December 10, 2010 3:06 PM CST
NDSCS student pleads not guilty to rape
By Brandon L. Summers
A former North Dakota State College of Science football player pleaded not guilty in Southeast District Court Thursday on a felony charge of gross sexual imposition, or rape.
Jacob Rylander, 19, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both, and will have to register as a sex offender if found guilty.
Testifying at the three-hour preliminary hearing were NDSCS investigating officer Sgt. Aaron Berg and the victim, whose name was kept from the record. Appearing with the victim for support was a counselor from Three Rivers Crisis Center.
Berg originally interviewed the 20-year-old victim. Berg testified she told him that on Sept. 2 she'd had a party with six friends, including Rylander, inviting them over to consume alcohol and play drinking games. All but three left. By roughly 2 a.m., the victim, drunk after having 7-10 beers in a four-hour period, went to sleep, inviting two of her friends to spend the night. The victim later testified that she did not invite Rylander to stay over.
The victim was sequestered during Berg's testimony.
Berg continued, testifying that the victim soon woke up and found she had been undressed — her pants and underwear removed, her shirt lifted, and her bra unhooked — and Rylander was on top of her.
She asked, "Did you?" He leapt off, began apologizing emphatically as he dressed and left the campus apartment.
Berg testified Rylander allegedly had raped her. While her friends consoled her, Rylander sent several text messages apologizing further and asking her to get together so they could "talk about what happened," offering to skip class. Photos of the text messages on the victim's cell phone were exhibited as evidence.
The victim was taken to St. Francis Healthcare Campus emergency room later that day, Sept. 3. The hospital then contacted the Wahpeton Police Department, which handed the case over to NDSCS, since the crime took place on campus.
The victim, interviewed by defense attorney Robert Hoy for two hours, testified that she met the NDSCS football player weeks before school started Aug. 22. They "hung out a lot, almost every day and dated for a couple of days," she said. They had broken up the day before the incident.
Hoy's interview revealed that the victim was unable to recall details of the evening and the event from three months ago, including what time the party had started, the nature of the drinking games they played and the specific color of pants she wore to bed.
The victim also said that she'd had three such parties at her campus apartment, inviting Rylander to each of them. She testified affirmatively that she'd never engaged in sexual activity with Rylander or invited him to stay the night after any of the parties.
Berg testified that, when interviewed, Rylander admitted he'd asked the victim if she wanted to have sex, but wasn't sure if she had responded positively or negatively before proceeding. He had also admitted to taking off her pants and underwear.
Hoy had Berg clarify who said what in his report, which Berg had described as an accumulation. Berg had specified that all of the details in his testimony were provided to him by the victim.
The victim explained that while she hadn't wanted to report the crime at first, she ultimately changed her mind because she wanted the defendant to "face the consequences of his actions."
A status hearing was set for 9 a.m., Feb. 8, at the Law Enforcement Center. This will allow time for both attorneys to receive the last of the discovery.
The conditions of Rylander's release were amended so that he could go fulfill his duties with the Boy Scouts and go on a ski trip to Montana as a chaperone for three days in March.
http://www.wahpetondailynews.com/articles/2010/12/10/news/doc4d028f3ed37a1471375540.txt
Administration, Congress Take Steps To Address Sexual Assaults On Campus
By Joseph Shapiro
December 7, 2010
There are signs that government is taking on the problem of campus sexual assault with a new seriousness. The United States Department of Education is announcing "voluntary resolution agreements" with two schools that had been criticized for the way they'd handled assaults. And new legislation in Congress would expand and clarify the responsibility of colleges and universities.
Sexual violence is a common and persistent problem on the nation's college campuses. A study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that one out of five college women will be sexually assaulted. Usually there's alcohol involved. Last winter, NPR's Investigative Unit teamed up with journalists at the Center for Public Integrity to look at the failure of schools, and the government agency that oversees them, to resolve these cases. (The NPR investigation was called "Seeking Justice For Campus Rapes.")
