Hardcore pornography is significantly harmful to society

My objective in this debate is simple, to show that my opponents claims are not based on sound science and that his claims are no more than a conflation between correlation and causation. My claim is the null hypothesis, that porn is not connected to reducing or increasing the social ills Pro claims. But what is most important is even if you believe porn causes harm, are those claimed harms significant at a societal level to prompt action? If porn was erased tomorrow would the society change in a demonstrable way? In regards to his videos, he makes a bizarre appeal to celebrity. He takes the opinion of the faux spiritualist Russell Brand [Con7;8;9] in commenting on porn in which he casually suggests the now debunked ‘damaged goods myth’[Con10] as a reason women get into porn. Like my opponent Brand makes moral judgments and speculation based on the conflation between causation and correlation. Ted Bundy is an even more bizarre case; to save characters I’m going to put this bluntly, it is very stupid to trust the word of a sociopathic serial rapist, especially when interviewed by a described “evangelical psychologist and crusader against pornography” [Con11] Porn and Aggression My opponent claims that experimental data proves causation; I suppose this means he no longer values his own quoted expert Dr. Jenson who says “no lab experiment can replicate the common male practice of masturbating to pornography.” As I noted earlier in this debate there are many reasons to distrust the experimental side of the anti porn debate. Lab work is artificial, and bears little resemblance to actual conditions; participants are often not fully informed of the nature of the study, leaving ethical questions; the model is backwards with no indication if for example, if porn causes loneliness or if loneliness causes porn use (conflation of correlation/causation); the media effects model sees porn in isolation, without greater context of society; definitions such as erotic, violent, porn, obscene, sexually arousing etc are not uniform making replication difficult, furthermore these definitions are used interchangeably to refer to a whole host of sexual activities; in survey studies the ones taking the survey may not agree with the ones conducting the study in regards to definitions; in experiments the subjects do not choose how to express themselves, they are simply subjectively judged by how they perform an arbitrary task; by claiming causation it strips the individual of responsibility; and finally these types of studies are usually male centric [A]. My opponent cites study after study yet they all suffer the same methodological flaws listed above at one point or another. For example [Pro 17], this work was published in 1986 by a member of the Reagan administration (talk about bias). However what I find remarkably contradictory and consistent with my opponent taking thinks out of context, when looking at figures 12 & 13 the reports says: “The investigation by Check has obvious implications for public health. It shows that on the whole, common nonviolent porn has the strongest influences on men’s willingness to force intimate partners into forms of sexuality that are not necessarily to their partners’ liking and on the propensity for forcing sexual access altogether. Violent porn apparently has the same power to increase rape proclivity, but its influence on the coercion of specific sexual acts is limited, if not negligible. (pg 25)” This is a complete contradiction, how can non violent porn be more influential than violent porn? Pro’s entire argument is based on monkey see monkey do. In regards to studies showing porn reduces sex crimes, as I said before I’m not committed to this argument; his dismissal of my evidence is hypocritical. First I did not fully rely on aggregate data, survey data was taken as well. But regardless, the to quoque fallacy does not makes his sources more credible, especially when it comes to the aggregate sources that he himself cites that he now discredits. If my opponent is going to say that my sources over simplify the issue, I say the same of his sources. And in the end I’m happy to accept that the science on both sides is not credible. And as such can we trust Pro’s argument over admitting the truth that the science is not yet in? By its very definition it is impossible to truly know how much rape is unreported. However rates at which women report rape are on the rise [Con12]! If we acknowledge that overall rape rates are going down as Pro shows in round 3, and see that women are less afraid to report assault, Pro can’t logically conclude that porn is responsible, especially given his own source does not even mention porn. This is biased speculation on his part. In regards to sexually aggressive men and porn, this is a non issue. Again it puts the cart before the horse, aggressive men may like porn at higher rates but that does not mean that porn is responsible for their aggressive behavior. To say otherwise oversimplifies the matter. Honestly have you ever seen a wife beater and thought “Yea, it must be the porn that makes him an a$$hole.”? Furthermore when it comes to hardcore porn on the internet violent porn isn’t even the most popular! It’s actually more focused on older ladies, MILFs, step moms etc. [Con 15-16] So on a societal level, how is violent porn prevalent enough to have violent influence? On a final note, other medias have also shown no link between media and real world violence, video games being a perfect example [Con13]. And in regards to BDSM Pro has completely ignored how this group, literally steeped in hardcore sexual activity, is not rampant with psychos and misogynists. Porn & Relationships Continuing with the theme of conflation, wants to say the porn is the cause for plummeting marriage rates. Yet notice the decline on his chart, it begins in the early 70’s, long before internet porn existed. I could easily correlate 2nd wave feminism with the decline in marriage than with porn, but that would be the same fallacy my opponent is making. With divorce, same issue. Pro’s own source says higher rates of divorce are not the fault of the internet, despite its facilitation. My opponent wishes to claim that porn use is the cause of divorce, when it is more likely that it is a symptom of an already failing marriage. As noted in round 3, porn is only a problem if you make it one, instead of a woman succumbing to the patriarchal demand that women abstain from the sexually taboo, women could just as easily join their men and explore their sexuality together! In fact Dr. Malamuth, a man Pro has cited several times against porn found in a study “respondents construed the viewing of hardcore pornography as beneficial to their sex lives, their attitudes towards sex, their perceptions and attitudes towards members of the opposite sex, toward life in general, and over all. The obtained beneficial effects were statistically significant for all but one measure across both sexes. … A positive correlation was obtained between the amount of hardcore pornography that was viewed and the impact of the benefits reaped. [Con18]” Talk about contradictions huh? Porn & Habit Pro underestimates me in this section. Like with violence and porn, the connection between porn and addiction is not conclusive. The DSM rejects porn addiction on this ground, and if they do not accept it why should you? Pro has not bothered to address my concerns about given the ubiquity and constant use of the internet how can we determine what is addictive behavior compared regular use? Furthermore “although people may partake excessively in certain activities and sometimes suffer detrimental life consequences, they rarely develop tolerance or obvious withdrawal symptoms—two hallmarks of addiction. [Con14]” In other words porn, like everything else, is harmful when taken to the extreme (this is not a reflection on porn, but a truism of life). However you will not find 1 source by my opponent that says how wide spread true addiction is among the porn using population. Given this lack of information can we say that habit formation is a significant problem when not only do we not have societal data, but experts disagree that such addiction is even real and is not comparable to substance addiction [Con14; 17]? Warped View & STD’s Few characters must be brief. His truck analogy is a false equivalence. The necessity of sex education is separate from porn. When we see a failure in sex ed as I have demonstrated with the lack of national comprehensive sex ed, we can expect people to be ignorant of sex. Porn will be consumed either way, but due to the societal failure of education porn is made to be the scapegoat for causing misunderstanding when there was little understanding to begin with. Pro says kids start looking at porn by 11, that’s when they hit puberty, so that’s to be expected. Shall we absolve parents of responsibility then? Genital insecurity? Like before, Malamuth says otherwise [con18]. Not to mention other societal factors could be at play, Con oversimplifies. In regards to STD’s porn is again the scapegoat, a spurious leap in logic that says people give each other STD’s on a global level because porn. People are just helpless aren’t they? I bet all the AIDs in Africa has to do with internet porn and not education, just kidding, it’s lack of education [con19]. To say quality of education does not matter is a dangerous joke. Again use the alcohol metaphor, if boose is all you got you're gonna get drunk. Do we blame alcohol for our lack of water? Thanks Mike for the debate. Remember folks before you whack it, Vote Con! http://www.youtube.com... Sources: http://www.debate.org...