Li Yinhe talks about sex

Chapter 22 Obscenity and Sexual Crimes

The consumption of obscene materials not only does not increase the rate of sexual crimes, but has the function of reducing the rate of sexual crimes.

In countries all over the world, where there is an anti-obscenity law, one of the reasons for legislation is that obscenity will lead to an increase in sexual crimes.Empirical surveys show that this judgment is wrong, and there is no positive correlation between pornography and sexual crimes.Conversely, the consumption of obscene materials not only does not lead to an increase in the rate of sex crimes, but also leads to a decline in the rates of certain types of sex crimes.Empirical investigations have shown that the function of pornography is mainly to provide sexual information.For entertainment and to improve the quality of sex life, there is no causal relationship with sexual crimes.Although common sense holds that pornography will lead to an increase in the rate of sex crimes, empirical surveys have repeatedly shown that male sex offenders are less exposed to pornography than the average male.There was no direct relationship between the level and frequency of pornography consumption and the level of sexual crime and violence.

The same conclusion can be drawn outside the laboratory, in experiments in the big "laboratory" of society.The most convincing example of this is that in Japan, where pornography with violent content (including rape content) is within the limits of social norms, the rape rate is only 1/16 of that in the United States.In the former West Germany, after the legalization of obscene and pornographic materials, the sex crime rate not only did not increase, but dropped significantly.In the UK, sex crimes have risen sharply since strict restrictions on videotaping, film content and public exposure of nudity were introduced and 500 sex shops were subsequently closed.

Anti-pornography campaigners like to point to Japan as an example of the relationship between pornography and sex crimes, pointing to a drop in rape rates after pornography laws were tightened.But they didn't notice that although Japan's control over pornography is strict, it differs greatly from the West in terms of the control scale of pornographic content.Among those controlled sales of pornography, which included the most "violent" content, bondage, domination, subjugation, and torture dominated legal pornography in Japan.

There are also quantitative investigations that provide strong evidence for the assertion that there is no relationship between sex crimes and pornography.According to a quantitative survey in the United States, the rape rate in Missouri is higher than that in Kansas, but the per capita consumption of pornographic magazines in Kansas is twice that of Missouri; the per capita consumption of obscene materials in Mississippi is the lowest in the United States, but Its rape rate is higher than 2 other states.After adding the third factor, the “violent tendency” factor in the correlation analysis, the correlation between the sales of obscene pornographic materials and the rape rate completely disappears, which proves that men with violent tendencies are related to the consumption of sex magazines and There was a positive relationship between women's aggression; there was no relationship between pornography consumption and rape rates.

In 1967, Denmark implemented the full legalization of obscenity. In the past four or five years, a large number of obscene and pornographic materials have been on the market, and people can easily buy obscene materials in the market, including teenagers.Judging from the reporting of sexual crimes in Copenhagen, the impact of pornography on sexual crimes shows a significant drop in the rate of various sexual crimes, for example: rape crimes fell by 16%; exposure fell by 58%; children fell by 80 percent; other violations against women fell by 63 percent.These data strongly prove that the consumption of obscene materials not only does not increase the rate of sexual crimes, but has the function of reducing the rate of sexual crimes.

It has been suggested that there may be no causal relationship between the legalization of pornography in Denmark and the decline in sex crimes, any more than there is a causal relationship between the increase in child sexual abuse and rape in the United States and the prevalence of pornography.Both may be the result of some kind of social change.But even if it can be shown that there is no causal relationship between the consumption of pornography and the decline in sex crimes, it can at least prove that pornography and the rise in sex crimes are unrelated.

(End of this chapter)