At the time, in response to the series, the federal official who oversees how schools respond to sexual discrimination, including sexual violence, said her office was ready to take more aggressive action against schools. So recently, to follow up, Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, called in NPR and the Center for Public Integrity to discuss her latest steps. These include:
—Entering into agreements with Eastern Michigan University and Notre Dame College of Ohio. The documents lay out an array of steps the schools must take to prevent sexual assault and to effectively investigate assaults when they do happen. The agreements also call for Ali's department to send officials to those campuses on a regular basis to make sure progress is being made.
The cases that prompted a focus on these schools includes a December 2006 incident involving 22-year-old Laura Dickinson, who was raped and murdered by a stranger — another student — who broke into her dorm room at Eastern Michigan University. The man, Orange Taylor III, who was later convicted of the young woman's murder, had already been arrested for break-ins on campus, and had been kicked out of the school's dorms, although he was allowed to remain a student. Campus officials let Dickinson's family believe that she'd died of natural causes and didn't tell them the truth until 10 weeks later, when its investigation was completed and Taylor was arrested.
Schools have an obligation, under a federal law, the Clery Act, to promptly warn other students of crimes on campus and an obligation under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to take prompt and effective action to end or prevent sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape.
In October of 2005, two students at Notre Dame of Ohio, near Cleveland, told the dean of students that they'd been sexually assaulted. But it wasn't until weeks later that the assaults were reported to police. The dean said she'd been asked by the women to keep the information confidential. It turned out that the same man was involved. The dean, Patricia O'Toole, was indicted but later acquitted of failing to quickly notify law enforcement authorities. The case was seen as one that put obligations to respect student privacy against those to report crimes.
The Department of Education's Ali is an Obama Administration appointee. But both investigations were begun in the closing days of the Bush administration. Administrators at both schools said they already changed practices at their schools and that they wanted to do more to protect the safety of their students.
—Announcing that Ali's department had begun two similar investigations at Ohio State University and of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, in Richmond, California. That investigation was prompted by an alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl in that northern California city after she attended a homecoming dance at Richmond High School.
—Ali also said she had "proactively" called officials at the University of Notre Dame to offer them any help they needed investigating a recent rape allegation there. Ali said her office responded after seeing media reports last month of a student, Elizabeth Seeberg, who committed suicide after alleging a Notre Dame football player had assaulted her. Ali said the offer and discussions with the university in South Bend, Indiana, were continuing.
In addition, a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. House of Representatives, last week, introduced legislation that would expand and more clearly spell out what colleges and universities are expected to do to prevent sexual assaults and then how to respond when an allegation is made. The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act) was introduced on December 1 by Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-VA) and Rep. John Duncan (R-TN).
The bill would require that anytime a student reports being a victim of sexual violence — including stalking and date or domestic violence — schools are then required to explain, in writing, their rights to notify law enforcement and receive help from the school to report the incident. Schools must also tell students their rights to obtain a protective order from a local court. And the school is then obligated to help enforce those protective orders. Schools would be required to hold prevention campaigns, to help students avoid sexual violence and to know how to report it and get counseling if they become a victim.
S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus, an advocacy group for ending campus violence, helped develop the bill. He says the law is needed because the federal government has not done enough to lay out the specific needs of universities. And settlements, like the two just announced by Ali, are too specific and hard to find to provide guidance to other schools, he says.
"Without a clear national framework set in statute and regulation, it's still going through one school at a time," he says. "And not making these changes across the board, which is what we really need to do if you're going to change the big picture."
Perriello, who was defeated in his bid for re-election last month, represents the University of Virginia, where last spring a student attacked and killed his ex-girlfriend. Pierrello told NPR, "The tragic situation of Yeardley Love brought a lot of people's attention to this rampant and systematic problem on our campuses, but we see it every day."
The bill would also require schools to start teaching what's considered one of the best approaches to prevention: something called "bystander education". The idea is to teach everyone — men and women — that they can prevent sexual assaults, and that they have a responsibility to do so. It's similar to campaigns to stop drunk driving by spotting a friend who's had too much to drink and hiding his car keys, giving him a ride or calling a taxi.
