The Controversy Over Pornography and Sex Crimes: The Criminological Evidence and Beyond

Abstract

Renewed governmental inquiries into the regulation of sexually explicit materials have revived interest in the relationship (if any) between pornography and sexual offences. In this article we review the criminological studies which have explored this relationship. Availability of sexually explicit materials appears to be unrelated to the frequency distributions of reported rape, though evidence points to a decline in child molestation. In the second part of the article we situate the putative link between pornography and sexual deviance within some of the contemporary theories of rape causation and some of the known social correlates of rape victims and offenders. Community, victim, offender and legislative characteristics would appear to be much more convincing explanations of variations in the rates of reported rape than the circulation of pornography and sexist repression attributed to it by certain feminist and Christian writers.