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

Poem said:
It's an opinion that content suggestive of sexual activity with children is rife on mainstream porn sites? Barnardo's opinion?

The open letter sent a year ago to the prime minister of the UK includes:

Pornography has a far-reaching, cross-societal impact. As well as causing harm to children, some pornography promotes violence against women and girls and can result in children being trafficked into the pornography industry. There is also evidence that legal content can act as a ‘gateway’ to extreme and hardcore material, including illegal child sexual abuse material. Some users go on to view content that is more and more extreme, until the next click is illegal child sexual abuse material. In some cases, this leads to them contacting and abusing children online and offline. This content therefore poses an immediate risk to children.

List of signatories:



You think this situation is acceptable?
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The above has not convinced me to change my mind regarding your inability to discern between evidence and opinion.
 
3point14 said:
The above has not convinced me to change my mind regarding your inability to discern between evidence and opinion.
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So are you saying that such material is not on mainstream porn sites? Barnardo's et al are saying it is and that it is extremely harmful. If you think it isn't there or is but is not harmful, please cite evidence to that effect.

Workers on the frontline of child care know that children are copying what they are seeing in porn. Over half of child sex abuse is carried out by children - up from a third in 2013.
 
Poem said:
So are you saying that such material is not on mainstream porn sites? Barnardo's et al are saying it is and that it is extremely harmful. If you think it isn't there or is but is not harmful, please cite evidence to that effect.
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No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I am making no comment regarding any of that.


Workers on the frontline of child care know that children are copying what they are seeing in porn. Over half of child sex abuse is carried out by children - up from a third in 2013.
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Again, this is not my point. You seem to have missed my point entirely. I shall withdraw in defeat as I suspect any attempt to get you to grok my point will be futile.
 
3point14 said:
No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I am making no comment regarding any of that.

Again, this is not my point. You seem to have missed my point entirely. I shall withdraw in defeat as I suspect any attempt to get you to grok my point will be futile.
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Or more likely you are withdrawing because you don't have a rebuttal. Barnardo's et al base their opinion on evidence.
 
Poem said:
Or more likely you are withdrawing because you don't have a rebuttal. Barnardo's et al base their opinion on evidence.
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I haven't even ventured an opinion on that.

Please don't accuse me of being a liar, it's not nice. I am withdrawing because your standards for evidence and debate do not match mine and therefore meaningful discussion is impossible. To respond by impugning my character is not nice. Don't do that.
 
Poem said:
Masses of evidence has been presented in this thread.
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Masses of evidence that bad things happen have been presented. But your claims go well beyond just bad things happening. You are making claims that there are specific causal connections between different things. And you have not presented masses of evidence for your claims of causal connections. The difficulty in making any progress is that you don't even seem to recognize that such evidence is lacking. You keep presenting more evidence of bad things happening as if that constitutes evidence for the cause of those bad things happening, and it doesn't.
 
Ziggurat said:
Masses of evidence that bad things happen have been presented. But your claims go well beyond just bad things happening. You are making claims that there are specific causal connections between different things. And you have not presented masses of evidence for your claims of causal connections. The difficulty in making any progress is that you don't even seem to recognize that such evidence is lacking. You keep presenting more evidence of bad things happening as if that constitutes evidence for the cause of those bad things happening, and it doesn't.
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Before I reply, I did ask about #738. I have also posted this before:

Here's a 2010 article form The Independent:
"In fact, the UK convicts, proportionately, as many rapists as most comparable European countries. The European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics shows that in 2007 (the most recent year covered) the median conviction rate in Europe for rape was 1.8 per 100,000. In England and Wales that year, the rate was 1.6 per 100,000 – higher than Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, lower than Sweden or France."

According to World Population Review:
"Whatever the reason for a victim's silence, the effect is that rape goes grossly underreported in many countries. It is estimated that approximately 35% of women worldwide have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime. However, in most countries with data available on rape (including the U.S.), fewer than 40% of those women seek help—and fewer than 10% seek assistance from law enforcement. As a result, most rapists escape punishment. In the U.S., for instance, it is estimated that only 9% of rapists are prosecuted, and only 3% spend time in prison. 97% of rapists walk free."

Europe, the UK and the USA are considered by many to uphold the rule of law; if they can't or won't convict rapists then which countries can?
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Poem said:
Before I reply, I did ask about #738. I have also posted this before:
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Your own evidence shows the statement "Europe, the UK and the USA are considered by many to uphold the rule of law; if they can't or won't convict rapists then which countries can?" to be wrong, Europe - which by the way includes the UK and the USA do prosecute and convict rapists.
 
Darat said:
Your own evidence shows the statement "Europe, the UK and the USA are considered by many to uphold the rule of law; if they can't or won't convict rapists then which countries can?" to be wrong, Europe - which by the way includes the UK and the USA do prosecute and convict rapists.
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My point being it's <2% in the UK and Europe and 3% in USA so Dame Vera Baird's comment that rape has been 'effectively decriminalized in the UK would also apply to Europe and the USA.
 
Poem said:
it is estimated that only 9% of rapists are prosecuted, and only 3% spend time in prison. 97% of rapists walk free.
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How are those estimates arrived at? That's no small matter, but your link provides us with no information. Without even basic information about the source of this statistic, I have no way to evaluate its accuracy.

