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Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?

The most harrowing accounts I've read have been about abusers directly targeting minors with boiling frog techniques, and in every single story the biggest problem has been the kid being totally unequipped to recognise or act on inappropriate behaviour from the 'cool friend' who is talking to them.

Proper moderation is absolutely laudable and needs to be happening but if you want to help the kids (and adults!) who aren't actually IN the exploitative/illegal material, educating and empowering kids about what appropriate boundaries are, how to communicate stuff about boundary problems to peers and authorities, and always chipping away at the idea that you for some reason need to risk harm to yourself because you don't want to be some kind of downer about things that are waving red flags like crazy... That's the low-hanging fruit that will get you the most good for the least trouble trying to get anything done.

The pop-porn problems like 'whoops, guys think people love to be choked cause they see it so much' are more akin to other pop-culture problems like everyone thinking real cops can do CSI magic. There's certainly an influence but the third time you get dumped cause you won't keep your hands off your girl's neck you'll probably check your assumptions - or you might just be someone who doesn't listen anyway.
 
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Poem said:
A society that does not tolerate a culture of rape would shut Pornhub down; it might then consider whether it would be safe to allow them to continue.

Either way, something needs to be done. As already noted:
Child safety experts have said the harm being done to children is too severe for it to wait to be addressed as part of the online safety bill (ie regarding the UK).

Guardian article on how extreme porn has become a gateway drug into child abuse. Mainstream pornography sites are ‘changing what is normal’, warns child abuse expert Michael Sheath
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Yeah that doesn't in any way address the points I raised. You seem to just want to keep repeating "Porn bad, rape culture, shutdown Pornhub" with no real plan and no thought as to how it would play out or if it would even end up accomplishing what you want.
 
Poem said:
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Fully addressed by my preceding posts, which you must have read on the way to this one. In summary, you seem more concerned about bad behavior by porn distributors and the platforms they distribute on, than about the extent of rape culture in modern societies. That "Q.E.D." was in response to your immediately preceding post, which seemed to support my hypothesis. As have all your subsequent posts.
 
The_Animus said:
Yeah that doesn't in any way address the points I raised. You seem to just want to keep repeating "Porn bad, rape culture, shutdown Pornhub" with no real plan and no thought as to how it would play out or if it would even end up accomplishing what you want.
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Which strongly suggests that shutting down Pornhub and generally making access to all porn more difficult for everyone is the actual goal being sought, and child welfare, violent scenes, rape culture etc. are just handy pretexts.
 
anyone raise a hand if they want porn sites maintaining databases of porn history with their photo id
 
What about video games?

I might have actually blushed when Baldurs Gate 3 asked me to select my characters' genitalia from a number of options.
 
The_Animus said:
Yeah that doesn't in any way address the points I raised. You seem to just want to keep repeating "Porn bad, rape culture, shutdown Pornhub" with no real plan and no thought as to how it would play out or if it would even end up accomplishing what you want.
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You have a plan for how 'better moderation and enforcement' would play out and be efficacious? AFAIK, Musk has reduced his moderation staff - and X is where children generally first see porn. Perhaps Musk forgot to add two more X's? And we know Pornhub puts money above moderation.

When there is incontrovertible evidence that a website is hosting rape and underage videos why would society hesitate to shut it down? Pornhub has already had one strike back in 2020 with Kristof's piece in the NY Times; how many more chances do we give them? Perhaps their business model is in conflict with their moderation responsibilities? It seems to me that the message is that rape and child porn is a price that society is willing to pay.
 
Poem said:
You have a plan for how 'better moderation and enforcement' would play out and be efficacious? AFAIK, Musk has reduced his moderation staff - and X is where children generally first see porn. Perhaps Musk forgot to add two more X's? And we know Pornhub puts money above moderation.

When there is incontrovertible evidence that a website is hosting rape and underage videos why would society hesitate to shut it down? Pornhub has already had one strike back in 2020 with Kristof's piece in the NY Times; how many more chances do we give them? Perhaps their business model is in conflict with their moderation responsibilities? It seems to me that the message is that rape and child porn is a price that society is willing to pay.
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Actually I think that has been going on for centuries. Internet has been pretty okay at exposing and prosecuting those predators.

Free speech is one thing. "Price that society is willing to pay" has bias written all over it..
 
theprestige said:
I agree that there's merit to the concern, but that's not the concern that Poem is focusing on. Their evidence for a widespread and pervasive rape culture is that PornHub does a bad job of controlling content, and of controlling underage access. Absent is any discussion of how access to PornHub actually correlates with a measured increase in rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, and related sex crimes.
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The Guardian (Jan 2024): Children now ‘biggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against children’

"Boys are watching violent porn on their smartphones then going on to attack girls, police have said, as new data showed children are now the biggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against other children. Police data shows there has been a quadrupling of sexual offences against children, in what officers say is the most authoritative analysis of offending against youngsters."
 
