"Maybe aliens made them do it" (or would you consider 'porn'?)

[bloom]

Experts are atwitter about that gang of St. Louis first- and second-grade schoolboys who sexually assaulted an 8-year-old female classmate. These boys are 6-8 years old. How could they get such an idea? I mean, it’s not like we live in a rape culture where women are assaulted every day and the victims of gang rape are typically depicted as sluts who asked for it. It’s not like the men who commit gang rape are routinely defended as fine upstanding young men just having a good time.

St. Louis school superintendent Creg Williams, who is here as part of a job-exchange program with the Andromeda Galaxy, asked, “How is it this kind of thing is even in the minds of young men?”

Well, Creg, it is hard to understand. Sexual assault is exceedingly rare here on planet Earth, and cases where groups of males attack lone females are almost unknown. But a number of people are offering theories on where the kids may have gotten the idea....

Okay, if that seems a little far-fetched, another theory is that kids act out the sexual abuse they themselves receive at home. That would make sense, except that experts say that a lot of young kids who act out sexually nowadays really aren’t the victims of abuse. Paul Tamiseiea, director of Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault in Kansas City, says:

“I’ve been with MOCSA for 17 years. When I first started out, the natural, logical assumption was that kids who acted out sexually were likely to have been victims themselves … but you can’t make that blanket assumption anymore. We’ve dealt with kids acting out and saying they saw it in Dad’s porn.”
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/14549589.htm

http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/?p=258

More from "Sex assaults by children set off experts’ alarms":

They even have a term: sexually reactive behavior.

“The fact that a group of kids would get together and sexually assault another child — that is alarming, but it is happening more,” said Joseph Beck, director of therapy services at Spofford Home, a Kansas City nonprofit that treats young children with severe emotional problems.

....But experts now worry about some children “acting out” because of the proliferation of sexuality on the Internet and in graphic video games, on cable TV and in their parents’ stash of explicit DVDs.

“Things are getting crazy. How’s that for a psychological assessment?” said Paul Tamisiea, director of treatment and intervention services at the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault in Kansas City.

Others recommend that parents –– besides talking to their children about good touching and bad touching –– monitor their time on the Internet, in front of the TV and at the video game console. The more exposure to sexual violence, many believe, the less apt children are to view it as abnormal.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/14549589.htm

[mongo]

1. It's all porn's fault

because rape didn't exist untill the first issue of Playboy was published.

Why is it that several studies have shown that rape has declined as sexually oriented materials become more common? That when countries like Denmark legalized pornography, the amount of sexual assaults decreased?

Porn is nothing more than entertainment. But in this country with such prudish attitudes about sex, it's no wonder that porn becomes a convienent scapegoat.

[bloom]

2. And corruption in government didn't exist before Bush* ?

So why are we here (at DU)?

We expect something better.

Not all cultures have been rape cultures.

People can choose to promote the rape culture or they can choose not to.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. "Not all cultures have been rape cultures"

What does that mean?

[bloom]

5. It's not inevitable

Some people justify promoting the rape culture by insisting on it's inevitability.

It's not.

There are cultures where men and women are considered to be equal that have had little rape. And then TV was introduced and things changed.

See:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~psanday/rapea.html

----------

From "Finding the Threads"

http://bitingbeaver.blogspot.com/

Let’s assume that beginning tomorrow all the men in CEO positions are demoted. Let’s assume that all the men in government are forced out and they have to work in the fields that women dominate. All the high paying jobs are now women’s in the same proportions that they have been for women all these years. All the stay at home mothers are suddenly given their husbands jobs.

Let’s take it a step farther. As of tomorrow all of the strippers are now men, all the prostitutes are now men. All of the stores in the world have reversed what they sell, men are expected to wear dresses to work and pantyhose and thongs. Men have to pay for haircuts, dye their hair, shave their legs and wax their genitalia.

Men are the victims of unsolicited grabbing and hollering and visual harassment. Men are taking it up the ass in pornography and everywhere men are forced to get penile implants, washboard ab surgery and botox in their faces. Men are suddenly relegated to objects, they’re the waitresses, the Wal-Mart clerks and the single parents. Men, and every job associated with men, suddenly devalues. Suddenly rapes happen almost exclusively to men, they have to watch themselves at all times. They are told to dress seductively but not be whores. Sex is all about female orgasm.

If they don’t put on makeup and fix their hair people talk behind their hands and say, “Oh, he must be depressed. Why doesn’t he take care of himself!” Men’s swimsuits are all speedos and they are expected not only to wear them, but to look good in them as well. They have to succumb to backrubs from their female bosses even if they don’t want them. They have to squeeze their feet into high heeled shoes and totter around all day. Suddenly men’s basketball is used as filler between the more important female sports. The President is female; the leading military officials are all female. DV rates soar and men are flocking to shelters like women do now.

...If it were the wonderful, equal and happy system that they proclaim it is why wouldn’t they accept it?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. "TV was introduced and things changed."

Can't tell if this is a bad joke.

[bloom]

9. well - read the link then. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. Yeah, I read the link.

