Pornography Is Anything But A Victimless Crime

Concerned Women For America ^ | Dec. 8, 2004 | Cheri Pierson Yecke

[Lindykim]

Pornography is Anything But a 'Victimless Crime'     12/8/2004 By Cheri Pierson Yecke How many more expert studies do we need to convince ourselves of this fact?

Jud Fry -- one of the characters in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! lives in a shack that is papered with pornographic images. He is a loner, lacks social skills, and is feared by his neighbors. He is clearly capable of murder. This insight into the character of a porn addict hit the Broadway stage in 1943.

Fast forward to 2004. A sexual assault and several attempted abductions of girls in the St. Paul, Minnesota, area are allegedly the work of 19-year-old Ryan Mely, who has been charged (for starters) with second-degree criminal sexual conduct. He apparently was a loner who was feared by his neighbors. Jud Fry is a fictitious character who bought his porn from an itinerant peddler. How did Ryan Mely get his start? Apparently, pornography was a family pastime. While some dads bond with their kids by fishing or playing hockey together, it appears that Mely and his father (a convicted sex offender) shared an interest in pornography. It was reported that sexually explicit material was found at the family home and on their computer.

Is anyone really surprised that pornography is involved here? It has been 60 years since a Broadway musical portrayed what social scientists and criminal analysis have now found to be true -- addiction to pornography can lead to violent sexual behavior. Dr. Victor Cline, a clinical psychologist and expert on sexual addictions, has identified four stages of progression among his patients.

The first stage is addiction, where the attraction to porn is overpowering and the viewer keeps craving more. The next stage is an escalation to more shocking and deviant images, as the earlier ones have lost their power to stimulate. Third is desensitization, where anything earlier seen as disturbing and repulsive becomes viewed as commonplace. Finally, satisfaction cannot be reached unless the perpetrator begins acting out the activities witnessed in the pornography. In effect, fantasy must become reality.

The events in which Mely was allegedly involved appear to follow this pattern. Perhaps the same is true for Alfonso Rodriguez, the man who allegedly abducted and murdered Dru Sjodin. Rodriguez apparently had an infatuation with Dru, who worked at Victoria's Secret, an upscale lingerie shop. On several occasions he allegedly called the store where she worked, asking for her by name.

Victoria's Secret is well known for its racy, soft-porn "fashion show" where voluptuous young models strut the runways in revealing lingerie. The liberal National Organization for Women called it "exploitative" and the conservative Concerned Women for America condemned it as a "high-tech striptease." Regularly protested by both sides of the political spectrum, the company announced in April that it will no longer air this event

The last Victoria's Secret "fashion show" aired on network television November 19, 2003. Dru was abducted three days later. Could it be that Alfonso Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender, watched the show and was propelled into Dr. Cline's fourth stage of sexual deviance? This is a question his judge and jury may consider.

In an interview the night before his 1989 execution, serial killer Ted Bundy revealed the influence of pornography on his life.

A case study for Cline's four stages of addiction, Bundy started his descent into sexual deviance and murder with magazines he found in the neighbor's trash. His addiction escalated until he felt compelled to act out his desires in more than 30 murders that were accompanied with violent sexual acts.

He warned Americans: "There are those loose in [your] towns and communities, like me, whose dangerous impulses are being fueled, day in and day out, by violence in the media, in its various forms -- particularly sexualized violence ... . There are lots of other kids playing in the streets around the country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, because other young people are reading and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the media today."

Abundant evidence has demonstrated the tragic impact of pornography. How many more expert studies do we need to convince ourselves of this fact? The elections of 2004 have sent politicians the message that morals matter, so now is the time to focus on the impact of pornography -- the so-called "victimless crime."

Cheri Pierson Yecke is a Distinguished Senior Fellow for Education and Social Policy at the Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. She is a former Minnesota commissioner of education and is author of The War Against Excellence. This article first appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Used with permission.  

Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 E-mail: mail@cwfa.org    

[F16Fighter]

"Yes it is getting more acceptable in certain venues, but at the same time it is being challenged in a lot of different cities, and even New York has shut alot of their trade down....

