The only only problem is: according to this data, the correlation is inverse. The more pornography, the less rape. “...since the mainstreaming of porn into American lives in the early 70s, ...the incidence of rape per capita has declined by an astonishing 85%.” The data apparently ties it specifically to the internet. Since 1980, the four states with “the lowest internet access” have seen “per capita percentage” increase in rape of “53%”. The four states with the highest internet access have seen a decrease in rape of 27%. The person reporting this finds “these results to be statistically significant beyond the .95 confidence interval.”
I don’t know what that means statistically, and I’m not qualified to consider the quality of the data (although Mark Twain’s comments are always in the back of one’s mind). I’m interested in what a teacher would call the “reflection questions:”
If lessening rape is a social good, and it can be shown that the availability of pornography lessens the incidence of rape, is pornography good?
If pornography turns out to be a social good, is it a moral good?
How do we make a public argument for immorality of pornography? Is there is “natural law” against pornography? What would be its grounds?
There’s always Jason Byassee’s profound reflection http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/12/001-not-your-fathers-pornography-12 , but how do condense that to a few pithy sentences that convey a pungent, “you shall not...”? (A preacher’s “sound bite?”) Not everyone can find erotic beauty in a Trappist monastery to sublimate their physical needs, or master their sexual passions by serving in a soup kitchen. The connection between religious passion and sexual passion is all too obvious—Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard being examples in evangelical circles (other communities have their own object lessons), and Byassee’s solution (if such it is meant to be) is perhaps too subtle.
But at least he knows—if I read him correctly—that religious communities must stop using utilitarian arguments to buttress their public appeals.
This a repeat of three-year old data, but some columnist picked it up again , and Instapundit linked to it, so I suppose that makes it fresh news: the availability of pornography and the incidence of rape is correlated.
The only only problem is: according to this data, the correlation is inverse. The more pornography, the less rape. “...since the mainstreaming of porn into American lives in the early 70s, ...the incidence of rape per capita has declined by an astonishing 85%.” The data apparently ties it specifically to the internet. Since 1980, the four states with “the lowest internet access” have seen “per capita percentage” increase in rape of “53%”. The four states with the highest internet access have seen a decrease in rape of 27%. The person reporting this finds “these results to be statistically significant beyond the .95 confidence interval.”
I don’t know what that means “statistically,” and I’m not qualified to consider the quality of the data (although Mark Twain’s comments are always in the back of one’s mind). I’m interested in what a teacher would call the “reflection questions:”
- If lessening rape is a social good, and it can be shown that the availability of pornography lessens the incidence of rape, is pornography good?
- If pornography turns out to be a social good, is it a moral good?
- How do we make a public argument for immorality of pornography? Is there is “natural law” against pornography? What would be its grounds?
There’s always Jason Byassee’s profound reflection, but how do we condense that to a few pithy sentences that convey a pungent, “you shall not...”? (A preacher’s “sound bite?”) Not everyone can find erotic beauty in a Trappist monastery to sublimate their physical needs, or master their sexual passions by serving in a soup kitchen. The connection between religious passion and sexual passion is all too obvious—Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard being examples in evangelical circles (other communities have their own object lessons)—and Byassee’s solution (if such it is meant to be) is perhaps too subtle.
But at least he knows—if I read him correctly—that religious communities must stop using utilitarian arguments to buttress their public appeals.
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