06 June 2014

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Rape Sex Crimes against women Is it influenced by Pornography?

Rape Sex Crimes against women Is it influenced by Pornography?

Eroticism in ancient India was a well-studied concept as shown by the Kamasutra, written by Mallanaga Vatsyayana sometime during the 2nd or 5th century.

It was considered to be an integral part of adult education at time. However, major changes appear to have occurred following the British entry and drafting of the Indian Penal Code by Lord Macaulay wherein Indian culture was admixed with the Victorian system of
Ethical and moral standards. Subsequent growth of the pornography industry, fuelled by the recent advances in information and technology, has also further shaped the sex culture in India.
The pornography industry is involved in the production and distribution of sexually explicit materials including literature, photos, audio, animation, movies, toys, and video games The most popular modes of access are magazines, compact discs, digital versatile discs,
And the internet. It is estimated to be a $57 billion/year industry worldwide with its revenue being larger than the combined revenues of all the professions, even football, baseball, and basketball franchises put together.

The advent of the ‘internet’ and ‘world wide web’ in India has significantly influenced pornography distribution and access. It has provided legal loopholes and made monitoring difficult, aiding the manufacturers and distributors, while for the consumer round-the-clock availability, easy accessibility and anonymity were served. Internet access in India has grown from 5 million in 2004 to 40 million in 2007 and continues to grow at the rate of 17% a year, according to web metrics firm.

India’s growth rate is the third highest in the Asia Pacific region.
Alongside this, accessing pornographic material has also increased with 12% of
Internet websites being related to pornography, and viewers being estimated to spend roughly 3000 to 4000 dollars per second. Younger individuals were found to be more likely to use the internet both for viewing pornographic material and chat.

Against this background, the well-known feminist dictum: “Pornography is the theory — rape is the practice” has raised serious concern, [8] especially among parents and policy makers. Defining what constitutes pornography plays a crucial role in research, policy, and
Law making. Pornography is a Greek word, which originally meant ‘writing about prostitutes.’The definition of what constitutes pornography varies considerably
Across persons, gender, cultures, religions, communities, countries, time, and also across generations. The definition used for this study is a modified version of
Kuhn et al... 2007, which states that ‘pornography is a communication material provided for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying a user in isolation from others or in company of others.’The existing literature on the effects of pornography can be broadly categorized into three; studies on convicted sex offenders and victims, laboratory studies, and general population studies.

Studies comparing those convicted for sex offences (rape, molestation, immoral trafficking, domestic violence etc.) and internet sex offenders have found contradictory results. Some have found that internet sex offenders were of lesser risk to the community and
Had lower prevalence of anti-social variables, such as, ‘acting out’ and breaking social rules, while some of them found that they were equally dangerous to the society. Psychiatric morbidity was found to be high in convicted sex offenders. With respect to the role of pornography in commission of sexual offences also, there are varying results from having only a minor
Role to primary involvement where child victims are involved. Partners of battered women have been reported to have read or viewed significantly greater amounts of pornographic materials than those in a comparison group, while among survivors at a rape crisis center, 28% reported that their abuser used pornography and that for 12%, pornography was imitated during the abusive incident.However, a strong criticism of these studies is that the population
Surveyed is not representative of the true consumer.

Laboratory studies involve recruitment of volunteers who undergo assessments (such as their attitude to women, violence, rape, aggression, and sex) pre- and post-exposure
To pornography. Results indicated that the aggressive-pornographic materials increase aggression against females. However, personality and substance use were
Found to be confounders. Behavioral disturbances that occurred post-exposure were in individuals who showed more global disturbances of personality.

The major drawback of these laboratory studies was again that volunteers may not be representative of consumers in a society and that the studies were short term. The impact of multiple exposures, duration of exposure, pre-exposure personality, and long-term effect on a person had not been studied.

General population studies include surveys of consumers and indirect data including comparison of consumption of pornographic material in a society against reported
Levels of sex crimes in that population. These studies assess the prevalence of violence after exposure to pornography using questionnaires. Some have reported that exposure to pornography on the internet can be described as a normative experience.
It appears that like all other stimuli, pornography does not have a single, homogenous effect on all consumers.

The overall findings in a study of self-perceived effects of pornography consumption in Denmark suggest that many young adults believe that pornography has had primarily a positive effect on various aspects of their lives such as their sexual knowledge, attitudes toward sex, attitude towards and perception of the opposite sex, sex life, and general quality of life.

A study of the United States of America (USA), Denmark, Sweden,     and West Germany during the period 1964-1984 showed that there was no increase in rape rates in theFace of evidence that during this period, the availability of various forms of pornography had developed from extreme scarcity to relative abundance.

