BBC airs documentary Hardcore Profits

BBC TV aired the first half of Hardcore Profits this week, a documentary about the porn industry and its audience worldwide. The program hasn't aired in the US, but judging from this Independent review and public radio interview, it's full of anti-porn assumptions backed by anecdotal evidence. Porn causes sex crimes, porn is the enemy of feminism, porn helps spread AIDS, porn causes juvenile deliquency, porn causes bizarre self-mutilation. Huh?

In Tanzania a similar case came up where the videos were also shown in remote areas and women were assaulted there after. In India cases where kids have dropped out of school because they became addicted to this mainstream and hardcore pornography, again coming from America. And even Papua, New Guinea there were doctors who said that they’ve had to deal with cases of young men putting ball bearings down their penises to try and keep up with the impressive nature of the porn stars they’ve been watching in films.

At the risk of sounding like an industry apologist, there's no evidence that porn causes or contributes to any of these social problems. In the US at least, widespread access to internet porn has coincided with declines in sexual assault, divorce, teen pregnancy, abortion, unsafe sex practices and juvenile crime.

And if you look around the world, a thriving, aboveground local porn industry generally coincides with greater respect for women's rights. Places where porn is most strictly banned tend to have the worst women's rights situations. Correlation doesn't prove causality, but those who want to ban porn for the sake of the children women should at least acknowledge the strong correlation.

As for porn-obsessed dudes stuffing ball bearings down their penes, I'll believe that when I see notarized X-rays. Until then, it's a great urban legend.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

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