But it is important to bring out a few of the basic facts about rape. The studies over the last 50 years show that sex crimes are committed by people who have suffered violence and sexual abuse in their childhood, usually inflicted by family members. Moreover, and this is important, the studies show a correlation between sexual crime and sexual repression in childhood and adolescence. Men who rape have a low regard for women, and that low regard often comes from repression, including moralistic attitudes. If a boy is raised into believing women are dangerous seductresses, these ideas can become transformed into misogyny or a hatred of women.
Rape is also more likely to occur in societies where women are considered as male property.
This includes countries like the Philippines, where macho values are stretched to include notions that a man has sexual rights over all females, sometimes including his own daughters. A person raised with distorted values about gender relations will rape, with or without exposure to pornography. Some people fear pornography claiming that the frequent explicit portrayal of sex trivializes it, meaning people then take sex for granted. Actually, research on pornography shows a different kind of desensitization. Repeated exposure to pornography actually leads, for most people, to a decrease in interest.