Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site ihlpg.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ihlpg!tan
From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Porn and Rape: a social disease
Message-ID: <1306@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 01:02:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1306
Posted: Thu Sep 26 01:02:59 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 04:46:31 EDT
References: <10000008@orstcs.UUCP> <547@lasspvax.UUCP> <1695@watdcsu.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 43

> >(Cheryl Stewart)
> >Oh, and the Tobacco industry has maintained for years that no causal
> >relation between cigarrette smoking and lung cancer has ever been medically
> >demonstrated.  Sure, the sociological studies have only shown a high 
> >statistical correlation between pornography and rape in neighborhood-
> >by-neighborhood studies.  But, just as doctors have not PROVEN HOW 
> >cigarrette smoking causes lung cancer, sociologists have not PROVEN HOW
> >pornography causes rape.  So the porn-mongers have a cute, technical
> >excuse to cover up the ill effect they have on society.
-----
> [David Canzi]
> There are important differences between the (smoking):(lung cancer)
> evidence and the (porn):(rape) evidence.  When something (A) is
> strongly correlated with something else (B), there are three possible
> explanations: A causes B, or B causes A, or some third thing (C)
> causes both A and B.
> 
> In the case of smoking and cancer, it's ridiculous to suggest that
> cancer causes smoking (causes are supposed to *precede* effects,
> right?), and nobody's ever come up with anything that might predispose
> a person to both smoking and lung cancer.
> 
> In the case of pornography and rape, it is at least plausible that the
> feelings that can lead a man to commit rape can also lead him to enjoy
> pornography, especially rape fantasies.  Only if this possibility is
> shown inadequate to account for whatever correlation exists can you
> conclude that pornography causes rape.
---------
There are two other flaws in Cheryl Stewart's argument that David
Canzi does not touch on.
1) The statistical correlation between
rape and pornography has not been conclusively shown, unlike the
overwhelming correlation between smoking and lung cancer.
David's arguments only become relevant AFTER such a correlation
is established.
2) The great variety in pornography, ranging from depictions of
non-violent consensual behavior to those of brutal violence.
The chemicals in one brand of cigarette, on the other hand, are not
very different from those in another brand.  Any study showing the
effects of pornography on behavior had better study each genre of
pornography separately.
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan