(no subject)

[theweaselking]

In Japan, the dramatic increase in availability of pornography has accompanied a similarly dramatic DECREASE in rape and other sexual crime.

Study's from 1999, but it's a 30-year ongoing continuous trend at that point.

Comments

[anivair.livejournal.com]

In other news: Dog bites man!

What did the Japanese think would happen when you repress natural sexuality? jesus, when are people going to get this. Suppress human instincts = wrongbad problems.

Don't just tell people not to think about sex and expect them not to end up on TV trying to tell their wife's tits in a lineup or (closer to home) blowing altar boys. jesus, people.

accept your humanity and address it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Uh, the Japanese have greatly *increased* pornography and greatly *decreased* rape.

They've got moral crusaders saying it's wrongbadfun, but those people *have lost* and the evidence shows that, as any sane person knew, "moral" is the same as "stupid".

Forget what the JAPANESE were thinking. Consider what the fuck *you're* thinking when you let illiterates like Baptists make policy.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

He's not disagreeing with you, John.

[madfishmonger.livejournal.com]

Rape is more often about power and control, and less about sex. Certainly having sexual outlets available doesn't hurt, but there is little in the form of an outlet for power and control.
There is also the issue of reporting rapes and sexual assaults. Many are committed by family or friends, and often accompanied with threats, among the many reasons someone would not report an incident. I would like to see statistics referring to the number of rapes reported, and I'm curious as to the societal response to rape; is the victim supported or shamed? is the aggressor vilified or ignored?

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this kind of research is notorious for not separating confounding variables. Drawing causational inferences is ridiculously problematic in sociology because of the difficulty in setting up ethical experiments. Usually the best you can hope for is a high r.

ETA: Also, there are a lot of weasel words in the discussion section of the link. >:\

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jeremiad/]

Another issue is that this study using police reports for the rape data. If Japan is anything like America, then rape is going to be underreported and therefore underrepresented in police files.

While interesting, there's still the matter of correlation does not equal causation.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Correspondence indicated, not causation.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

The discussion section is trying really hard to point at causation without actually outright saying it. (Interpretation is usually where sociological studies go off the rails attempting to make the data fit with the writers' preconceptions, anyway.)

Plus what everyone else said about police reports being a laughable source of rape statistics.

[faeriemuriel.livejournal.com]

Surely doesn't help that Japan has a much blurrier line between rape and consent (or: when is Prince Genji a folk hero or a serial rapist?)

[ryusen.livejournal.com]

It's not tht the lines are blurred, i think it's more than the woman would be more ashamed of herself and society would very likely put a large burden of guilt on her.

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

They're running up against the other end of that problem right now - routine overwork plus trivially-available porn means no children.

[rgovrebo.livejournal.com]

How can you tell from reading it?

[anivair.livejournal.com]

That's my point. Increase porn and decrease rape (and other issues). Because increased access to porn means less demonizing of sexual urges, which is always a good thing.

What I meant was that the previous situation (where the Japanese tried pretty hard to make sex a weird taboo while still being obsessed with it) created a very strange repression over there. So I think this is a vast improvement.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

I'll grant you that it's written rather poorly, but the first line was the big Clue.