EFFECTS OF EROTICA: STUDIES OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
Posted by admin on April 6, 2009 under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction | 
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The behavioral effects of exposure to erotica have been difficult to demonstrate despite the oft-voiced concerns of conporns that such material leads directly to social, moral, and mental decay. There are no studies in the literature surveyed which document adverse behavioral effects of pornography on general or specific population groups. Social behavior is a complex outcome of a complex interaction of almost innumerable variables. To argue that a single factor, such as exposure to pornography, can have a profound effect on such a complex set of behavioral responses is simplistic sophistry.
Most scientific studies have attempted to isolate specific types or instances of behavior and to relate them to exposure to erotica, or they have tried to assess the relative contribution of erotica, in concert with other factors, to predict categories of behavior.
The question of the relationship between erotica and antisocial behavior is an important one. It is, however, difficult to research because of the very high levels of exposure in the general public and the relatively low levels of antisocial behavior. Retrospective analysis is highly vulnerable to ascertainment bias, and prospective studies would require unacceptable levels of surveillance of unwieldly numbers over excessive lengths of time.
Despite the difficulties of defining a relationship between antisocial behavior and erotica, both laboratory and survey studies have provided interesting data.
Kutchinsky has made several careful survey studies of the effects of easy availability of pornography on the incidence of sex crimes in Denmark. Very substantial decreases in four specific categories of sex crimes—exhibitionism, peeping (voyeurism), physical indecency towards women, and physical indecency towards girls—were noted in Copenhagen after 1964. Some detractors of Kutchinsky’s data have stated erroneously that the number of crimes decreased because dissemination of pornography was no longer counted as a sex crime; others noted that sex crimes had been declining before 1964. The first objection is patently false, since only four specific categories of crimes were considered both before and after the change in availability of pornography. The second objection has more merit, but the decline before 1964 was irregular and gradual, and the decline afterwards was steady and substantial—the data clearly show two different slopes.
The decreases in exhibitionism and voyeurism found in Kutchinsky’s data could, in part, be attributed to changes in police attitudes or in the victims’ motivation to report such crimes. The change in public attitudes toward exhibitionism, as assessed in a representative sample survey of Copenhagen residents, was sufficient to account for any change in the reported incidence. Therefore, one cannot conclude that the reduction in this category was solely because of the availability of pornography. Changes in police attitudes could have accounted for the decreased incidence of reporting voyeurism.
The decline in reported incidence of physical indecency towards women also could be due to changes in attitudes toward “nonserious” incidents. No change in reported incidence of rape was found. One should keep in mind, however, that there are fewer rapes in Copenhagen in one year than there are in one weekend in New York City.
The category of crimes against children showed a fifty-six-percent decrease (from thirty-six to sixteen) in 1965, the first year in which hard-core pornographic picture magazines appeared in Denmark. This change could not be attributed to changes in public or police attitudes, to changes in methods of reporting nor to local changes since the figures for the country as a whole dropped from 220 crimes in 1965 to 87 by 1969.
Kutchinsky concluded that “the high availability of hard-core pornography in Denmark was most probably the very direct cause of a considerable decrease in . . . child molestation”. Perhaps more importantly, the number of recidivists for all sex crimes has decreased as much as the number of first offenders.
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