Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?

[zooterkin]

That's BArnado's, by the way.

The fact that something appears to be not completely illegal is not the same as it being normalised.

 

[Darat]

The UK government's Online Safety Bill took advice from Bernardo's who said:

Along with other charities, Bernardo’s has played a role in making sure that the Act is fit for purpose.

Bernardo's cite bodies such as 'The Police Foundation' and 'The British Journal of Criminology' in their evidence.

Your evidence that that such material isn't normalized is what? Are you denying that mainstream porn sites are awash with it?

Reports from the likes of Barnardo's, the Police Foundation, the British Journal of Criminology, the legislation that has been passed over the last couple of decades .

 

[Poem]

Reports from the likes of Barnardo's, the Police Foundation, the British Journal of Criminology, the legislation that has been passed over the last couple of decades .

? I'm not following your point Darat.

 

[Poem]

That's BArnado's, by the way.

Ta.

The fact that something appears to be not completely illegal is not the same as it being normalised.

It's legal and rife on the net driven by consumers who are clicking. What more needs to be said?

Barnardo's:
Depictions of sexual activity which may relate to children are extremely prevalent online. In 2019, 39 billion searches were made on Pornhub, with one of the most frequent search terms being ‘teen’. In 2021, ‘step mom’ was the 7th most searched term on Pornhub worldwide.

That is normalization.

 

[Poem]

That has no bearing on anything I've said. Porn is bad when there's bad things in it; when those things are not present, it's not bad. "Bad porn is more common than not-bad porn" may well be true but it doesn't change the definitions.

In the US obscenity is determined by the Miller test - part of which has:

Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,

We know that most people watch porn and therefore most people are normalized to it. That means the 'average person applying contemporary community standards' is already comfortable with it.

Why would we test whether something is obscene or not by asking the society that fuels the very material in question?

What sort of porn is not bad Checkmite? If the tendency for consumers was not to escalate and seek more and more extreme material, why isn't porn saturated with the 'vanilla' type?

Porn is bad. It's why we have the normalization of porn that is suggestive of sexual activity with children on the net as we speak. Rife with it.

 

[zooterkin]

Ta.



It's legal and rife on the net driven by consumers who are clicking. What more needs to be said?

Barnardo's:
Depictions of sexual activity which may relate to children are extremely prevalent online. In 2019, 39 billion searches were made on Pornhub, with one of the most frequent search terms being ‘teen’. In 2021, ‘step mom’ was the 7th most searched term on Pornhub worldwide.

That is normalization.

That 'may' is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

 

[Poem]

Reports from the likes of Barnardo's, the Police Foundation, the British Journal of Criminology, the legislation that has been passed over the last couple of decades .

Ok, I do understand.

The material we are talking about remains rife. None of these reports or laws have stopped it's proliferation. Consumers seek more and more escalatory material, hence the status quo.

Whether the OSB will make a difference isn't clear.

EDA: According to CARE: A controversial part of the Bill would have criminalised content deemed 'legal but harmful' but this section was removed by the government last year.

 

[Poem]

That 'may' is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Weightless in fact and already cited.

Pornographic content which suggests sexual activity with children is extremely harmful but is rife on mainstream pornography sites. This content promotes an interest in child sexual abuse material and in some cases can lead to abuse online and offline. Such content would be illegal offline, on DVD or Blu Ray, but is prevalent across mainstream pornography sites.

Pornographic content that is illegal offline, but legal online

Online pornography platforms host videos depicting sexual activity with actors or characters who look like children: petite, young-looking performers made to look underage through props such as stuffed toys, lollipops and school uniforms and sexual activity between family members, particularly step-families. Although not strictly illegal, this is extremely harmful, sexualising children and driving the demand for ‘real’ child sexual abuse material.

 

[Poem]

As far as I can see, nothing in the UK Online Harms Bill will remove content that 'suggest sexual activity with children'.

From the House of Commons Library:

On 28 November 2022, the Government announced plans to amend the Bill, including the removal of the “legal but harmful” provisions for adults to protect freedom of expression. To enable debate on the amendments and new clauses, the Bill was recommitted to a Public Bill Committee. There were two sittings on 13 December 2022 and one sitting on 15 December 2022. New Government clauses and amendments were made. Among other things, these removed the adult safety duties and introduced new user empowerment tools for adults, so people would be able to control what content they might see online. They would also require the largest companies to remove or restrict access to legal content only where this was consistent with their terms of service.

