KEY POINTS:
The best thing to do these days when it comes to internet pornography is to educate.
It is time for an informed debate about the influence of internet pornography in our community. Rather than regulation, what is needed is education.
If we were to stop for a moment and take the time to assess the community impact of internet pornography, it would soon become clear that internet pornography is not the height of evil which do-gooder parliamentarians and parent groups profess. Indeed, it is probably one of the main factors contributing to a notable reduction in violent crime over the past decade.
Our community is safer and more peaceful thanks to internet pornography. This may sound counter-intuitive, but there are figures to back up the argument.
In a paper released in the United States last year titled Porn Up, Rape Down, Northwestern University Law Professor Anthony Damato reaches the conclusion that: the incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85 per cent in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults.
The Nixon and Reagan administrations tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials produced social violence. The reverse may be true: that pornography has reduced social violence.
Professor Damato says the internet is now the predominant way in which people access pornography. He says purveyors of internet pornography in the US earn an annual income exceeding the worth of the major media networks in the country.
The main point that Professor Damato makes in his paper is that there is a positive correlation between the recent explosion of household internet access in the US, and a decline in incidents of rape (measured in different ways, including police reports and survey interviews) during the same period.
According to Professor Damato, the four US states with the lowest internet access had the highest increase in rape incidents (53 per cent increase) between 1980 and 2004, whereas the four states with the highest internet access, experienced the largest decrease in rape incidents (27 per cent decrease).
Professor Damato suggests there are two predominant reasons why an increase in the availability of pornography has led to a reduction in rape.
First, using pornographic material provides an easy avenue for the sexually desirous to get it out of their system. Second, Damato points to the so-called Victorian effect. This dates back to the old Victorian era where people covered up their bodies with an immense amount of clothing, generating a greater mystery as to what they looked like naked.
Damato suggests that the free availability of pornography since the 1970s, and the recent bombardment of internet pornography, has de-mystified sex, thus satisfying the sexually curious.
Statistics in New Zealand present a similar positive correlation.
According to Statistics New Zealand, there has been a reduction in the number of victims of sexual assault since 1995, when the internet arrived. The Statistics New Zealand data covers both reported and non-reported incidents of sexual assault, which is important given that only one in five incidents of sexual assault are reported to police.
According to the data, between 1994 and 2000, there was a drop from 0.65 per cent to 0.55 per cent of persons aged 18 years and over who were victims of at least one sexual assault. That is close to a 20 per cent reduction. Moreover, according to Statistics New Zealand, the number of sexual offences reported or discovered by police nationwide dropped from 3650 for 1995-1996 to 3187 for 2004-2005.
In a 2004 Statistics New Zealand study, it was found that New Zealand has the eighth highest rate of internet access in the OECD. In 2001, 37 per cent of households had internet access and the rate continues to climb each year.
Thus, access to internet pornography has become much easier for a much greater number of New Zealanders since 1995. Accordingly, the porn up, rape down phenomenon also rings true in New Zealand.
Rather than thinking about ways to make households internet porn-free zones, maybe politicians and parents should take the opposite approach and make internet pornography freely available not only in homes, but also in schools and public libraries.
If we are ditching regulation, perhaps it is time to explore whether content ratings on pornographic films, magazines and other materials should also be removed. There should only be regulation if benefits exceed costs.
Professor Damato makes the important point in his paper that there is no evidence establishing a causal connection between a student's exposure to pornography and any tendency to commit anti-social acts. So, if the only effect of consuming pornography is positive rather than negative, regulation has no place and should go away.
Potter Stewart, a former US Supreme Court Justice, once said: "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself."
It is time to be confident about the benefits of pornography, in particular internet pornography, and move forward as a open-minded, mature, peaceful society.
* Dr James McConvill is a Melbourne-based lawyer and author of In the Pursuit of Truth: Reflections on Law, Life and Contemporary Affairs (Sandstone Academic Press).