Earlier this year, a social marketing campaign at the University of New Hampshire tried to teach students to step in when they see a situation that could lead to sexual assault, especially in situations where there's been a lot of drinking. Every bus on campus and every bathroom stall had a poster of such a scenario and a tag line: "Friends watch out for one another — especially when there's alcohol involved."
When he introduced his bill, Perriello cited the NPR and CPI investigative series for "exposing many of the gaps the Campus SaVE Act will help to fill."
Joseph Shapiro is a correspondent with NPR's Investigative Unit. He reported NPR's series last winter, "Seeking Justice for Campus Rapes."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/12/08/131887810/administration-congress-take-steps-to-address-sexual-assaults-on-campus
Deputy’s rape victim sues Fall River County and others
Andrea J. Cook
Journal staff
December 10, 2010
An Edgemont woman raped by a Fall River County sheriff's deputy two years ago is suing in federal court her attacker, Fall River County, Sheriff Jeff Tarrell, Edgemont Mayor James K. Turner and the City of Edgemont.
And her confessed attacker, Buckley McColl, now wants to withdraw his guilty plea.
McColl is serving a five-year prison sentence for the November 2008 attack that took place in Edgemont City Hall while he was a Fall River County deputy.
McColl pleaded guilty in the fall of 2009 to one count of third-degree rape. In exchange, two counts of third-degree rape were dropped, and the prosecutor agreed to recommend a five-year prison sentence.
Had McColl been convicted of each count of rape, he faced a maximum sentence of 75 years in prison and $150,000 in fines.
In the lawsuit, Rapid City attorneys Patrick Duffy and Jeffrey Fransen claim their client's civil rights were violated, that she was a victim of assault and battery, and false arrest, resulting in her suffering severe emotional distress.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants had a duty to ensure that McColl did not assault and rape the victim.
Tarrell, Turner and the local governments are also accused of negligence in the hiring, training and supervision of McColl, who was assigned to Edgemont.
The victim asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, plus legal expenses.
According to the lawsuit, DNA evidence obtained after the rape confirmed McColl had sex with the victim.
The suit also alleges that before the Edgemont attack, the defendants knew McColl had committed other attacks but did nothing, "demonstrating reckless indifference and callous disregard for Plaintiff's rights."
McColl's court appointed attorney, Paul Winter of Rapid City, recently filed a motion to withdraw his client's plea. Winter was appointed to represent McColl only a few months ago.
McColl, who has been in prison for a year, sent a letter to 7th Circuit Judge Peter Fuller last February, asking to withdraw his plea. The letter was followed by one from his wife, Sandi McColl, supporting her husband's request.
Fuller replied, "If Mr. McColl wishes to withdraw his plea and return to a not guilty plea, I will be happy to do so. Then we will have a trial." Fuller went on to advise McColl to request a court-appointed attorney.
Winter's motion alleges that information that was supposed to be sealed relating to McColl's use of county computers was "leaked" to the public.
According to the federal lawsuit, pornographic images of females younger than 18 were found on McColl's work computer.
Winter admitted that his client risks a much stiffer prison sentence if he is allowed to withdraw his plea.
"Clearly, the motivating factor in entering the plea was that portions of the record remain confidential and sealed," Winter said. "We are asserting that that didn't occur."
A register of the documents filed in McColl's case shows that at least two separate documents are sealed.
Fall River County State's Attorney Jim Sword would not comment on the terms of the plea agreement but acknowledged that McColl is taking a risk by asking to withdraw his plea.
"He's essentially rolling the dice," Sword said.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_a6dc4d0c-040b-11e0-8c22-001cc4c03286.html
They ignore it, they pretend it didn't happen and they hope they never have to retell it.
Victims of sexual assault or abuse often go through cycles of denial and avoidance that can impede cases brought against alleged criminals. These feelings can also lead to severe underreporting in cases of sexual violence, despite high prevalence on college campuses, said Allison Bennett, the university's coordinator of the Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Program.
