maller in number than the amount of sex-offenders that had not been exposed to pornography.” (Harmon, 28-30) These results can be offered as evidence against the claim that males become over stimulated and thus dangerous when exposed to pornography. Other experiments conducted in the early 1980s by the Williams Committee in England, reported that “as the availability and abundance of sexually explicit material increased, the number of violent sex crimes such as rape did not increase, but in fact decreased in many areas.” (Malamuth, 128-129)Given the intense debate about whether or not pornography plays a casual role in rape, it is surprising that so few of those engaged in it ever state what they mean by “cause.” A definition of the concept simple causation is “an event that precedes and results in the occurrence of another event. Whether the first event (the cause) occurs, the second event (the effect) necessarily or inevitably follows. Moreover, in simple causations the second event does not occur unless the first event has occurred. Thus the cause is both the SUFFICIENT CONDITION and the NECESSARY CONDITION for the occurrence of the effect.” (Malamuth, 126)By this definition, pornography clearly does not cause rape, as it seems safe to assume that some unknown percentage of pornography consumers do not rape women, and that many rapes are unrelated to pornography. However, the concept of multiple causation is more relevant to this question than simple causation.So what is it about pornography that women and anti-pornography organizations do not like? Violence! One of the greatest myths about pornography is that it contains an excess of violence against women inevitably resulting in real-life violence against women. Anti-pornography groups release propaganda that the media approves of violence against women through pornography. In actuality, however, “the total amount of viole...
