What is the influence of pornography on rape?

March 19, 2010 |
David Lee

Here are two articles published at the end of 2009 with the opposite conclusions about the influence of pornography on sexual assault.
While in a 2009 article in the journal Aggression and Violence Behavior, Ferguson and Hartley argue that “it is time to discard the hypothesis that pornography contributes to increased sexual assault behavior” the 2009 article ePublished in the journal Child Abuse Review author Michael Flood comes to a very different conclusion: “especially among boys and young men who are frequent consumers of pornography, including of more violent materials, consumption intensifies attitudes supportive of sexual coercion and increases their likelihood of perpetrating assault.”

What research, evidence and resources do you find useful to understand the influence of pornography on rape? How do you address pornography in your rape prevention program?
Below are the full abstracts and citation of the articles.
The harms of pornography exposure among children and young people
Flood, M. Child Abuse Review 2009 18 (6): 384–400, ePublished November 2, 2009
Click here for a link to the article on the journal’s web site. Click here for full text on Michael Flood’s web site XY Online.
(Copyright © 2009, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Exposure to pornography is routine among children and young people, with a range of notable and often troubling effects. Particularly among younger children, exposure to pornography may be disturbing or upsetting. Exposure to pornography helps to sustain young people’s adherence to sexist and unhealthy notions of sex and relationships. And, especially among boys and young men who are frequent consumers of pornography, including of more violent materials, consumption intensifies attitudes supportive of sexual coercion and increases their likelihood of perpetrating assault. While children and young people are sexual beings and deserve age-appropriate materials on sex and sexuality, pornography is a poor, and indeed dangerous, sex educator.

The pleasure is momentary…the expense damnable?: The influence of pornography on rape and sexual assault.
Ferguson CJ, Hartley RD. Aggression and Violence Behavior 2009; 14(5): 323-329.
Click here for a link to the article on the journal’s web site.
(Copyright © 2009, Elsevier Publishing)

The effects of pornography, whether violent or non-violent, on sexual aggression have been debated for decades. The current review examines evidence about the influence of pornography on sexual aggression in correlational and experimental studies and in real world violent crime data. Evidence for a causal relationship between exposure to pornography and sexual aggression is slim and may, at certain times, have been exaggerated by politicians, pressure groups and some social scientists. Some of the debate has focused on violent pornography, but evidence of any negative effects is inconsistent, and violent pornography is comparatively rare in the real world. Victimization rates for rape in the United States demonstrate an inverse relationship between pornography consumption and rape rates. Data from other nations have suggested similar relationships. Although these data cannot be used to determine that pornography has a cathartic effect on rape behavior, combined with the weak evidence in support of negative causal hypotheses from the scientific literature, it is concluded that it is time to discard the hypothesis that pornography contributes to increased sexual assault behavior.