Page 303 - The Social Animal

Human Aggression 285

cent of the females agreed that the man should stop his sexual ad-
vances as soon as the woman says “no.” But nearly half those same
students also believed that when a woman says “no” she doesn’t al-
88
ways mean it. This confusion has prompted several colleges to
enact firm rules specifying that dating couples negotiate an explicit
contract about their sexual conduct and limitations at the very begin-
ning of the date. Given the problems associated with sexual scripts
and the unpleasant (and occasionally tragic) consequences of misread
desires and intentions, it is understandable that college administra-
tors would resort to this extreme precaution. At the same time, it
should be noted that more than a few social critics have deplored this
measure on the grounds that it encourages excessive fear and para-
noia, destroys the spontaneity of romance, and reduces the excite-
ment of dating to the point where it resembles a field trip to a
lawyer’s office. 89
Coincidental with the increase in rape during the past few
decades is an increase in the availability of the depiction of vivid, ex-
plicit sexual behavior on the Internet. For better or worse, in recent
years, our society has become increasingly freer and more tolerant of
pornography. If, as we’ve seen, the viewing of violence in films and
on television contributes to violence, shouldn’t it follow that viewing
pornographic material would increase the incidence of rape? Al-
though this has been argued from both pulpit and lecturn, it is much
too simplistic an assumption. Indeed, after studying the available ev-
idence, the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography
concluded that explicit sexual material in itself did not contribute to
sexual crimes, violence against women, or other antisocial acts.
The key phrase in the preceding sentence is “in itself.” Neil
Malamuth, Edward Donnerstein, and their colleagues have con-
ducted a series of careful studies to determine the effects, if any, of
pornography. Taken together, these studies indicate that exposure
90
to pornography is harmless—but that exposure to violent pornogra-
phy—which combines pornographic sex with violence—promotes
greater acceptance of sexual violence toward women and is one fac-
tor associated with aggressive behavior toward women.In one exper-
91
iment, Donnerstein showed men one of three films—an aggressive-
erotic one involving rape, a purely erotic one without aggression, or
a neutral film that was neither aggressive nor erotic. After viewing
one of these films, the men took part in a supposedly unrelated study