On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> >It's pretty sneaky.
>
> And not terribly conclusive, from what you describe. The relative
> durations of shocks given to subjects in an experiment don't tell you
> much about whether a man will commit rape, do they? Do they compare
> the results of watching a war or slasher movie? Depictions of
> violence against men vs. depictions of violence against women?
>
> Doug
>
No, for practical and ethical reasons, we'll probably never have any solid scientific evidence to support Dworkin's "Porn is the theory, rape the practice" slogan. Researchers have compared violent films with sexual content and without: no difference in levels of aggressive thoughts or behaviors against women. Whether or not there's sexual content is irrelevant; the important factor is the aggression.
And in studies where people are exposed to films with depictions of violence against men, they tend to have more aggressive reactions to men afterwards.
As I said earlier, the widespread depictions of aggression and violence in the mass media are clearly a public health hazard. I can always get a rise out of my students by pointing out our current prime time TV censorship rules--plenty of violent content, strictly limited sexual content--are topsy-turvy, with no real empirical justification.
Miles