III. THE ROLE OF PORNOGRAPHY IN UNDERMINING SOME MALES' SOCIAL INHIBITIONS AGAINST ACTING OUT THEIR DESIRE TO RAPE

"I have often thought about it [rape], fantasized about it. I might like it because of having a feeling of power over a woman. But I never actually wanted to through fear of being caught and publicly ruined." (Male respondent, Hite, 1981, p. 715, emphasis added.)

A man may want to rape a woman and his internal inhibitions against rape may be undermined by his hostility to women or by his belief in the myths that women really enjoy being raped and/or that they deserve it, but he may still not act out his desire to rape because of his social inhibitions. Fear of being caught and convicted for the crime is the most obvious example of a social inhibition. In addition to Hite's respondent quoted above, a second man's answer to her question on whether he had ever wanted to rape a woman illustrates this form of inhibition:

I have never raped a woman, but have at times felt a desire to -- for the struggle and final victory. I'm a person, though, who always thinks before he acts, and the consequences wouldn't be worth it. Besides I don't want to be known as a pervert. (1981, p. 715, emphasis added.)

(1) Diminishing fear of social sanctions.

In one of his early experiments, Malamuth, along with his colleagues, Haber and Feshach (1980), reported that after reading the account of a violent rape by a stranger, 17% of their male student subjects admitted that there was some likelihood that they might behave in a similar fashion in the same circumstances. However, 53% of the same male students said there was some likelihood that they might act as the rapist did if they could be sure of getting away with it. The 36% difference in these percentages reveals the significant role that can be played by social inhibitions against acting out rape desires. My hypothesis is that pornography also plays a role in undermining some males' social inhibitions against acting out their desire to rape.

In his content analysis of 150 pornographic home videos, Palys investigated "whether aggressive perpetrators ever received any negative consequences for their aggressive activity--if charges were laid, or the person felt personal trauma, or had some form of 'just deserts'" (1986, p. 32). The answer was no in 73% of the cases in which a clear-cut answer was ascertainable. Similarly, Don Smith (1976) found that fewer than 3% of the rapists portrayed in the 428 pornographic books he analyzed were depicted as experiencing any negative consequences as a result of their behavior. Indeed, many of them were rewarded. The common portrayal in pornography of rape as easy to get away with probably contributes to the undermining of some males' social inhibitions against the acting out of their rape desires.

If there were more effective social sanctions against pornography, this would almost certainly increase the reluctance of some people to participate in the pornography industry. There are many reasons why progressive people are strenuously opposed to government efforts to censor pornography. There are, however, many alternative kinds of sanctions that need to be explored. For example, many women have been forced to participate in pornography against their will. I would have thought that pornographic publications that publish photos of these women would be accessories after the fact to false imprisonment, rape, assault, and sometimes, possibly, murder.

(2) Diminishing fear of disapproval by peers.

Fear of disapproval from one's peers is another social inhibition that may be undermined by pornography. Zillman, for example, found that "massive" exposure to non-violent pornography caused subjects to overestimate the number of people who engage in uncommon sexual practices, such as anal intercourse, group sexual activities, sadomashochism, and bestiality (1985, p. 118). Rape is portrayed as a very common male practice in much violent pornography, and the actors themselves may serve as a kind of pseudo-peer group and/or role models for consumers. Further research is needed to evaluate these hypotheses.

In general, I hypothesize the following disinhibiting effects of viewing violent pornography, particularly in "massive" amounts: (a) Viewers' estimates of the percentage of other males who have raped women would probably increase; (b) viewers would be likely to consider rape a much easier crime to commit than they had previously believed; (c) viewers would be less likely to believe that rape victims would report their rapes to the police; (d) viewers would be more likely to expect that rapists would avoid arrest, prosecution and conviction in those cases that are reported; (e) viewers would become less disapproving of rapists, and less likely to expect disapproval from others if they decided to rape.