Why Banning Porn Is Dangerous For Women
It’s no secret that India has a bit of a rape problem. Not just rape, but also sexual assault, workplace harassment, catcalling, and other forms of violence and discrimination. Well, guess what, banning porn isn’t going to solve that, in fact it will make it worse, because certain men won’t have a harmless outlet to channel all that extra aggression.
There’s global evidence to support that the less porn there is in society, the more unsafe it is for women.
When UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) researchers asked both law-abiding citizens and convicted rapists how much porn they consumed, the latter group admitted to watching less porn than law-abiding citizens. When Denmark relaxed restrictions on pornography in the 1970s, there was a notable decrease in sexual assault rates and rape allegations.
Think about it this way, if there was a ban on ‘food’ then wouldn’t there be a drastic increase in food thefts? Street vendors selling groceries would get robbed left and right, big supermarket chains would be the victim of elaborate heists, and dine-and-dash would become the new norm.
When you ban something, people will find a way to get it and those ways will often be harmful and dangerous.
The idea of a porn ban came from a ridiculous justification for rape. When students from a boarding school in Dehradun were accused of rape, they claimed that they were “influenced” into committing the crime because they saw a porn video. Others accused of rape have made similar excuses and that’s all it is – a poor excuse.
“It’s evident that the Indian government does not have a solution to a very serious and systemic problem in the country, and is using adult sites like ours as a scapegoat.” – Corey Vice, vice-president at Pornhub
The bottom-line is that rape has been a problem in India for a long time, long before Internet pornography came into existence, and long before western clothing came into the country – because even using women’s clothing as an excuse to sexually assault them is equally pathetic.
Lastly, even though 827 porn sites are technically banned, it is all too easy to get around the ban if you are even a little tech-savvy. Implementing the ban won’t work, therefore it is a waste of time and resources to even ban it in the first place. Here’s hoping our country invests its time and resources into more productive pursuits!