It has me thinking that this is, unfortunately, not a bad joke.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. dupe

deleted

[mongo]

4. And yet the data shows sexual assault going down as porn

becomes more mainstream:

They why has sexual assault decreased (in adults) as porn has become more mainstreme?

Feminists for Free Expression counter the argument that pornography promotes violence against women by stating that, "Studies in the U.S., Europe and Asia find no link between the availability of sexual material and sex crimes. The only factor linked to rape rate is the number of young men living in a given area. When pornography became widely available in Europe, sexually violent crimes decreased or remained the same. Japan, with far more violent pornography than the U.S., has 2.4 rapes per 100,000 people compared with the U.S. 34.5 per 100,000". People who say that porn is responsible for the many violent attacks that take place on women every year are probably the same people who claim that rock music makes kids shoot their classmates. There are evil people in this world who are going to do these things whether or not porn exists and, in this modern 'blame culture' of ours, some people are just determined to find someone or something to take the flak for it.

------------------------------------------
What if you went looking for the harmful effects of the very worst kinds of pornography -- and they weren't there?

That's what happened to Canada Customs when it paid researchers to study customs officials who spend up to 15 hours a week reading and viewing material that goes well beyond erotica or even so-called hard-core porn.

Noted the researchers: "Their work most often focuses on materials of an extreme nature which deal with clearly unacceptable sexual activities such as incest, children in a sexual context, necrophilia, bestiality, and sex involving violence, bondage and degradation." Their study of 90 officers found:

* repeated exposure to such graphic pornography had little or no measurable harmful effect on the officers, 40 per cent of whom were female.

* only half of the customs officers who regularly review graphic pornographic books, magazines and films support banning sexual materials featuring violence and degradation -- the current Canadian law.

* one in six of the customs officers use pornography in their private lives; nearly half have in the past.

---------------------------------------------------------

Of course, if porn really is such a danger to society, the effort might be worth it. The problem is, the research doesn’t support the worry. And if recent studies by Danish psychologist Gert Martin Hald of the University of Aarhus stand up, it’s not likely to.

Hald recently conducted a yet-to-be-published study on the usage of porn by men and women in Denmark that showed porn has become a part of the sexual lives of most people.

In a representative sampling of 688 young people aged 18 to 30, he found that 98 percent of men and 80 percent of women had viewed porn. About half of those women used it at least once per month. Men used it much more often. About 38 percent of men used it three times per week or more, which makes you wonder what these guys do for a living.

We’re not talking Playboy, either. Hald didn’t count such images as pornography. For the purposes of the study, porn included “any kind of material which aims to create or enhance sexual feelings or thoughts in the recipient and, at the same time, (a) contains explicit exposure and/or descriptions of the genitals and (b) clear and explicit sexual acts such as vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, oral sex, masturbation, bondage, sadomasochism, rape..." (Interestingly, this is pretty close to the definition used in many obscenity statutes.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The "Danish experience" is often held up as good example.

In 1969 Denmark lifted all restrictions on pornography, and sex crimes declined. For example, between 1965 and 1982 sex crimes against children went from 30 per 100,000 to about 5 per 100,000. Similar evidence was found for rape rates.

----------------------------------------------------------------

So how does that fit into your "rape culture" theory?

[bloom]

8. "So how does that fit into your "rape culture" theory?"

You mean that some men did a study that showed that porn has no effects.

I don't think that necessarily means anything.

And from someone who is proud of selling porn - it means even less.


Hald:
"But it didn't, of course, and some lab studies did show that exposure to especially violent or degrading porn beefed up male aggressiveness toward women, though a link with actual crime was tough to prove.

But Hald...says, “I strongly believe social context norms are factors influencing the effects of pornography and consumption rates.”

_____

So that really isn't proving your point. He may be suggesting the porn is part of the larger society - which I agree with. That doesn't mean it doesn't contribute to the rape culture.

[mongo]

12. Well, since you state that you only believe studies you agree with

There really isn't much more to talk about, right?

You mean that some men did a study that showed that porn has no effects.

Geesh.

[seabeyond]

11. young men?”....... firstly they are NOT young MEN. they are BOYS

i have had issue with this day one listening to people call 4 year olds, young men. inevitably i am correcting adult in front of my boys, no they are not good young men, they are good BOYS. i never let that slide. again i think this is feeding the older before they are ready bullshit. they are NOT to act like MEN. they are to act like BOYS. one of my pet peeves

and children acting out what they have personally experienced. i have seen otherwise with my niece. people on this board insist that she was abused and i didnt know. had to be. no i say, knowing my niece and all on this board not knowing my niece. but still it was insisted that she was abused. what did happen was she had an inappropriate sexual environment that she was raised in. the programs and tv was not monitored. mother and father used sexuality in manipulating each other. and yes porn.

porn is adult.

porn is not for kids

those advocating for porn agree. it is an adult world. not a childs world.

porn is in the childs life.

i want porn out of childs life. it is not healthy, it is not productive and it fucks up their learning curve in their own sexuality, in their time, in age appropriateness.

i believe this firmly

this is nto an attack on the ADULT porn world. it is an attack on feeding porn to children