One in five college women will be raped or experience an attempted rape during their time at college, according to a 2000 study (****, that is some old information)by the National College Women Sexual Victimization. (I assume that this group has had some of its name chopped off, but with a name like that are we supposed to beleive anything they say?? NOT)That could mean as many as 3,400 women out of 17,000 female students have been or will be sexually assaulted during their time at this university.
But the amount of sexual assaults reported to university officials is far lower.
Although some students choose to report incidents of sexual violence to SARPP, Bennett estimates that number is merely a fraction of the number of sexual assaults that take place. And University Police data reflects even fewer cases than SARPP statistics do, leaving university and state officals to attempt to take the issue of prevention into their own hands.
From June 2008 to June 2009, SARPP only saw about 100 students for sexual assault-related issues; of those students, 35 reported they were raped, five stated they had been raped by more than one perpetrator and three students reported an attempted rape.
No "forcible rape" was reported in University Police's 2009 Uniform Crime Report statistics.
"We cannot investigate what hasn't been reported," University Police spokesman Paul Dillon said.
Privacy issues, shame and fear of having to relive feelings brought on by assault are all reasons why sexual violence is so underreported at the university, Bennett said. She added the low percentage of assailants who face actual jail time, and what can become a drawn-out legal process can discourage students from coming forward.
"Of the cases of rape that actually go to trial, only 1 percent actually go to jail," Bennett said. "[Victims] feel that going to the police will only prolong the abusive experience considering the likelihood of something happening to the offender is so low."
But an opinion issued by the state's Attorney General on Friday may impose more scrutiny on students accused of sexual assault by forcing universities to reveal the names of students found to be guilty by the school.
Universities, who usually withhold the name of the alleged perpetrator by citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act even in cases when they are found guilty, are being encouraged to reveal the student's identity under the Maryland Public Information Act, wrote Robert McDonald, chief counsel for Attorney General Douglas Gansler.
According to police statistics, the number of sexual assaults on the campus that have been reported to police seems to have been declining since 2003, with six rapes reported in 2003 and no rapes reported since 2005, save one case in 2008.
In contrast, SARPP has seen the number of students taking advantage of their services fluctuate over the years. During each year since 2006, the office served no less than 100 victims, with a high of 140 in 2008, according to a SARPP report.
"When you look at the statistics on rape, you cannot look at it for signs of general trends, of whether the number of incidents is going down or up because it is so underreported," Dillon said. "There are so many factors you have to keep in mind when looking at the statistics."
Next Tuesday, the University Senate's Committee for Campus Affairs is revealing a report on the discrepancy between the number of rapes occurring on this campus and the number reported to officials. The committee is planning to present a special report on rape and sexual violence during the annual Campus Safety Forum.
The investigation was spurred, in part, by a special report called "Out of the Shadows" conducted by Terp Weekly Edition for the university's radio station WMUC 88.1 FM.
"Some of the stats in the report were really disturbing," said Deborah Nelson, a journalism professor and Campus Affairs Committee member. "Especially the lack of incidents reported to the police in comparison to those reported to SARPP."
Story County SART (Sexual Assault Response Team) statistics:
•There were 55 SART responses in 2004.
•Breakdown of the 55 cases in 2004:
◦65% were between the ages of 18-25
◦98% were female and 2% male
◦47% of victims were ISU students
◦54% were acquaintances
◦71% of victims reported having used alcohol or other drugs
◦61% of victims reported that the perpetrator used alcohol or other drugs
Today’s headlines are shouting RAPE IN DECLINE!2 Official figures just
released show a plunge in the number of rapes per capita in the United States since the
1970s. Even when measured in different ways, including police reports and survey
interviews, the results are in agreement: there has been an 85% reduction in sexual
violence in the past 25 years. The decline, steeper than the stock market crash that led to
the Great Depression, is depicted in this chart prepared by the United States Department
of Justice:
As the chart shows, there were 2.7 rapes for every 1,000 people in 1980; by 2004, the
same survey found the rate had decreased to 0.4 per 1000 people, a decline of 85%.
