Wasn’t there a study done about how rates of sexual assault dropped in counties in proportion to home internet access, when the internet was becoming a thing? The hypothesis being, giving violent people access to free internet porn reduced their desire to assault others quite so much. I feel like this could generalize?
I’m sure there’s a case to be made, and my intuitions map yours, as I remember another study suggesting that countries with legal access to sex workers reduces incidences of sexual assault.
However, we know of opposing psychological frameworks like the porn desensitisation pipeline, and seeking increasingly hardcore porn over time.
Thats not to imply that exposure to porn is turning people into pedophiles, but there are a subset of people who are predisposed to reckless behaviour, and that’s not even mentioning the delusional plotlines hentai normalises about rape victims eventually loving it, and how those perspectives can influence thought patterns of those who are more suggestible.
The hard answer is: both
There are some people for whom such material would inspire actuating on their fantasies, and for others, act like a pressure release valve.
The real question is: in a utilitarian sense, does it reliably produce less suffering?
Wasn’t there a study done about how rates of sexual assault dropped in counties in proportion to home internet access, when the internet was becoming a thing? The hypothesis being, giving violent people access to free internet porn reduced their desire to assault others quite so much. I feel like this could generalize?
I’m sure there’s a case to be made, and my intuitions map yours, as I remember another study suggesting that countries with legal access to sex workers reduces incidences of sexual assault.
However, we know of opposing psychological frameworks like the porn desensitisation pipeline, and seeking increasingly hardcore porn over time.
Thats not to imply that exposure to porn is turning people into pedophiles, but there are a subset of people who are predisposed to reckless behaviour, and that’s not even mentioning the delusional plotlines hentai normalises about rape victims eventually loving it, and how those perspectives can influence thought patterns of those who are more suggestible.
The very same argument can be made for violence in media too though. imo it’s the exact same discussion as “do video games cause violence”