I wrote to John Howards government quite a few times on the porn/sex crime connection and all I got back was a graph or a discussion on the degrees of censorship.
It was such a HUGE! cop-out.
Why is no one looking into the connection between the two?
Is there a study going on?
What do think tanks do if they dont look into social distress?
Victims of rape and molestation will know where the trouble lies. Will Kevin Rudd take up the call for an indepth investigation?
Would you like to tell us what your vision of the world of the tomorrow regards pornography is?
I think its important that a data collection begin...somewhere, anywhere.

because what you're saying is horseshit. there is nothing wrong with pornography. at all.

Well said Steel.

There are reports, plenty of them. They just don't say what you want to hear, Gibo, and that is that porn is pretty harmless.

But you don't want to be told you're just plain wrong. So you ask, where's the studies?

Did you even read the most recent OLO porn article? The opening paragraph is:

"Subsidised by the Howard Government’s Australia Research Council, “senior academic researchers” Katherine Albury, Alan McKee and Catharine Lumby embarked on the “Understanding Pornography in Australia” research project, and The Porn Book is the result of their findings."

And the author of the OLO article, Ms Gambotto Burke, didn't like what she was hearing either, so she worked up some indignation and pumped out a few hundred words of anti-porn polemic, with no real facts to back her case, just a series of emotive anecdotes and phrases.

So yes Gibo, there are studies. They just say what the rest of us know - porn isn't the evil conservatives pretend it is.

But of course, I don't expect studies or things like practicality or common sense to get in the way of a good self-righteous rant on the sinfulness of porn or even non-marital sex, or heaven forbid, homosexuality.

I posted this link on the other thread

http://www.porn-report.com/402-performers-in-pornography.htm

Nature of the Evidence

"Caution is dictated, too, because there have been to our knowledge almost no "scientific" investigations into the background of participants in pornography or its effects on them afterwards.[965] Such investigations would certainly be extremely difficult-perhaps impossible-to design and conduct given the clandestine character of the pornography industry. Reliable conclusions about the number and characteristics of performers in pornography will likely remain as difficult to reach as, for example, solid estimates of the number and characteristics of illegal aliens.[966]"

conclusions

"The approach we propose in this area is a cautious but urgent one. Caution we believe to be required from the incomplete character of the evidence currently available. Urgency, however, arises from the extremely serious nature of the harms apparently being inflicted on many young and vulnerable people. Both of these interests will be best served, we believe, if federal and state governments initiate thorough investigations-by agencies or committees possessed of substantial resources and full subpoena powers-of the use of "models." "

If you want more, read the whole thing yourselves.

Basically, one should not legislate for something based on anecdotal hunches or emotional knee-jerks, it tends to give the impression that government is messing people around for the sake of it, which rightly, hinders their re-electability.

Gibo, the link to australian research has already been discussed.

Particularly telling is research in the USA which provides very strong circumstantial evidence showing that access to porn reduces rates of sexual assaults.

If the research is accurate the anti-porn lobby is in effect supporting a stance which increases the risk of sexual violence in society.

Todd Kendall's paper
http://www.toddkendall.net/internetcrime.pdf

Some summary articles
http://www.slate.com/id/2152487/
http://www.reason.com/news/show/123330.html

http://libertus.net/censor/studies2.html#GovInq

Some material on violence in the media and it's impacts
http://libertus.net/censor/studies.html

R0bert

This endless hand-wringing about porn is quite interesting, isn't it?

Personally, I mostly find porn pretty boring, and I'm not at all interested in the violent and gross stuff. However, as long as everybody involved in making and watching it are consenting adults I really can't see any great problem with it.

I find myself in general agreement on this issue with several with whom I often disagree - mostly because I think we all share a passion for freedom of speech and expression. And that's a good thing, I think.

People who don't like pornography and erotica shouldn't look at it, nor participate in its production. Of course they're entitled to voice their disapproval, but it is quite tiresome to those of us with broader minds than theirs.