The more it gets to be so out in the open, the less enticing it is. That's just human nature. There are self-limiting mechanisms in place, we just haven't seen them kick in quite yet. I predict that it has about reached its peak."

I respect your opinion...

You're missing the a lot of the point, Web, but we are not only losing this "war," we're getting overrun because "obsecenity" laws are transcended by a borderless international transmission of the internet content.

New York City may have shut down most of the 42 St.-type activity that had gone on, but is DOESN'T affect the ubiquity of porn on the net -- AND the fresh "young meat" exposed daily to it.

And if you want to talk about "human nature," curiosity has "killed the cat," hasn't it?

Quite frankly, if a bunch of 13 and 14 teenage boys had unfettered access to Playboy and Penthouse when I was growing up, we'd have been checking it out -- especially if we were bored.

Humans are easily addicted to all sorts of stuff -- smoking, drinking, foods, Free Republic (heh), and especially porn, but I'm not going to belabor a point that's already been made numerous times during this thread.

And btw, HOW COULD and since when could sodomy have possibly gotten to the point where it is "acceptable"??

Thank you Howard Stern, who for years on both radio and TV would not leave the subject alone -- now it's not only been de-stigmatized, but is touted as just another "enlightened" way to "please" your partner(s).

[F16Fighter]

"With the internet, it is damn near impossible to ban pornography. The best we can do is try to encourage a moral rebirth, and fostering healthy sexual attitudes; this happens one family at a time. "

That is exactly why it is an uphill battle at best -- even with the best intentions, family guidance, and moral fortitude.

[dascallie]

Yep....pornography has always been with us, it's just that technology has supercharged it's ability to reach millions in seconds with no effort at all--firehosing itself into mainstream households with a ravenous grip.

The disturbing and insidious fact that it slips into our worlds without even being invited in, starts to make it seem almost mythically evil. Serpent-like.

The final irony is that in combating it, we have to combat our innermost selves.

It's all starting to feel like a Divinely directed morality play, a cosmic test from a fed-up God that maybe says something like:

"Ok, you humans want to have it all ways...you think you're so smart with your technological/scientific advances with no ethical restrictions, your genius inventions to indulge/entertain yourselves endlessly without the burden of restraint.

While you pleasure yourselves in unprecendented ways, at gluttonous levels, in ways that are unraveling the deep connections between you all and you to ME, that cheapen you all--don't come crying to me about how empty you feel inside or how hopeless, or how you find yourselves filled with existential dread, wondering "Isn't there "more" to my life?".

Don't mean to be so presumptous to imagine to speak for God (*lightening* *thunder*) , but this all feels very much like a struggle of the dark and the light inside us all.

Technology definently has changed the equation--and that means we have to open to amending the argument.

Oh yeah, and the hip, cultural icon Howard Stern is like the devil incarnate IMHO.

[Reeses]

I just bought Coke from the vending machine. There was no sex involved.

The lipstick red coke machines with womanly curves are engineered to invoke sexual virility.

[tacticalogic]

Technology definently has changed the equation--and that means we have to open to amending the argument.

If the argument is going to be directed toward a political solution, and the situation is as dire as it has been described, then the only effective solution is going to be a federal ban on pornography, and government control of the internet to enforce it.

[Theophilus]

Creation is not "The Great Experiment". God is not a bad or indifferent scientist who does not know the outcome of history.

I think there is an important (usually ignored) distinction between "responsibility" and "guilt". I'm responsible for my mortgage but if I commit murder, the law cannot hold me responsible, it cannot "make whole" the victim, it can only find me guilty and punish or find me not guilty. If I am punished, I am not punished because I did not avail myself of anger management counseling. I am punished because I irreversibly violated God, the state and the victim. The sex object cannot be un-degraded. The pervert cannot un-covet or un-lust what he has coveted or lusted, these crimes have no opposite. Therefore the pervert cannot pay for his sins or be held to account, he can only be punished for them. Punishment never restores anything! Punishment was not originally instituted as a sociological cure but as the mandate of a Just God.

The rule of law is not effected by a "personally responsible" dominion. If everyone were good, we would not need laws. It is approached when a state and it's officers are responsible to God for their ministry, promoting what is good and punishing what is evil.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same.

[najida]

Nope, that ain't it at all.