The UK government favours 'freedom of expression' over banning material that experts say is harmful and illegal offline. My claim of such material's normalization is clearly valid.

 

[Ziggurat]

Online pornography platforms host videos depicting sexual activity with actors or characters who look like children: petite, young-looking performers made to look underage through props such as stuffed toys, lollipops and school uniforms and sexual activity between family members, particularly step-families. Although not strictly illegal, this is extremely harmful, sexualising children and driving the demand for ‘real’ child sexual abuse material.

Leaving aside the issue of a rather expansive definition of sexualizing children (putting a stuffed animal in the hands of a clearly adult porn actress doesn't actually make them look like a child), this conclusion is not in any way demonstrated. It looks to me much akin to the whole "video games cause violence" claims that ambulance-chasing lawyers pushed for a quick buck but which fell apart upon scrutiny.

 

[Poem]

Leaving aside the issue of a rather expansive definition of sexualizing children (putting a stuffed animal in the hands of a clearly adult porn actress doesn't actually make them look like a child), this conclusion is not in any way demonstrated. It looks to me much akin to the whole "video games cause violence" claims that ambulance-chasing lawyers pushed for a quick buck but which fell apart upon scrutiny.

I don't know what could better illustrate the normalization of such material than your defence of it. Remember, we are talking about material that, under UK law, is illegal when distributed via a DVD or Blu Ray.

Please cite some evidence from experts; your post is mere opinion. Please deal with the following (Barnardo's):

• The Government’s Equalities Office, found that there was ‘substantial evidence of an association’ between the use of pornography and harmful attitudes and behaviours towards women and girls. (2)
• Pornographic content which suggests sexual activity with children is extremely harmful but is rife on mainstream pornography sites. This content promotes an interest in child sexual abuse material and in some cases can lead to abuse online and offline. Such content would be illegal offline, on DVD or Blu Ray, but is prevalent across mainstream pornography sites.
• According to the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation (CEASE), online pornography which depicts sexual activity with performers pretending to be children normalises children as objects of sexual desire and drives the demand for ‘real’ child sexual abuse material. (3)
• Increasingly extreme pornography can legitimise abusive behaviour, meaning that some excessive users of pornography can spiral into viewing child sexual abuse material, and potentially even abusing children. (4)

2 https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/28604/view/INQ006736.pdf
3 https://cease.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/210607_CEASE_Expose_Big_Porn_Report.pdf
4 https://www.lucyfaithfull.org.uk/fe...to-stop-viewing-sexual-images-of-children.htm

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't know what could better illustrate the normalization of such material than your defence of it.

Except I'm not really defending it. I'm criticizing this weird absolutist approach you have. You seem to think that if something is bad, it must be the worst, and saying it's not the worst means you're saying it's not bad. It's the same sort of approach that leads people to call political opponents Nazis.

Remember, we are talking about material that, under UK law, is illegal when distributed via a DVD or Blu Ray.

I've seen this claimed, but I haven't seen the relevant laws cited, so sorry for not really believing you.

Please cite some evidence from experts; your post is mere opinion.

Your "experts" are mostly just expressing their own opinion.

• The Government’s Equalities Office, found that there was ‘substantial evidence of an association’ between the use of pornography and harmful attitudes and behaviours towards women and girls.

Correlation isn't causation. I would expect people who already have "harmful attitudes" to be interested in pornography, but that doesn't mean the pornography caused those attitudes.

• Pornographic content which suggests sexual activity with children is extremely harmful

Not demonstrated, and their definition is overly broad.

• According to the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation (CEASE), online pornography which depicts sexual activity with performers pretending to be children normalises children as objects of sexual desire and drives the demand for ‘real’ child sexual abuse material.

Are you familiar with the Southern Poverty Law Center? Once upon a time, they did a real service in combating racist organizations. But now? Now they're a grift. They accuse people of racism and extremism for the most trivial of reasons, and often falsely. Why? Because they have a financial interest in portraying the problems they claim to combat as being far worse than those problems actually are.

