Pornography: What Do We Know?
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2013
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What do we really know about the effects of pornography?
Public debate has become increasingly dominated by an emotive, polarised argument between those who say it is harmful and those who say it can be liberating. Jo Fidgen puts the moral positions to one side and investigates what the evidence tells us. She explores the limitations of the research that's been carried out and asks whether we need to update our understanding of pornography. She hears from users of pornography about how and why they use it and researchers reveal what they have learnt about our private pornographic habits.
With pornography becoming increasingly easy to access online, and as policy-makers, parents and teachers discuss how to deal with this, it's a debate that will have far-reaching implications on education and how we use the internet.
Producer: Helena Merriman
Interviewees:
Professor Neil Malamuth - University of California Dr Miranda Horvath - Middlesex University Dr Ogi Ogas - Author of A Billion Wicked Thoughts Professor Roger Scruton - Conservative philosopher and Author of Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation Professor Gail Dines - Wheelock College, Boston.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
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| 0:36.0 | Thank you for downloading analysis from the BBC. |
| 0:39.0 | In this week's programme, Joe Fijin asks, |
| 0:42.0 | what do we really know about the effects of pornography? |
| 0:47.0 | There was a big billboard on Sans Boulevard for the Rolling Stones that had this woman tied up and bruised |
| 0:58.0 | and it said, I'm black and blue from the Rolling Stones and I love it. |
| 1:03.0 | Back in the rolling stones and I love it. |
| 1:05.0 | Back in the mid-70s, |
| 1:10.0 | a student at the University of California, |
| 1:12.0 | Neil Malamuth, wondered whether these sorts of images |
| 1:15.5 | were harming women. |
| 1:17.1 | I was working in a professor's lab and I took seriously the idea of trying to do scientific research on socially relevant topics. |
| 1:27.0 | I thought, well, this might be one in which I can take a certain set of ideas and translate them into testable |
| 1:37.0 | hypotheses that could be verified or could be negated. |
| 1:42.0 | He became one of the first psychologists to take pornography into the laboratory |
| 1:47.0 | and is highly respected in the field. |
| 1:49.0 | I wanted to talk to Professor Malamuth because I have a dilemma I'd like to resolve. |
... |
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