> There are social science
> researchers who claim otherwise. There was enough of such evidence by
> the early 80s that MacKinnon and Dworkin drafted legislation based, in
> part, on it (as well as testimony by abused women of the role porn
> played in *their* abuse -- certainly that testimony is not
> meaningless).
I recall that period, and wrote several pieces at the time critiquing the Dworkin/MacKinnon view. I'm familiar with it, opposed it, and was happy to see it go down in flames. There were a number of female porn/erotica producers who argued against this censorious mentality, as well as women who worked in the industry. See "Defending Pornography" by Nadine Strossen for a legalistic overview of this battle.
> I wonder, though, setting the issue of 'causal link' (which seems a
> bit simplistic to me) aside, whether it would matter to you if porn
> were found to be a *contributing* or even *exacerbating* factor in
> sexual violence? Would that be sufficent to consider social policy
> against it?
Anything can be a "contributing" or "exacerbating" factor in sexual violence, or violence of any kind. I mean, do the hundreds upon hundreds of action/slasher/horror films and video games help to desensitize its steady consumers? I'm sure they do, to some. One can also cite the Bible or any other "extreme" or "titillating" forms of literature on this front. Do we need a social policy for every form of expression lest the weaker among us become unhinged upon mere exposure? Or is it just porn that you're hot to legislate against?
> Me: ". . . and porn itself does
> not push a man who is not violent or abusive into becoming so."
> You : I don't know whether that is true or false; as an empirical
question,
> I'd have to look at studies. I'm certainly not going to assume that
> it's true.
Really? You think that watching a film of a man getting a blowjob from a bleached blonde with fake tits is gonna suddenly make a guy become violent or want to rape the first woman he sees? I don't know how much porn you've actually seen, but take it from an old timer: the vast majority of porn is people fucking, sucking and coming. That's it -- no beatings, rape (though some fantasy sequences exist in some films, this is not a mainstream taste), or violence of any kind, unless you consider anal sex violent.
> What if porn channels violent men toward viewing women as the class of
> persons constituting the target of their violence? Does that matter?
To the degree that it pushes him over the edge, sure. But like you said, porn is not the sole factor in these cases. Why single it out as if it were?
DP