Official explanations for the unexpected decline include (1) less lawlessness
associated with crack cocaine; (b) women have been taught to avoid unsafe situations; (c)
more would-be rapists already in prison for other crimes; (d) sex education classes telling
boys that “no means no.” But these minor factors cannot begin to explain such a sharp
decline in the incidence of rape.
There is, however, one social factor that correlates almost exactly with the rape
statitistics. The American public is probably not ready to believe it. My theory is that
the sharp rise in access to pornography accounts for the decline in rape. The correlation
is inverse: the more pornography, the less rape. It is like the inverse correlation: the more
police officers on the street, the less crime.
Myths That Make It Hard To Stop Campus Rape
by Joseph Shapiro
March 4, 2010
There's a common assumption about men who commit sexual assault on a college campus: That they made a one-time, bad decision. But psychologist David Lisak says this assumption is wrong —-and dangerously so.
Lisak started with a simple observation. Most of what we know about men who commit rape comes from studying the ones who are in prison. But most rapes are never reported or prosecuted. So Lisak, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, set out to find and interview men he calls "undetected rapists." Those are men who've committed sexual assault, but have never been charged or convicted.
He found them by, over a 20-year period, asking some 2,000 men in college questions like this: "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated [on alcohol or drugs] to resist your sexual advances?"
Or: "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn't want to because you used physical force [twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.] if they didn't cooperate?"
About 1 in 16 men answered "yes" to these or similar questions.
Profile Of A Rapist
It might seem like it would be hard for a researcher to get these men to admit to something that fits the definition of rape. But Lisak says it's not. "They are very forthcoming," he says. "In fact, they are eager to talk about their experiences. They're quite narcissistic as a group — the offenders — and they view this as an opportunity, essentially, to brag."
What Lisak found was that students who commit rape on a college campus are pretty much like those rapists in prison. In both groups, many are serial rapists. On college campuses, repeat predators account for 9 out of every 10 rapes.
And these offenders on campuses — just like men in prison for rape — look for the most vulnerable women. Lisak says that on a college campus, the women most likely to be sexually assaulted are freshmen.
"It's quite well-known amongst college administrators that first-year students, freshman women, are particularly at risk for sexual assault," Lisak says. "The predators on campus know that women who are new to campus, they are younger, they're less experienced. They probably have less experience with alcohol, they want to be accepted. They will probably take more risks because they want to be accepted. So for all these reasons, the predators will look particularly for those women."
Still, Lisak says these men don't think of themselves as rapists. Usually they know the other student. And they don't use guns or knives.
"The basic weapon is alcohol," the psychologist says. "If you can get a victim intoxicated to the point where she's coming in and out of consciousness, or she's unconscious — and that is a very, very common scenario — then why would you need a weapon? Why would you need a knife or a gun?"
Complicated By Alcohol
Stetson University law professor Peter Lake agrees there are plenty of predators on campus, and that it's important to spot them and get them out of school.
But Lake says there's a problem the predator theory underestimates: the amount of drinking and sex that's become common with many — although certainly not all — college students.
"It's very common for them to go out Wednesday through Saturday at a minimum, drink fairly heavily and hook up sexually with people that they may not know particularly well, may have met for the first time that night, or had been introduced through friends, or MySpace or Facebook," he says. "So you have a lot of sexual activity, you have alcohol, you have a population that's sort of an at-risk age, and it's in some ways, it's a perfect storm for sex assault issues."
Lake, author of the 2009 book Beyond Discipline: Managing the Modern Higher Education Environment, says schools address sexual assault mainly as a violation of conduct codes. And he says these codes have evolved to better handle sexual assault cases.
Can They Learn From Mistakes?
Part of Lake's belief in second chances for students comes from personal experience as a law professor. He's a consultant to universities about discipline procedures, and he was the honor-code investigator for his own law school's discipline committee for a decade.
