Hardcore pornography is significantly harmful to society

Intro I’d like to get a few preliminary things out of the way. First, I do not have to show that pornography is extremely harmful to society. All I have to do is show that pornography is significantly harmful to society. Per the definitions of this debate, all I have to do is show that pornography is harmful to society to some degree, and show that this harm is worthy of our attention. That’s all. In fact, my purpose of this debate is merely to raise attention regarding the negative effects of pornography upon our society. You can draw the conclusion as to whether or not these effects make pornography a net negative.I. Pornography and Aggression First, my opponent quotes my source [1], but this actually supports my case! It shows that pornography is a significant contributor to sexual aggression in those who are sexually aggressive. Furthermore, merely because one study does not find that pornography is a significant contribution to the sexual aggression of the average Joe, this does not mean other studies do not. Immediately after admitting that pornography causes more sexual aggression in sexually aggressive individuals, my opponent claims that this means it doesn’t affect or increase abuse. However, I’m not sure how he makes this jump in his logic. If pornography makes sexually violent people even more violent, wouldn’t that increase the likelihood of them being violent towards their spouse, instead of not affecting it at all? One of my opponent’s studies even claims, “The testimonies of women who have been harmed in the production and consumption of pornography demonstrate a strong link between pornography and violence.” [Con, A]. Another interesting study exposed college students to pornographic forms of rape. The students were first given a score determining how aggressive they were. After they were exposed to the rape, their self-described sexual fantasies were much more violent, for both the students who had been considered aggressive in the first place and those who had not, as compared to the control group [2]. Yet another study shows that child molesters use pornography more frequently [3]. Furthermore, serial killer Ted Bundy, who murdered and raped over 30 women and girls claims that he was a normal person from a good home, yet had a disposition to sexual violence. He turned to pornography, and eventually the pornography was not exciting enough. It seems that the reason Bundy’s sexual aggression progressed to the stage it did is at least partly due to pornography [4]. My opponent goes on to cite other studies which show no connection between pornography and aggression. Both my opponent and I have cited studies to prove our case, but who is right? While I will admit such studies exist, we have to take studies as a collective whole to determine whether pornography correlates to aggression. In a massive meta-analyses of 161 studies (das right one hundred sixty one studies), it was found that there was a significant connection between pornography and sexual aggression, in particularly among men who were predisposed towards sexual aggression [5]. My opponent also claims that as pornography has become more popular in the US and in India, rape has decreased. However, India’s rape rates over the past decade have in fact been steadily increasing. Sexual harassment has increased by 9%. See the graph below [6][23]: According to the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, rape is most closely correlated to [7] murder, robbery, and violent crime in general. As you can see, all these graphs look strikingly similar. In fact, the correlation between rape and aggravated assault rape is 96%! This indicates that rape is not primarily a sexual crime, but is rather a violent crime. So if my opponent will say that the decrease in rape rate is due to an increase in porn, he must also say that the decrease in aggravated assault, robbery, etc. is also due to porn. The decrease in rape as porn increases is merely coincidental. Furthermore, our current rape rate is roughly 3x higher than it was in the 60s when pornography was far less widespread as it is now [7]. If porn causes less rape, then why is our rape rate three times worse than it was when hardcore internet porn literally did not exist? My opponent’s source also claims that rape is the lowest it’s been since the 60s [D]. This is simply false. The rape rate was lower in the 70s than either the 60s or the current rate. (1960s: 12.3 per 100,000 population; 1970s: 26.0; 2000s: 32.2) [7].II. Pornography harms relationships This is mostly mitigation by Con. To begin with, he claims that porn is not a major contributor to divorce. I’m not sure how he gets this. According to the source I cited, pornography contributes to 56% of divorces. My opponent claims that one of the attorneys says that divorce would happen anyways, and that pornography is just another means. However, this doesn’t change the fact that pornography causes divorce. Whether or not it causes an increase in divorce is not what is asked here. We say that extra-marital affairs are harmful to relationships, since they contribute to divorce. We also say that financial troubles are harmful to relationships, since they contribute to divorce. Why can’t we say that pornography is also harmful to relationships since it too contributes to divorce? Yes, divorce will happen regardless of internet pornography. However, that alone does not mean that pornography is harmless to relationships. My opponent also makes an embarrassing blunder in regards to women’s feelings towards porn. He claims that the abstract of my study states that most women do not feel this way. However, it states the exact opposite. The study claims that other surveys have been from an incorrect sampling of distressed women, but that this study is the opposite. “In this report, we will (a) briefly review the only two previous studies on this topic, both of which were undertaken with highly distressed populations, and (b) present the results of a survey designed to assess the attitudes of a broader, more diverse population of women” [8]. Furthermore, he ignores the study that shows that 26% of women find pornography use unacceptable because their special other is in a relationship with them [9] (hey, stop looking at that woman online, you’re in a relationship with me!). This also explains why pornography causes insecurity in a significant amount of relationships [8]. It also explains why pornography contributes to divorce rates. Thus, my opponent’s dismissal of the women’s insecurity is refuted. Finally, even if pornography can have positive effects on the sex of a relationship, this doesn’t change the fact that it harms a significant amount of others. Remember, I don’t have to show that pornography is a net negative, only that it’s significantly negative.III. Pornography is habit forming My opponent dismisses this argument. As I have shown, pornography is structurally similar to internet addiction[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. It is habit forming. Considering all the negative effects I’ve illustrated thus far, this only adds to the negative impact of pornography. This argument essentially goes uncontested.IV. Pornography warps views of sex My opponent seems to admit that pornography warps views of sex. However, he claims that sex ed from their parents or elsewhere should be where children learn about sex and not porn. I agree. However, quite clearly, pornography is teaching kids dangerous sex. When teenagers admit to acting out what they see in pornos, girls who watch pornos are 400% more likely to have had anal sex, it doesn’t take much to realize that porn is warping views of sex. He also ignores the fact that pornography causes genital insecurity, and as such causes adolescents to believe lies about themselves. My opponent’s claim that we should educate children better implicitly concedes this argument. He seemingly admits that porn warps views of sex, but says that we should remedy this with better sex education. However, according to the CDC, 96% of teenagers undergo formal sex education before they turn 18 [21]. Apparently the sex education my opponent proposes hasn’t been working. Either we should teach more sex education to combat warped views of sex, or we shouldn’t. In either case, pornography warps views of sex, and as such, is harmful to society.V. Pornography causes STDs My opponent spends lots of time discussing the mental health of porn stars. The only reason I mentioned this is because I found it interesting. Nonetheless, the facts regarding STDs stand. The reason we cannot simply say that STDs are an occupational hazard is because 75% of porn stars have at least 1 sex partner outside work [22]. 90% of them do not use condoms. This means that the STDs will most likely be transmitted to unsuspecting victims outside the porn industry. My opponent also seems to admit that adolescents will have more frequent and dangerous sex due to seeing pornos, but that education should mask these negative effects. The argument above also refutes this. Just because better sex education might cause less STDs, this does not refute the argument. Porn still causes an increase in STDs among the porn stars, those they come into contact with outside of work, and the adolescents who form a habit watching porn and imitate what they see. Conclusion I don’t need to win every single one of these arguments to win the debate. Every single one of these arguments serves to show that pornography’s harm upon society is significant and worthy of our attention. Nonetheless, I have upheld every single one of these arguments, showing that pornography contributes to sexual aggression, harms relationships, warps views of sex, causes an increase in STDs and in addition to all this, is extremely habit forming. Therefore, the resolution has been upheld. Sourceshttp://tinyurl.com...