The rape threads point to a larger need...revolutionary change in what it is to be "a man".

[Violet_Crumble]

147. Any article using that leaderu crap as a source is extremely tainted, imo...

It's anti-woman, anti-choice, RW extremism, as far as I'm concerned.

I've been appalled by some posts here over the past few days when it comes to attitudes about rape, but I don't see those attitudes as having anything to do with porn, nor do I find anything in that article persuasive at all when it comes to a link between rape and porn.

Take this bit for instance:

'Porn advocates also don’t like to talk much about the results of studies in Sweden, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia, where the number of rapes increased when the constraints on the availability of pornography were lifted. Like how “when South Australia liberalized its laws on pornography and Queensland maintained its conservative policy . . . the number of rapes in Queensland remained at the same low level while South Australia’s showed a six fold increase” over a 13 year period (25).'

I've got no idea over what 13 year period that was, but there's no attempt to show how that increase in South Australia and the low level in Queensland was linked to porn and how other influences couldn't have been responsible. For example, Queensland was for many years home to the most conservative neanderthal RW state government in Australia. It was literally like stepping back into the 1950's, and that would explain a consistantly low rate of reported rapes, because there was an environment where women were discouraged from reporting rape. South Australia had a very liberal government for much of the same time. What else was happening in South Australia over that time to explain the rise? Was it reflected in other states? Porn's always been legal here in the Australian Capital Territory, so if the numbers are low here, doesn't that just throw everything out with that study? Also, once the internet came on the scene with all that free porn, shouldn't the numbers of rapes in places where porn was still illegal gone right through the roof?

I'm off to buy a farm now. I don't know why, but every time I play Farmville2, I get that really strong urge!