When I lived in the United States I once went to a debate between Arlen Specter, a crusading district attorney, and an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer. Specter talked about unsavoury pornographic images and writing and how damaging they were.

The ACLU lawyer got up and recounted worthwhile things Specter had done in curbing organised crime and nabbing corrupt politicians. Specter visibly swelled with pride. Then the lawyer asked Specter if he had looked at and was familiar with all the types of pornography he had mentioned.

Specter answered, "Yes."

The lawyer then said, "Doesn't seem to have hurt you a bit."

Runner, I have never had a secretary, but I was having deep, dark depraved fantasies about other people's secretaries long before I discovered porn. Oddly enough, I never attempted to carry them out, because it occurred to me that, being real and people and not fictional characters, they might object. Anyone who can't make that simple distinction has worse problems, it seems to me, than merely dysfunctional sexual urges.

As for Dines, she seems to have done a remarkably good job of covering up her ideological roots, but the old adage: 'Scratch a bigot and you find a theist' seems very likely to hold true for her as well.

Immature, low status young males are the very ones who have the most trouble attracting a female, and it is this demographic group, that much of the sexually explicit media portraying women as "hoes" or body parts, is specifically engineered to appeal to.

Poorly socialised, often fatherless young boys of low intelligence are being presented with a media gererated image of women that portrays all women as nymphomaniacs lusting after the devotions of a male who treats them like dirt. It is not surprising that it is also this demographic group who are most at risk of getting into trouble by emulating the behaviour of their violent and mysogynist male on screen heroes.

Teaching poorly socialised and inadequate young men, who are very concerned about their poor self image, that a Real Man regards women as just meat for sex, is not a smart thing to do. Having our media reinforce the message and that treating women badly is the hallmark of a strong personality, not a weak one, will guarantee that men from this low socio economic group will continue to be be more prone to committing serious sexual crimes than men from other groups who display more intelligence and maturity.

Lego, I would like to see the research that proves your claims. Pornography is consumed across all socio economic groups. Violence against women is perpetrated across all socio economic groups. I don't think this is a class issue. One of the failures of the media effects research is the premise that the research subjects are unintelligent and immature.
Jennifer.

Briar Rose, I am not a fan of any pornography, but I wonder what came first, the feelings of 'naughty' lust or the pornography?

Lust has been around for an eternity I would suggest. Many humans naturally feel lust, and many reserve it for their own partners.
Others fantasize about other people- be that real people around them, or people in pictures or on films etc.
Not all people in the latter category go out and rape or kill others though do they? Yet some people from the first category apparently have done as well.

What of all the rapes, paedophilia and sexual abuse that happened in our world BEFORE the days of widespread pornography? Surely that must mean that there are other reasons why some people are driven to these crimes?

Sure, we hear about the dreadful pornographic tapes or other materials found in the possession of some people who have committed terrible crimes, but what came first? Was it the deviant mind, or the pornography?

How come we don't have rampant sexual criminals all over the place, what with the mountain of sexually based media material so readily available to all these days? Why don't ALL people who ever viewed pornography rush out and commit sexually based crimes?

How do we justify denigrating the media in cases where young sex-based criminals were brought up in very strict religious homes where sex was considered 'dirty' and never spoken about, let alone shown anywhere in pictures or films?

I would suggest these sort of criminals have a whole lot of other issues that drove them to be like they are.

suzeonline, I totally agree with your post.

What's interesting, as you point out, is that while we live in a world where we are subjected to more images of all kinds than ever before, there isn't a corresponding amount, or even a great increase in the amount of violence and sexual violence. In fact, in 2010 in the US as an example FBI crime statistics dropped, while the purchase of guns for protection increased dramatically. This suggests that perhaps the media inspires fear, rather than acting out of violence? Interesting.