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a Total number of pornography sub-genre Google generated Webpages in 2010 (accessed 15 December, 2010).
b Average number of global monthly Google searches in 2010: Data specific to Keyword Match Type (derived from Google AdWords, calculated 15 December, 2010).
c Number of Google AdWords searches publicly restricted. However Google Trends reports juvenile sex search terms were, by far, the most popular of all requests in 2010 (derived from Google Trends, calculated on 20 December, 2010).
The mere parallel between deviant sexual pathology and popular pornography sub-themes does not warrant the conclusion that one is determined by the other. According to Kingston et al. (2008) other relevant moderating variables, such as family background and transient emotional states, may also contribute to an individual’s predisposition in relation to sexualised media. Yet, the socially corrosive power of unregulated commercialised pornography is clearly acknowledged throughout scientific literature.
Not only does pornography activate and reinforce inappropriate cognitive representations (fostering sexual preoccupation), repeated exposure to pornography has been found to “help shape an individual’s fantasies, perceptions, rationalizations, and deeper core beliefs” (Kingston et al., 2008, p. 349). Empirical studies[62] into the effects of pornography have consistently shown that the degradation encouraged by pornography encourages negative attitudes and dominant behaviours towards women, including the heightened proclivity towards coercive sex. This is especially true of pornography that advocates aggression and violence towards women, which, based on findings that aggression rates in pornographic scenes have nearly tripled in recent years (Bridges et al., 2010), can be considered the overwhelming majority.
According to social, operant, and classical learning theories,[63] consumers model what they learn from sexually explicit media when the sexual acts they observe are positively reinforced. Most disturbingly, Bridges et al. (2010), found that when aggressed against, 95.9% of female pornography actors responded with approving (expressions of pleasure) or condoning (expressions of neutrality) responses.[64] To the extent that consumers of mainstream pornography learn that verbal and physical sexual aggression is rewarding, they are more likely to incorporate coercive aggression in their own sexual encounters. An overwhelming number of empirical studies have now established a significant relationship between the consumption of sexually explicit media and sexual delinquency. Irrespective of additional mediating/moderating variables, pornography contributes directly to pro-sexual-offending attitudes, intimate relationship difficulties, sexual callousness, disinterest in the suffering of others, and desensitisation to violence against women, acceptance of male dominance and female servitude, leniency toward rapists in legal proceedings, accepting various rape myths (that rape can be justified), self-assessed proclivity to force sex on women, and the direct instigation of sexual assault (Dèttore and Giannelli, 2008; Marshall, 2000; Waltman, 2008). Pornography has been rendered “instrumentally causal in the aetiology of sex offending” (Itzin, 2002, p. 21).
Violence against women is a human rights violation, yet the industry that fuels the production and distribution of pornography continues unabated in the denigration of women and the indirect facilitation of the most heinous of crimes. Meta-analyses of published research show consistent and reliable evidence that exposure to explicitly violent as well as so-called non-violent pornography has a direct influence on gender violence. This is true not only for adults, but also minors. In one study, an overwhelming majority (97%) of juvenile sex offenders disclosed their involvement with pornography (Wieckowski et al., 1998). It has also been demonstrated that juvenile sex offenders who consume pornography have a greater propensity to engage in rape, forced oral or digital penetration, verbal aggression, exhibitionism and bestiality (Alexy et al., 2009). In fact, research into developmental harm from pornography exposure is so conclusive, that the empirical literature now considers it to be beyond question (Oddone–Paolucci et al., 2000).
Juvenile sex crime victims are also exposed to pornography by perpetrators in an endeavour to normalise sexual behaviours and facilitate subsequent grooming. Research studies conducted with child sex offenders (convicted for indecent assault, rape and buggery) have repeatedly found pornography to be used as part of the crime, with prevalence rates ranging from 33% (Elliot et al., 1995) to 55% (Langevin and Curnoe, 2004). Yet just as sex offenders groom their victims, so it appears the pornography industry inconspicuously grooms consumers. With pornography gaining unrestricted access into the homes and minds of ordinary people, more than at any other time in human history, unsuspecting consumers are undeniably conditioned. Therefore, it is reprehensible for policy makers to remain idle on the issue of pornography. Based on the empirical research reviewed in this chapter, it could well be argued that to produce, distribute, consume, or even passively condone pornography, is to endorse sexual violence against women. The discrepancy between the sex industry’s spin about ‘sexual freedom’ and our actual human liberty is so great that it is legitimate to suggest Legman’s ideology has ultimately become ‘Make war not love’.
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5 Theories developed and made popular by Ivan Pavlov (1927/1960), Burrhus Skinner (1953) and Alan Bandura (1977).