicated less support for the women's liberation movement than did control participants. These results were obtained for both male and female participants. In addition, men who had been exposed to the large amount of pornography reported more negative attitudes toward women than did the other participants. Once again, we see that habituation effects both arousal and attitudes. Prior exposure to large amounts of pornography can reduce arousal-based aggression but increase the risk of insensitive attitudes that could promote acceptance of future aggression [(Zillmann & Bryant, 1984)].

Violent pornography:

Brehm & Kassin wrote:Male-to-male aggression is no greater after exposure to violent pornography than after exposure to highly arousing but non-violent pornography. Male-to-female aggression, however, is markedly increased (Donnerstein & Malamuth, 1997; Linz et al., 1987; Malamuth & Donnerstein, 1982)

I don't have access to the original articles though.