PitPat said:
Actually I think that has been going on for centuries. Internet has been pretty okay at exposing and prosecuting those predators.

Free speech is one thing. "Price that society is willing to pay" has bias written all over it..
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Office for National Statistics (ONS):
"The majority of child abuse cases remain hidden and therefore do not enter the criminal justice system. Around 227,500 identifiable child abuse offences were recorded by the police in the year ending March 2019, of which around 1 in 25 (4%) resulted in a charge or summons."

Saunders Law is a central London law firm - and they say (in an article dated Feb 2023):
"Virtually all rape victims are denied justice: Here is the roadmap to failure.

In recent months, England and Wales has seen the familiar disastrous trend: in overwhelming numbers, the most serious sex offences are not leading to convictions.

The Statistics

Since 2016-2017, the number of rapes reported has increased by 67% from 42,059 up to 70,330. In 2021-2022, only 3.2 % of those were prosecuted (2,223). For those prosecuted, the conviction rate in 2022 was 62%. No statistic can provide a perfect, complete picture. The total reports include ‘historical’ allegations which are usually harder to prove. But the broad indication is that, during 2021-2022, of the 70,330 rapes reported to police only 1,378 led to a conviction. This is a conviction rate of less than 2%.

However these outcomes are viewed - whether in light of short term targets or recent trends, a 2% conviction rate is an absurd, abject failure."
 
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Poem said:
Office for National Statistics (ONS):
"The majority of child abuse cases remain hidden and therefore do not enter the criminal justice system. Around 227,500 identifiable child abuse offences were recorded by the police in the year ending March 2019, of which around 1 in 25 (4%) resulted in a charge or summons."

Saunders Law is a central London law firm - and they say (in an article dated Feb 2023):
"Virtually all rape victims are denied justice: Here is the roadmap to failure.

In recent months, England and Wales has seen the familiar disastrous trend: in overwhelming numbers, the most serious sex offences are not leading to convictions.

The Statistics

Since 2016-2017, the number of rapes reported has increased by 67% from 42,059 up to 70,330. In 2021-2022, only 3.2 % of those were prosecuted (2,223). For those prosecuted, the conviction rate in 2022 was 62%. No statistic can provide a perfect, complete picture. The total reports include ‘historical’ allegations which are usually harder to prove. But the broad indication is that, during 2021-2022, of the 70,330 rapes reported to police only 1,378 led to a conviction. This is a conviction rate of less than 2%.

However these outcomes are viewed - whether in light of short term targets or recent trends, a 2% conviction rate is an absurd, abject failure."
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I don't have good answer for and nobody does, and it's not a dick-swinging country contest. Everybody is judged by peers. Weird thing, that.
 
Myriad said:
Which strongly suggests that shutting down Pornhub and generally making access to all porn more difficult for everyone is the actual goal being sought, and child welfare, violent scenes, rape culture etc. are just handy pretexts.
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Unfortunately it's a goal that sites like Pornhub obliviously play into with their obstinate resistance to doing anything whatsoever to address those problems.

If you ask me, Pornhub could address those issues quite successfully with active, diligent moderation. But that would require hiring moderators though which would cost money; even though Pornhub with diligent moderation would still be wildly profitable, it wouldn't be as wildly profitable, so in today's hyper-focused-on-profits business atmosphere that's a no-go.
 
Checkmite said:
Unfortunately it's a goal that sites like Pornhub obliviously play into with their obstinate resistance to doing anything whatsoever to address those problems.

If you ask me, Pornhub could address those issues quite successfully with active, diligent moderation. But that would require hiring moderators though which would cost money; even though Pornhub with diligent moderation would still be wildly profitable, it wouldn't be as wildly profitable, so in today's hyper-focused-on-profits business atmosphere that's a no-go.
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Do we know this? Or does Pornhub 'know' that they are always going to get away with it?
 
Checkmite said:
Unfortunately it's a goal that sites like Pornhub obliviously play into with their obstinate resistance to doing anything whatsoever to address those problems.

If you ask me, Pornhub could address those issues quite successfully with active, diligent moderation. But that would require hiring moderators though which would cost money; even though Pornhub with diligent moderation would still be wildly profitable, it wouldn't be as wildly profitable, so in today's hyper-focused-on-profits business atmosphere that's a no-go.
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Following Nicholas Kristof's 2020 exposé, Pornhub was forced to remove 80% of it's content.
 
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Poem said:
More on the history of Pornhub according to unherd:

Pornhub and xHamster have been banned in Germany; there has been a proposed ban in France; and a number of EU bodies have called for more restrictions for porn websites under the Digital Services Act.

I'm guessing, but does banned in Germany actually mean people can and do still access it? Cynical of me, i know.
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Given that the report is from far-right lie site unherd, I'm guessing the chances of this report being true are <0%.
 
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