I have no confidence in the honesty and integrity of your sources, because they all have the same sort of financial interest in exaggerating their claims. And that's what you're relying on, not objective and verifiable evidence.

 

[Poem]

Except I'm not really defending it. I'm criticizing this weird absolutist approach you have. You seem to think that if something is bad, it must be the worst, and saying it's not the worst means you're saying it's not bad. It's the same sort of approach that leads people to call political opponents Nazis.



I've seen this claimed, but I haven't seen the relevant laws cited, so sorry for not really believing you.



Your "experts" are mostly just expressing their own opinion.



Correlation isn't causation. I would expect people who already have "harmful attitudes" to be interested in pornography, but that doesn't mean the pornography caused those attitudes.



Not demonstrated, and their definition is overly broad.



Are you familiar with the Southern Poverty Law Center? Once upon a time, they did a real service in combating racist organizations. But now? Now they're a grift. They accuse people of racism and extremism for the most trivial of reasons, and often falsely. Why? Because they have a financial interest in portraying the problems they claim to combat as being far worse than those problems actually are.

I have no confidence in the honesty and integrity of your sources, because they all have the same sort of financial interest in exaggerating their claims. And that's what you're relying on, not objective and verifiable evidence.

I asked for expert evidence that Barnardo's et al are wrong. You didn't provide any.

 

[Dr.Sid]

There is another problem with porn. Availability. Kids consume the worst pornography from early ages. You can't prevent them getting on unfiltered internet, and most parents don't even try.
I basically correctly learned what sex is in school class in 7th grade. I did see some porn magazine before, but never a video. If I would want to do "naughty things" with a girl at that age my fantasy wouldn't even go further than seeing her breasts.
Kids now have seen it all at 7th grade. What are their fantasies ? How do their first sexual experiments look like ?

 

[Ziggurat]

I asked for expert evidence that Barnardo's et al are wrong. You didn't provide any.

I'm asking for evidence that they're right. You didn't provide any.

 

[Poem]

I'm asking for evidence that they're right. You didn't provide any.

This is going nowhere.

In #559 you said:

Sexual assault is both normalized and trivialized, as you stated.....


Why do you readily accept that as true?

 

[dirtywick]

well there was a keyword search study posted in earlier in the thread that gives some idea of just how rife child porn and rape is on porn sites. as expected it was mostly incest themed porn that, while kind of gross, i don’t find to be child porn or rape porn. other flagged stuff was much less common.

which imo falls in line with what i would consider an average porn site experience

 

[Ziggurat]

This is going nowhere.

In #559 you said:

Sexual assault is both normalized and trivialized, as you stated.....


Why do you readily accept that as true?

You need to sharpen your reading comprehension skills. That sentence is taken from my description of a hypothetical scenario. I don't accept the normalization and trivialization of sexual assault as true, I declare them to be true for the hypothetical. And it is a hypothetical scenario which is explicitly not realistic.

 

[Poem]

You need to sharpen your reading comprehension skills. That sentence is taken from my description of a hypothetical scenario.

For once I agree with you,

I don't accept the normalization and trivialization of sexual assault as true...

Former victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird said (2021):

“Last year, I warned that we were witnessing the effective decriminalisation of rape. Nothing in the past year has swayed me from that perspective. The uncomfortable truth is that if you are raped in Britain today, your chances of seeing justice are slim.”

Submissions from Everyone's invited would suggest that sexual assault is on a par. From their website:

"Sexual abuse online and harassment 'normalised' in schools - 9 out of 10 girls had received unsolicited images and been subject to sexist name calling (Ofsted report, June 2021).

One child is raped in school on every school day, and in primary schools alone three sexual assaults are reported to the police every school day (Women and Equalities Select Committee report, 2016)."

Estimates published by WHO indicate that globally about 1 in 3 (30%) of women worldwide have been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

 

[Ziggurat]

Submissions from Everyone's invited would suggest that sexual assault is on a par. From their website:

"Sexual abuse online and harassment 'normalised' in schools - 9 out of 10 girls had received unsolicited images and been subject to sexist name calling (Ofsted report, June 2021).

There's a major difference between sexual assault and being sent an unsolicited dick pic. I don't say that to excuse unsolicited dick pics, but you're moving the goalpost. They aren't the same, and you aren't doing your credibility any favors by conflating them.