On the other hand, a recent meta-analysis showed an overall significant positive association between pornography use and attitudes supporting violence against women Thus, the relation between consumption of pornography and sexual violence remains inconclusive. In view of
Its impact on policy-making and judicial decision-making process (freedom of speech vis-à-vis regulating the behavior of an individual in private), this issue needs to be further explored. This study aims to test the hypothesis that increase in consumption of pornography is related to increased sexual crime, in the Indian scenario.

The reported crime rates in India particularly with reference to sexual crimes and crime against women over a four decade period were critically reviewed.

‘Crime in India’ is an annual publication of the National Crime Records Bureau,Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India with an objective to make available pan India crime-related data in one place for all stakeholders.

The near regular publication helps to Chart trends and guide police, other agencies, and policy makers to prevent, contain, and combat crime. Both national and state-level statistics on major cognizable crimes, local Acts, and special laws applicable in the country are reported along with district-wise statistics of The major cognizable crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Relevant data (rape, sexual harassment, total crime against women, and the percentage of total crimes that Were directed against women) was extracted. The available data which spanned four decades was broadly divided into two time periods; pre-liberalization (before 1991) and post-liberalization (after 1991). ‘Liberalization’refers to the economic reforms in 1991, which allowed The Indian market to open trade leading to exponential growth of the electronics and communication industry. In addition, the total number of internet users per year in India was tabulated.

We used the ‘number of internet users’ as a surrogate measure for ‘number of pornography consumers’ because the reliable estimates of this measure Were unavailable. Disclaimer and limitation of the data made available by NCRB is disclosed on the website

Independent sample t test was done to detect whether there are statistical differences in crime rates between pre- and post-liberalization periods. Pearson’s correlation analysis was used to find the relationship between internet use and crime against women. To control for the influence of population growth, linear regression was done using the number of Rape cases As the dependent variable; total population and other crime rates as independent variables There has been a slow and steady rise in the number of rapes and the total number of
Cognizable offences under Indian penal code (IPC) over the last four decades. Comparison of growth of rape rates between pre-liberalization and post-liberalization era was non-significant (Mean SD = 7.78 ± 5.61 versus 4.40 ± 4.76, t = 1.97, P = 0.06).

In this study, we did not find a significant relationship between internet use and sexually aggressive behavior such as rape, sexual harassment, and total crime against women.

Findings of this study are consistent with the findings from U.S.A., Denmark, Sweden, and West Germany, which reported no significant change in the crime rate in relation to pornography consumption.

It is a popular notion that pornography influences the behavior of Indian men more than in other cultures. Trans-cultural variations are described as the common reason.

In India, any discussion about sex is considered “taboo,” and most people do not have even basic sex
Education. Sex education provides factual information about sexuality, which counteracts the messages about sexuality presented in pornography.

Without adequate sex education, it is suggested that pornography would serve to act as a “permission giving” agency by promoting wrong notions about the sexuality of women and children, thus breeding sexual violence.However, these notions are mostly not supported by
Evidence.

Hence, it is not surprising to note that such a relationship could not be established in this study. As previously stated, this finding is similar to studies in European countries and the USA. It has been suggested that pornography might act as an “aphrodisiac” forMales rather than a blueprint for rape.

The ability to release sexual tension by masturbation following pornography consumption might reduce the possibility of real-time sexual aggression or rape. It seems that the much-hyped causal relationship between pornographyAnd sexual behavior is an exaggeration by politicians and mass media.




Suresh Bada Math, Bijou Viswanath, Ami Sebastian Maroky, Naveen C. Kumar, Anish V. Cherian1, Maria Christine Nirmala2

SM - Pornography has nothing to do with any type of rape or sexual crime against women
from ancient times and if you read  ancient mythological stories you will find the sex crimes against women and rapes by males also happen in those stories.

Source –

http://www.ijpm.info

Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine | Apr - Jun 2014 | Vol 36 | Issue 2

Reality views by sm –

Friday, June 06, 2014

Tags - Crime against women, pornography, sexual behavior, sexual violence

4 comments:

रविकर June 07, 2014  

थाने में उत्कोच दे, कोंच कोंच कंकाल ।
तन मन नोंच खरोच के, दे दरिया में डाल ।

दे दरिया में डाल, बड़े अच्छे दिन आये ।
कर ले भोग विलास, आधुनिकता उकसाये।

रवि कर मत संकोच, पड़े सैकड़ों बहाने ।
व्यस्त आज-कल कृष्ण, नहीं कालिया नथाने ॥

Bikram June 09, 2014  

I find it absurd as pornography was in our nation since times medivial.. heck we have statues depicting it all ..
and agree with you it has nothing to do with rape

Bikram