Found via Seamus McCauley.
The conclusion of the research referred to is extraordinarily problematic. It doesn’t prevent rape or even, as Seamus puts it, reduce instances of rape. What it finds is that there are fewer reported rapes.
The first thing to check in cases like these is whether the drop in reports is just that, a drop in reports but not the incidences, or a real drop in rape cases.
A later quote in the Slate article sheds some light on an alternative explanation. An increase in porn exposure results in a measured increase in misogyny. There might be fewer reports simply because the victims know that there’s a less of a chance of a conviction, the police brush them off, or their family will blame them. The age range which showed the biggest drop in rape reports is also the age range most vulnerable to misogynistic attitudes in society.
To be useful Kendall’s research would have to include statistics from rape counselling centres and not just FBI reports and surveys as he does. The one-dimensional nature of the report means that Todd Kendall Slate and Seamus McCauley (for spreading the myth) are complicit in the dominance of misogyny in western culture.