More like the perpetuation of the myth that women are like automatic transmissions (instead of diesel), with an easy to find gas pedal and multiple gas tanks that can make a 20 minute trip in 2, in spite of many wrong turns and without the driver needing instructions. :)

The other you mentioned, well, if ya don't have the basics right, don't expect to advance to out of remedial class ;)

[MEGoody]

"Every single person involved, from finance to production to consumption, is a consenting adult."

Every single person involved in a deadly drunk driving car crash is a consenting adult as well - until we get to the victim(s).

" If you're not involved and don't want to be, butt out and let others enjoy life in a free society."

Enjoy life? It's very sad that someone needs porn to enjoy life.

[NJ_gent]

"Creation is not "The Great Experiment"."

Indeed; 'The Great Experiment' generally refers to the system of government set up in the United States under the US Constitution. :-)

"I am punished because I irreversibly violated God, the state and the victim."

You are punished because you have violated the laws of the state, which seek to protect all members of society by removing and (hopefully) rehabilitating those citizens who choose to cause harm (physical or otherwise) to others.

"The rule of law is not effected by a "personally responsible" dominion."

I disagree entirely. Jury nullification is one instance where our criminal justice system is directly affected by the concept of personal responsibility. Another is the ability to plead guilty. Those who admit their guilt and show remorse are often rewarded with lighter punishments so long as they're perceived to be genuine. Courtroom ethics, use of witnesses, and police investigation integrity are just a few other things in our criminal justice system that rely heavily on personal responsibility. If no one took responsibility, admitted mistakes or problems, or developed and maintained a set of ethics, the system would be as much a sham as those which exist in places like China and North Korea.

[Politicalities]

Every single person involved in a deadly drunk driving car crash is a consenting adult as well - until we get to the victim(s).

Uh, yeah, except for the victim. Let's put aside the alcohol for a second and just suppose someone is driving at very, very high speed, collides with another motorist, and kills him. Is a nonconsenting other involved, and therefore is the speeder guilty of an offense?

Maybe, maybe not. I can think of at least one situation where everybody involved gave informed consent and thus there is no crime. Unless, of course, you want to criminalize NASCAR.

If Person A wants to take naked pictures of Person B, and Person C wants to buy those pictures, where's the nonconsenting victim?

Enjoy life? It's very sad that someone needs porn to enjoy life.

In the first place, one mustn't necessarily need something to enjoy life to derive enjoyment from it. I could enjoy life without my Xbox, but I enjoy it just the same. As some may enjoy porn without needing it to enjoy life.

But in the second place, yes, some do need porn to enjoy life, and this is very sad. And some need alcohol to enjoy life, and this too is very sad. And some would not enjoy life at all without television, and this is very sad indeed. I would hope that these people would face interventions by their friends, their families, and their churches to save them from their sad state of life. Not the government. That's not its job.

[MEGoody]

"Uh, yeah, except for the victim."

Uh, yeah, that's what I said.

"If Person A wants to take naked pictures of Person B, and Person C wants to buy those pictures, where's the nonconsenting victim?"

The non-consenting victim(s) may be Person C's spouse, children, the lady next door that Person C rapes, the kid down the street that Person C sodomizes and kills.

Not all people who drive drunk cause a deadly crash, and not all people who look at porn end up rejecting their spouse or raping someone. . .but it does happen.

[NJ_gent]

"Such studies have been and are continuing to be done. When or if they will meet with the standards you have set for them is unknown."

It's not so much that I'm trying to set a 'bar' that must be crossed to meet my personal standards so much as I'm trying to call attention to the fact that any study of this nature (not necessarily on this topic) should be treated as suspect until it has significant supporting evidence in the form of peer review and similarly-conducted studies which show results that confirm those of the original study. Methodology ought to always be the first target of scrutiny, as it's often the breaking point of case studies like these.

Case studies are notoriously difficult to use in an objective circumstance due to the natural relationship which forms over time between those partipating in and conducting the study. Case studies also rely on a whole host of factors unrelated to the study being either eliminated or marginalized by statistics. This is not necessarily the case. It's not that there are hordes of researchers out there looking to falsify studies to push an agenda (though there are some out there willing to do just that), but that these sorts of studies make doing good science very, very difficult under the best of circumstances. In the worst case, you can have two large studies, both with excellent methodology, which both show exactly opposite results. That's why I look at these things so skeptically. If there's one thing good that came from Freud, it's the knowledge that packaging up psychology in neat little boxes leaves you with utter nonsensical garbage.

