Obama and Rape
by tdaxp ~ July 5th, 2009
The Obama DOJ continues to crack down on an industry which is a vital part of preventing rape. My assumption why is that Obama (like many other supports of big government) is a puritan who enjoys telling people what to do.
If Obama supported safety and personal freedom instead of the nanny state, he would fight rape, ease the pain of cancer patients, and in general stand up to Nanny-staters.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
On the one hand, I agree that this is a waste of the DoJ’s time. Heck, I imagine any of your readers (including your BGD commentors) can think of more important problems.
On the other hand, just about every commentor on that HalfSigma post disagreed with him to one extent or another. You might want to put some more thought into the notion of pornography as rape protection before bashing Obama over it.
July 12th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
There were a number of sensible criticisms, but the claim that pornography (in the contemporary sense) was available in the 1950s and 1960s is obviously untrue. The Playboys of that era are much closer to fashion magazines that what, say, Vivid sales.
I get there is a puritan impulse to argue that violent video games lead to violent, or rape pornography leads to rape. I’m not aware of any evidence for that, however, and I do know of evidence against it.
July 12th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
But WHY are they different? Why would pornographic films decrease unhealthy levels of hornyness to a greater extent than nudy pics (personal experience suggests the opposite, actually)? And has societal differences been factored into considerations of historical evidence?
July 12th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Michael,
Certainly, visual pornography would lead to more physiological excitement than fashion-shoots, just as visual depictions of war lead to more physiological excitement than Time-Life series of books. Indeed, this is the point. Visual stimulation is a better substitute for tactile stimulation than still-photographic stimulation.