And again, there is still nothing here to tie these statistics to factors like porn, which you say are contributing to the problem. I do not doubt that rape is a problem, but that's not enough to support your claims. Not even if we take your 9% figure as absolute truth.
 
Poem said:
My point being it's <2% in the UK and Europe and 3% in USA so Dame Vera Baird's comment that rape has been 'effectively decriminalized in the UK would also apply to Europe and the USA.
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Yet the evidence doesn't support her evidence. For example, in England and Wales until the early 1990s a husband could not be charged never mind prosecuted for raping his wife, in the early 2000s this was formally enshrined in legislation. So we see a progression of rape being further criminalised not decriminalised, her opinion appears to be emotive rhetoric rather than a summary of the facts.
 
Also, by their nature rapes can be very difficult to prosecute. Just because it's sometimes impossible to gather enough evidence to bring a criminal prosecution, that doesn't mean that the act itself is decriminalized.

Here in Portland, OR, we have decriminalized street camping. Everyone can see it. Everyone knows it is illegal. It would be trivial for the police to start rousting and arresting people. But as a matter of policy, the city and the county have chosen to leave it be.

Not so with rape. The problem with rape prosecutions is not that rape has been decriminalized - it hasn't been decriminalized. The problem is that rape prosecutions are very difficult to mount, due to the nature of the crime and the evidence it generates.

If you want to claim that rape has been decriminalized, you will need to show a consistent pattern, in specific jurisdictions, of prosecutable, convictable rape cases being dismissed by prosecutors.

Simply showing that only 3% of rape cases are strong enough to prosecute, does not satisfy the claim.
 
Ziggurat said:
"Stakeholders": activists who have a financial interest in making a problem seem as bad as possible.
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That doesn't actually establish what you claim - though it might be the case for some. What evidence do you have?

Since you have brought up such bias, then it would be right to ask - is it really that surprising that a porn consumer would stubbornly and excessively dismiss evidence that highlights its dangers? You are not seriously suggesting you are arguing from a neutral position are you?

Dame Rachel de Souza, the UK's Children's Commissioner has stated the following:

In the last decade, several longitudinal studies have sought to understand the impact of pornography on users’ attitudes, behaviour, and self-perception. A Government Equalities Office (GEO) literature review found ‘substantial evidence’ of an association between pornography use and harmful sexual attitudes and behaviours towards women. Specifically, primary evidence suggests that pornography consumption has a relationship with young people’s propensity to:
• Hold harmful attitudes towards women and girls, including attitudes supportive of violence.
• Commit acts of sexual coercion and aggression.

From that last link (Adolescent sexual aggressiveness and pornography use: A longitudinal assessment, 20 August 2019)):

The rising prevalence of (online) pornography use among, mostly male, adolescents revived social concerns regarding possible effects of pornography use on sexual aggressiveness. Given the paucity of longitudinal explorations of this link, this study focused on the following two research questions: (Q1) Is pornography use during middle to late adolescence related to male adolescents’ self-reported sexual aggressiveness; and (Q2) can personality traits and characteristics that have been associated with sexual aggression account for this presumed link? Using data from a six-wave panel sample of 594 male Croatian high-school sophomore students (Mage at baseline = 15.8 years, SD = 0.52), latent class and latent growth curve modeling were employed to answer these questions. There was a significant baseline difference in the frequency of pornography use between participants who reported no or marginal levels of sexual aggressiveness during the period under observation (20 months) and their peers who reported substantial sexual aggressiveness, with the former reporting significantly lower initial levels of pornography use compared to the latter. Controlling for personality characteristics did not cancel this association.
 
Poem said:
Since you have brought up such bias, then it would be right to ask - is it really that surprising that a porn consumer would stubbornly and excessively dismiss evidence that highlights its dangers? You are not seriously suggesting you are arguing from a neutral position are you?
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My neutrality doesn't matter. What matters is the evidence. And correlation doesn't demonstrate causation. You keep claiming causation but can at best only demonstrate correlation. Case in point:

• Commit acts of sexual coercion and aggression.
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What does this paper consist of? It takes an observed correlation, and tries to come up with a theoretical model which could explain a causal link. Does it demonstrate this causal link? No, it does not.

And the link you found from within that only demonstrates a correlation, not causation.
 
Poem said:
Is there any contextualising of that last quote that might lessen the charge that said conservatives are making? It's an educational book it seems.
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Edited by Darat: 
NSFW tag added see: and Rule 11 breach snipped
...snip... Nobody else has posted the content that's got concerned conservative contents all riled up, just complained that people are complaining.

I thought it odd that an educational book aimed at people who are too young to access porn would encourage them to do so.
 
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Stout said:
Edited by Darat: 
NSFW tag added see: and Rule 11 breach snipped
...snip... Nobody else has posted the content that's got concerned conservative contents all riled up, just complained that people are complaining.
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Not sure what this means, soz.

ETA: Didn't realize there was a link. Seems it does promote porn to children.
 
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It seems as if there is a major reframing of what sex is - certainly since the normalization of porn. How else could an educational book get away with pushing this on children?
 
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