But he's also worked as an attorney in criminal courts where he'd see criminals who were "incorrigible" and who made him "kind of grateful that we have jails and we're still building them."
Those men were different than the ones he'd routinely see being disciplined on college campuses. "What surprised me was how many people have made terrible mistakes and can actually learn to be better people from that," Lake says, "that there still is a chance for teachable moments."
But Lisak, the psychologist, says schools put too much faith in teachable moments, when they ought to treat sexual assault as a criminal matter. "These are clearly not individuals who are simply in need of a little extra education about proper communication with the opposite sex," he says. "These are predators."
A Jury Decides
At Texas A&M, Elton Yarbrough was a promising student. Then he was linked to five rapes.
The first woman went to the student health center. She says that as staffers did a rape examination, one asked, "Well, were you drunk?" The woman felt she was being blamed. Because of that — and because she'd considered herself a friend of Yarbrough's — she didn't report the assault to campus police. A year later, when the fourth woman called, the student health center was closed for a holiday. The answering machine said to call 911 in an emergency. She did, and got city police.
"And College Station police were there within a few minutes," says Jennifer Peebles, a journalist who reported the case for the Center for Public Integrity. "They seemed to have absolutely taken the case very seriously and investigated it."
On a recent morning, Peebles — who works for Texas Watchdog, an online investigative newspaper in Houston — went to visit Yarbrough at a Texas prison. He spoke freely about the women. He recounted the sex and how, he claims, they'd come on to him.
"He feels strongly that he didn't do anything against the law," Peebles says. "He says he feels like he made a bad decision and that the young woman made, or the young women, made a bad decision with him to have sex with him."
In the one rape case that went to trial, a Texas jury ruled this was the bad decision of a predator. Yarbrough was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124272157
"The basic weapon is alcohol,"
Remind me again why anyone takes this nut job Lisak seriously.... Oh ya, it is because he says what the rape feminists want to hear, any connection to reality is purely incidental and is not required.
Repeat felon accused in City College student rape after jail term postponed hit with 15-year term
By Melissa Grace
Daily News Staff Writer
December 7th 2010
A hulking ex-con, who cops say raped a City College student two days after a judge postponed putting him behind bars on a drug charge, was slammed Tuesday with the maximum of 15 years in prison.
Lawrence Elliot - who faced 2½ years for his role in a minor drug sale before he was arrested on rape charges last month - got no mercy this time around.
"I see no reason or justification to show any mercy on your behalf," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Sonberg said as he ordered the hefty term - and as Elliot shouted that he was being railroaded.
"You are not entitled to the benefit of your plea agreement," Sonberg told him.
"You say I'm guilty before proven innocent," Elliot, 47, yelled as the gavel came down and before he was hauled out in cuffs.
"It has no merit," Elliot claimed of his arrest in the rape. "I'm in as much shock as anyone else."
Less than 48 hours after a Nov. 9 hearing where Sonberg allowed Elliot to stay out on $10,000 bail, the violent repeat felon allegedly raped and robbed a 21-year-old student in her Hamilton Heights apartment building, officials said.
As first reported by the Daily News, the judge granted Lawrence, who has a long rap sheet including a 1993 rape, an extra month of freedom to care for his sick dad - over objections of prosecutors.
Sonberg gave Elliot a stern warning before letting him stay out that day, telling him the agreed prison term would be off the table if he was re-arrested and that he'd send him to prison for up to 15 years.
"The no-arrest condition … was clear," Assistant District Attorney Bradley King, of the city's narcotics prosecutor's office, said as he asked the judge to impose the maximum term Tuesday.
Elliot was nabbed two days after the brazen Nov. 11 daytime rape at a building near St. Nicholas Park.
Video surveillance cameras filmed him trying to use the victim's ATM card at a bodega.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/12/07/2010-12-07_repeat_felon_accused_in_city_college_student_rape_after_jail_term_postponed_hit_.html
Lisak said that those actively battling sexual assault are “isolated voices” whose efforts are hampered by the lack of unified leadership.