"Here are links to some good articles and studies"

Bookmarking the post so I can take a look into them when I've got the time to give them a decent reading.

"While I am now quite aware of your antipathy toward existing studies on the matter"

It has far less to do with the subject matter than it does with the kinds of studies done. No one has nailed down a good, concrete way to properly look at problems like these. The best thing we have so far is case studies. Again, that's a statistically analyzed rounded estimate based on a rough (possibly educated) guess. That's not to say they're worthless; just that they're not something where we can glance over one or two, reach a conclusive answer, and call it a day. The problem when getting into more controversial subject matters (pornography, child molestation, etc) is that personal biases of those participating in and conducting the studies tend to enter into play even more heavily than usual. I think that the more controversial the subject matter, the more scrutiny is required of the methodology and such used by the researchers involved.

Good science allows you to make predictions. In physics, I can predict what will happen to a ball of metal under various circumstances. In chemistry, I can predict what will happen if I mix a number of substances together. Using psychological studies such as these, can I go to your house and predict what will happen to you with fairly good accuracy if you're subjected to x amount of pornography? Of course not. With good, long-term case studies using excellent methodology and a wide range of subjects, can I take 1,000 people, subject them to x amount of pornography, and then make reasonable predictions as to what will happen statistically? Possibly. :-)

"you still fail to give any reason why we should disbelieve the results of the existing studies."

Please see above. :-)

[Politicalities]

Uh, yeah, that's what I said.

Then how are the situations remotely parallel?

The non-consenting victim(s) may be Person C's spouse, children

As I've said repeatedly, this carries the concept of victimhood much too far. Person C's spouse and children do not have a legal claim on his life that extends to prior restraint. Or else they'd be able to use the power of the law to compel him to live in a bubble, lest he hurt himself and thus damage them.

the lady next door that Person C rapes, the kid down the street that Person C sodomizes and kills.

You know, people who consume oxygen are many, many times more likely to commit armed robbery than people who do not. Perhaps we should ban this obviously dangerous substance.

Or perhaps we could recognize that correlation does not equal causation, that cause and effect can often get mixed up, that prior restraint on a person's liberty requires extraordinary justification, and that rape, sodomy, and murder are the activities that involve nonconsenting others, not production and consumption of pornography.

Not all people who drive drunk cause a deadly crash, and not all people who look at porn end up rejecting their spouse or raping someone. . .but it does happen.

And not all people who possess college diplomas end up burglarizing houses. . .but it does happen. We'd better make universities illegal, just to be safe.

[MEGoody]

"Then how are the situations remotely parallel?"

Because in both scenarios, all the adults are consenting until there is a victim.

"Person C's spouse and children do not have a legal claim on his life that extends to prior restraint."

I'm sure you know, or at least have heard of, families that have been destroyed because one of the parties became obsessed with porn. Rights or no rights, in those cases, the spouse and children are victims.

"Or perhaps we could recognize that correlation does not equal causation"

There's been plenty of evidence, some sited in this article, that porn utilization contributes to behaviors such as rape, child molestation, even serial murder.

[TChris]

It's not so much that I'm trying to set a 'bar' that must be crossed to meet my personal standards...

But that's exactly what you're doing. Until the inherently "mushy" subject of human behavior can become as predictable as the subject of physics, there will likely not be an empirical study on the subject to fit your description.

Again, the people who have personal experience with the effects of pornography, either upon themselves or a loved one, have no need for studies. For them, there is no need for a scientific explanation of the profound change in personality which they, themselves have either experienced or witnessed. Truth does not depend upon science for its validity. Too many scientists believe the two are synonymous.

BTW, the last link in my previous post was not a very good one vis-a-vis Dr. Cline's research. This one is much better.

[Modernman]

Every single person involved in a deadly drunk driving car crash is a consenting adult as well - until we get to the victim(s).

