Correlation is not causation, but...

[elfs]

Patterns of the spread of Internet access across the United States strongly correlate with a steep drop in rape cases in those states; states with the fastest Internet adoption show the greatest decline, and a 10% increase in household network penetration in any given region correlates to an average 7.3% decrease in rates of rape within that same region.

The results suggest that potential rapists perceive pornography as a substitute for rape. With the mass market introduction of the world wide web in the late 1990's, both pecuniary and non-pecuniary prices for pornography fell. The associated decline in rape illustrated in the analysis here is consistent with a theory, such as that in Posner (1994), in which pornography is a complement for masturbation or consensual sex, which are themselves substitutes for rape, making pornography a net substitute for rape.

Given the limitations of the data, policy prescriptions based on these results must be made with extreme care. Nevertheless, the results suggest that, in contrast to previous theories to the contrary, liberalization of pornography access may lead to declines in sexual victimization of women. The results suggest that the internet has had large effects on important social behaviors; further exploration of these effects is necessary to fully understand these results, however.

Kendall, Todd: Pornography, Rape, and the Internet, Clemson University Law & Economics Seminar, 2006

Comments

[omahas.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but that is far too liberal a jump. I could just as easily develop a theory based on that evidence that says that an increase in Internet availability decreases the *availability* of rape subjects...i.e. more women are staying in front of their computers spending time on social networks, casual games, etc, and less time at public social events where they could become victims of rape (either at the event, or during the transit from/to the event and home).

There would have to be far more data to come to the conclusion Kendall came to.

[littleone66.livejournal.com]

You said it better than I would have. :) I was going to say that the would be rapists are too busy playing too many facebook games to have time to look for victims.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Hmm. How to put this.

I really truly believe that Evil doesn't happen because there's lots of easy victims out there, it happens because Some People are Evil. The sucker isn't responsible for getting scammed, every bit as much as a pretty girl is for getting raped.

The cause of rape is rapists. And assholes everywhere will use societal norms as either a justification for their actions after the fact, or as a reason to act in a violent way. See also: the gay panic defence.

Therefore, if the number of rapists stays the same, yet the number of potential victims gets smaller, there will very likely be no difference in the number of rapes committed.

Besides, have you ever noticed the number of young women these days that try to block out the world with their iPods playing and their heads down? This body language and lack of attention *attracts* attackers. It screams "I'm a weak, scared target who wouldn't be able to identify you in a lineup if my life depended on it".

Personally I see no difference in the availability of rape subjects. Or potential assault & robbery victims. Yet there's been a downward trend in all violent crimes since the early-mid 1990s. Personally, I think that there's more cheap, easy, and really exciting entertainment available today. Which also lends to lower rates of alcoholism, gambling addiction, and brawling; Three things which were major, widespread societal problems in the latter half of the 19th century which would lead to the criminalization of all alcohol and gambling in the early part of the 20th.