“What we don’t have yet is courageous moral leadership from the leadership of our institutions,” he said. “That’s a huge missing piece.”
Lisak said hope for facing the issue of sexual violence lies in non-rapists, who must be mobilized and made to feel responsible for the welfare of the community.
“The answer comes out of a collective conversation,” Lisak said
A study done by one of the most well-regarded researchers in the field found that “high pornography consumption added significantly to the prediction of sexual aggression.” 1
A meta-analysis of 46 published research studies on the effects of pornography on sexual perpetration, attitudes regarding intimate relationships, and attitudes regarding the rape myth found that exposure to pornographic material puts one at increased risk for committing sexual
offenses, experiencing difficulties in one’s intimate relationships, and accepting rape myths (i.e. beliefs that trivialize rape or blame the victim for the crime). Specifically, there is a 22% increase in sexual perpetration; a 20% increase in negative intimate relationships; and a 31% increase in believing rape myths. A total sample size of 12,323 people comprised the present meta-analysis.
The studies confirmed the link between increased risk for negative development when exposed to pornography. 2
Another meta-analysis examined 30 different studies with a total of 2,040 participants and concluded that exposure to pornography increases behavioral aggression. While there are many factors that influence this effect (for example, the content of the pornography viewed), the researchers conclude that a connection between exposure to pornography and subsequent behavioral aggression exists. 3
The relationship between frequent pornography consumption and sexually aggressive behavior is especially strong for those with the highest "predisposing" risk level for sexual aggression. Those who are at high risk for sexual aggression and who frequently consume pornography have sexual aggression levels that are four times higher than those who do not consume pornography frequently. 4
1 Vanessa Vega and Neil M. Malamuth, “Predicting Sexual Aggression: The Role of Pornography in the Context of General and Specific Risk Factors,” Aggressive Behavior, Volume 33 (2007): pp. 104–117.
2 Elizabeth Oddone-Paolucci, Mark Genuis and Claudio Violato, The Changing Family and Child Development, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 48-59.
3 M. Allen, D. D'Alessio, and K. Brezgel, "A Meta-Analysis Summarizing the Effects of
Pornography II,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 22, Number 2 (December, 1995): pp 258-283.
4 Neil Malamuth, T. Addison, and J. Koss, "Pornography and Sexual Aggression: Are there Reliable Effects and Can We Understand Them?" Annual Review of Sex Research, Vol. 11 (2000): pp. 26-94.
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Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant have studied the effects of what they refer to as "massive exposure" to pornography: 4 hours and 48 minutes per week over a period of six weeks. These researchers focused on the effects of non-violent pornography. Male subjects in the massive exposure condition viewed 36 non-violent pornographic films over six weeks; male subjects in
the intermediate condition saw 18 movies, three per week. The control group saw 36 non- pornographic movies. Numerous findings resulted. First, a desire for stronger material was fostered in their subjects. "Consumers graduate from common to less common forms of pornography," Zillman maintains, that is, to more violent and more degrading material. This research suggests that pornography can create a desire for the more abusive types of pornography
in men who previously had no such desire.
Second, "males' sexual callousness toward women was significantly enhanced" (p. 117). For example, the subjects became increasingly accepting of statements such as "A woman doesn't mean 'no' until she slaps you"; "A man should find them, fool them, **** them, and forget them"; and "If they are old enough to bleed, they are old enough to butcher.” A marked increase in males' acceptance of male dominance in intimate relationships was yet another result. The idea
that women are or should be equal in intimate relationships was more likely to be abandoned by these male subjects. Finally, their support of the feminist movement also declined sharply (p.134).
After the same three weeks of “massive exposure,” subjects were told that they were participating in an American Bar Association study that required them to evaluate a trial in which a man was prosecuted for the rape of a female hitchhiker. At the end of this mock trial various measures were taken of the subjects' opinions about the trial and about rape in general.