False analogy, unless you can show that the victims in a drunk driving incident (a) consented to getting slammed into by a drunk driver and (b) the incident ocurred on private property.

[Modernman]

The non-consenting victim(s) may be Person C's spouse, children, the lady next door that Person C rapes, the kid down the street that Person C sodomizes and kills.

Beating one's spouse, raping neighbors and murdering kids are crimes, last time I looked. I'm also not aware of a porn video ever doing any of these things: the perpetrator of such crimes is invariably another human being.

What's your point?

[Ken H]

There's been plenty of evidence, some sited in this article, that porn utilization contributes to behaviors such as rape, child molestation, even serial murder.

There is actually a strong correlation (not necessarily causation) between increased porn and declining sex crimes from 1993-2002. Here are the USDOJ figures:

Sexual Assaults Down by Half Over Last Decade

Overall Decline from 1993 through 2002:

Rape down by 60% (from 1.0 per 1000 persons age 12 and older to 0.4 per 1000)

Attempted rape down by 57.1% (from 0.7 per 1000 to 0.3 per 1000)

Sexual assault down by 62.5% (from 0.8 per 1000 to 0.3 per 1000)

post #138 with link to USDOJ figures

[NJ_gent]

"But that's exactly what you're doing. Until the inherently "mushy" subject of human behavior can become as predictable as the subject of physics, there will likely not be an empirical study on the subject to fit your description."

Indeed, there will not be any single study using currently-known methodology which will satisfy what I've laid out as what I believe ought be the standard. Think about it though - if we're picking and choosing which studies we believe and which we do not (poronography causes problems - study good... child molestation doesn't cause problems - study bad) then what's the point of doing the studies at all? If we're not doing the studies for scientific purposes, then we're doing them to make us feel better about our pre-conceived notions. In that case, they're meaningless, pointless, and a waste of time and money. If we're doing them for scientific purposes, then the criteria I've laid out make sense. If our methodology and knowledge have not progress to the point where we can make accurate predictions about individuals, then let's do the next best thing. That is, let's perform lots of studies - good studies - and critique and study them until we're able to make reasonably accurate predictions on a large-scale statistical basis. That gives you trends and probabilities, which are far better than random guesses.

"Again, the people who have personal experience with the effects of pornography, either upon themselves or a loved one, have no need for studies. For them, there is no need for a scientific explanation of the profound change in personality which they, themselves have either experienced or witnessed."

And that's fine, but it's not science, and it's not something one can use to convince a person who's thinking objectively. Ok, someone's brother became addicted to porn and turned into a maniac. That's not evidence - for all we know, 100,000 others looked at the same kind and amount of porn and had no adverse effects. That suggests that some other problem was the true cause behind this individual turning into a maniac.

"Truth does not depend upon science for its validity."

Indeed - in fact, I think it's the other way around. Without truth, science has no meaning. Science can be called the search for truth. Do I want to know if pornography has adverse effects on people? Sure - but the only way I'm going to be convinced that it does is by scientific verification. Science is one of man's methods of finding truth. We know far more about our world than we did just a hundred years ago thanks to the rigorous persuit of science, following the scientific method. While it can never tell us about the meta-physical (God, outside the universe, etc), it can almost certainly tell us just about everything about the physical world. One of the primary goals of any scientific experiment done today is to isolate as many variables as possible until you have a situation that's easily testable. The problem with testing humans is that our lives provide for a nearly infinite and unpredictable array of variables which cannot be reliably isolated. This is the problem we face in psychology, and it's a problem whose only real solution is a new approach to scientific research. In the mean time, the best we can do is take lots rounded estimates and put them together to develop a basic model of what's happening, then draw conclusions from there.

[MEGoody]

"Beating one's spouse, raping neighbors and murdering kids are crimes, last time I looked. I'm also not aware of a porn video ever doing any of these things."

Alcohol doesn't drive cars and crash into people either. But people who drink alcohol and then drive can crash into cars and people and cause death or permanent injury.

"the perpetrator of such crimes is invariably another human being."

I agree. Therefore, if we are going to allow porn to be legal, I guess we should allow drunk driving to be legal. It would only be a crime, therefore, when someone is hurt because of the individual using the alcohol or the porn.