On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Kendall Clark wrote:
> Dworkin cites another study, one which you may be unfamiliar with, and
> which was included in amicus curiae briefs, that shows the link
> between porn consumption and a man's diminished ability to credit the
> testimony of a rape survivor as plausible. If you can cite papers that
> show that study to be faulty, or other studies that refute these
> results, I'd happily review them.
>
There are dozens of studies done on the effects of exposure to various sexually explicit materials on attitudes about rape survivors, so I'm not sure which ones D. refers to. Almost all studies that include both aggressive and nonaggressive sexual film conditions show that "rape myths" are more likely to be accepted by the men in the aggressive film condition: Mullin & Linz, 1995, Boeringer, 1994, Allen, Emmers, Gebhardt & Giery, 1995, Malamuth & Check, 1981. I can extend the list if you'd like. You will find little or no solid experimental research that provides support for the claim that nonaggressive sexual content has a negative influence on men's attitudes toward women.
> Your conflation of all types of sexually explicit
> miles> materials overlooks the fact that the most substantial effect
> miles> of nonaggressive sexually explicit films is sexual arousal,
> miles> in both men and women.
>
> I dispute that I conflated "types of sexually explicit materials", see
> above.
It should be clear now that you did, see above.
> *I* don't want to take my sexual arousal -- perhaps irrespective of
> context, but *especially* not when I'm immersed in, and was socialized
> by, a culture in which women are second-class citizens -- from
> material that demeans, degrades, or objectifies women, all of which
> are separate from violent or aggressive materials. That's what many
> anti-porn feminists object to. But then acknowledging that claim of
> theirs points back to the nuanced view, which you don't seem to buy.
That's what I don't get: who gets to decide what objectifies or demeans women? Is every sexually explicit film degrading to women? If not, what are the specific criteria? If Andrea Dworkin says "This is degrading to women," is that good enough? Call me a naive empiricist, but if we're going to claim that something has negative effects on society, let's carry out some rigorous research to document the effects. One charismatic writer's subjective opinion about how it must be "degrading to women" isn't too convincing to me.
Miles