For example, they were asked to recommend the prison term they thought most fair. The male subjects who were exposed to the massive amounts of pornography considered rape a less serious crime than they did before they were exposed to it; they thought that prison sentences for rape should be shorter; and they perceived sexual aggression and abuse as causing less suffering for the victims, even in the case of an adult male having sexual intercourse with a 12-year-old girl. The researchers concluded that "heavy exposure to common non-violent pornography
trivialized rape as a criminal offense" (p. 117). 12
12 Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, “Effects of massive exposure to pornography” in Pornography and Sexual Aggression, ed. Neil Malamuth and Edward Donnerstein, pp. 115-138, New York: Academic Press, 1984).
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Several studies have shown that portrayals of women enjoying rape and other kinds of sexual violence can lead to increased acceptance of rape myths in both males and females. One group of college students were shown a pornographic depiction in which a woman was portrayed as sexually aroused by sexual violence, and a second group was exposed to control materials.
Subsequently, all subjects were shown a second rape portrayal. The students who had been exposed to the pornographic depiction of rape were significantly more likely than the students in the control group (1) to perceive the second rape victim as suffering less trauma; (2) to believe that she actually enjoyed it; and (3) to believe that women in general enjoy rape and forced sexual acts. 13
Males' internal inhibitions against acting out their desire to rape can be undermined if they consider male violence against women to be acceptable behavior. Viewing portrayals of sexual violence that has positive consequences increases male subjects' acceptance of violence against women. Examples of some of the attitudes used to measure acceptance of interpersonal violence
include:
"Being roughed up is sexually stimulating to many women.”
"Sometimes the only way a man can get a cold woman turned on is to use force.”
"Many times a woman will pretend she doesn't want to have intercourse because she doesn't want to seem loose, but she's really hoping the man will force her.”
Other rape myths that male subjects are more likely to believe after viewing pornography are:
"A woman who goes to the home or the apartment of a man on their first date implies that she is willing to have sex.”
"Any healthy woman can successfully resist a rapist if she really wants to.”
"Many women have an unconscious wish to be raped, and many then unconsciously set up a situation in which they are likely to be attacked.”
"If a girl engages in necking or petting and she lets things get out of hand, it is her own fault if her partner forces sex on her.” 14
13 Neil Malamuth and James Check. “The effects of aggressive pornography on beliefs in rape myths: Individual differences.” Journal of Research in Personality, 19 (1985), pp. 299-320.
14 John Briere, Neil Malamuth, and James Check. “Sexuality and rape-supportive beliefs,”International Journal of Women's Studies, Issue 8 (1985): pp. 398-403.
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:qoJTVPyGt0IJ:www1.umn.edu/aurora/pdf/ResearchOnPornography.pdf+predisposing+risk+levels+for+sexual+aggression&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjIkkx8kA9ndh2pk-SPpJE-lJt7PHeiEeKuJ4eBpX-BnF0ifu1OqyLnq3DY2YeyF7q1GaNyHv54ps7G8PtA418cJsxzhtf3Jcdk4Koy4TekngHUt7qCzctP-5iJpGleH6iErD1c&sig=AHIEtbSsdMKsbY3OtFfuSqMUYmQ-yo-f-w&pli=1
Research on the effects of pornography has shown that pornography consumption increases sexual aggressiveness, increases acceptance of rape myths, and causes rape to be viewed as a less serious crime.
Rape is sometimes now and often has been viewed as a less violent crime
There is nothing to support the notion that availability of internet pornography has decreased the frequency of the crime of rape.
Research on the effects of pornography has shown that pornography consumption increases sexual agressiveness, increases acceptance of rape myths, and causes rape to be viewed as a less serious crime.
Several studies have shown that portrayals of women enjoying rape and other kinds of sexual violence can lead to increased acceptance of rape myths in both males and females. One group of college students were shown a pornographic depiction in which a woman was portrayed as sexually aroused by sexual violence, and a second group was exposed to control materials.
causes rape to be viewed as a less serious crime
Another repeat rapist who won't be out on the street for a long time--and he still faces a rape trial.
