Page 1253 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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sexuality and sex. It warps; it twists; it has the potential to warp and twist a child's perception of those things. Mr Moore, I think, and others referred to the report on violence and the quote concerning stigmatisation in the marketplace. That redress for rational adults is not available for young children.
Secondly, there is substantial evidence, despite what Mr Moore and others have said, that pornography incites sexual offences. The starkest case of pornography induced crime was that of Ted Bundy in the United States. Mr Moore, I think, and others tend to dismiss cases such as that. I think some have described it as a classic case of American showmanship. But he is merely one of many convicted sex offenders who has cited pornography as a significant factor in the offences.
I will give you some examples. Gary Arthur Bishop, convicted of molesting and murdering five boys, said, "I am a homosexual paedophile convicted of murder, and pornography was a determining factor in my downfall". Richard Daniel Starrett, a murderer who had assaulted six women, collected hard-core pornography as well as police textbooks and newspaper articles about serial killers. The FBI in the United States conducted a survey of serial killers and found that 81 per cent identified pornography as one of their highest sexual interests. An earlier study by one Marshall found that 86 per cent of rapists admitted regular use of pornography with 57 per cent admitting actual imitation of pornographic scenes in committing their crimes.
What more do you want? They are the admissions of people who have been convicted of these sorts of offences that pornography was a significant factor in their lives. What more do you want? What more evidence can you possibly adduce? Even without those kinds of testimonies, the reality of the link between X-rated material and sex related crime accords with every modicum of commonsense in any person's assessment of this situation.
The third point that I want to raise is in connection with the concerns of feminists. I do not often agree with the views of feminists on a number of issues but I acknowledge that pornography is increasingly being seen by feminists as part of the patriarchal superstructure. According to David Steinberg, pornography degrades women as it offers men:
... images of women hungry for sex with us, possessed by desire for us. Women hungry to get their hands on our bodies or get our hands on theirs. Receptive women who greet our sexual desire not with fear and loathing but with appreciation, even gratitude.
Despite what was said by earlier speakers, I think this highlights very clearly the fact that pornography, whatever its violence content, even if it has absolutely none, unquestionably degrades women.
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