THE PORNOGRAPHY COMMISSIONS, OR WHY SCIENCE AND POLITICS DON’T MIX

THE PORNOGRAPHY COMMISSIONS, OR WHY SCIENCE AND POLITICS DON’T MIX

A commission was established by U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 to analyze (a) pornography control laws, (b) the distribution of sexually explicit materials, and (c) the effects of consuming such materials, and to recommend appropriate legislative or administrative action. It funded more than 80 research studies on the topic, providing important impetus to the scientific study of sexually explicit material. The final report three years later recommended stronger controls on distribution to minors but an abolition of all limits on access by adults. The latter recommendation was based on the majority conclusion that “there was no evidence that exposure to or use of explicit sexual materials play a significant role in the causation of social or individual harms such as crime, delinquency, sexual or nonsexual deviancy or severe emotional disturbance” (U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, 1970, p. 58). Although the composition of the commission has been criticized for being overloaded with anticensorship civil

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libertarians, its majority conclusions were rejected anyway by the new administration of Richard Nixon, who declared, “so long as I am in the White House there will be no relaxation of the national effort to control and eliminate smut from our national life” (Eysenck & Nias, 1978, p. 94).

Some years later, a second commission was formed. U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese charged this commission in 1985 to assess the nature, extent, and impact of pornography on U.S. society, and to recommend more effective ways to contain the spread of pornography, clearly stating a political position. One of the major conclusions of the commission dealt with the effect of sexual violence: “the available evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that substantial exposure to sexually violent materials bears a causal relationship to antisocial acts of sexual violence, and for some subgroups, possibly the unlawful acts of sexual violence” (Final Report, 1986, p. 40).

Groups like these commissions typically have both a scientific and a political agenda (Einsiedel, 1988; Paletz, 1988; Wilcox, 1987). Sometimes, even if there is relative consensus on the scientific conclusions, there is often strong disagreement about the policy ramifications. For example, Linz, Donnerstein, and Penrod (1987) took exception with some of the conclusions drawn by the 1986 commission from those researchers’ own work demonstrating deleterious effects of sexual violence. Linz et al. (1987) argued that the commission’s call for strengthening obscenity laws was not an appropriate policy change based on the research, because it ignored the strong presence of sexually violent themes in other media not covered by such laws.

Nor are such political-scientific hybrids unique to the United States. During the same period, the Longford (1972) and Williams (B.Williams, Report of the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship, 1979) commissions in Great Britain issued reports, followed a few years later by the Fraser commission in Canada (Report of the Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution, 1985). The major conclusion of these commissions was that there is a lack of conclusiveness of the research to date. Do such commissions serve a useful purpose?

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Sexual Violence The results from the research showing strong desensitization effects are

disturbing, especially given the widespread viewing of horror films by children and young teens and the overall increase in sexually violent media. Some studies have developed and evaluated extensive preexposure training procedures to attempt to lessen the desensitizing effects of sexual violence

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(Intons-Peterson & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 1989; Intons-Peterson, Roskos- Ewoldsen, Thomas, Shirley, & Blut, 1989; Linz, Donnerstein, Bross, & Chapin, 1986; Linz, Fuson, & Donnerstein, 1990). These studies have typically shown mitigating effects on some measures and not on others. Linz, et al. (1990) found that men were most strongly affected by the information that women are not responsible for sexual assaults perpetrated upon them. There is evidence that desensitization can be reduced by introducing information about rape myths and the inaccuracy of media portrayals after people have seen some of the sexually violent media, At least some participants were more impressed with such arguments after they had felt themselves excited and aroused by the film and had seen specific examples to illustrate the point of the debriefing/mitigation information. In the context of having seen such a film, the specific points of the sensitization training have greater impact. See Box 10.6 for further discussion of ethical issues in such research.