The following notes are Dr. Barratt's written testimony to the Committee on Constitutional Law and Ethics of the State of Michigan House of Representatives, delivered February 15, 2000.

Re: Scientific and clinical evidence pertaining to adult entertainment, public availability of erotic materials / services, and significance of sexual fantasy life.

Background to Testimony:

This testimony addresses issues pertinent to current legislative proposals aimed at further regulation of so-called adult entertainment, including public access to erotic services and sexually explicit materials. The testimony bears on issues of public health, safety, and civil rights.

I offer this testimony as an individual working professionally and residing in Michigan, as well as in my role as Director of an Institute dedicated to offering clinical, educational, and research services to promote sexual health, healing and happiness, in the State of Michigan and surrounding regions. This testimony is based on a comprehensive and critical survey of the relevant scientific literature, as well as my more than twenty-five years of professional experience in this field.

Notes on Proper Procedures for the Review of Scientific Investigations:

The Midwest Institute of Sexology recently completed a comprehensive and critical review of the scientific literature relevant to issues of health, safety, and freedom of expression, in relation to the availability of so-called adult entertainment - in live performance as well as video and print media - and the provision of such erotic materials and services.

Scientific literature requires discriminating review:

As with any area of science, in the field of human sexuality, it is crucial that valid and reliable investigations be differentiated from those whose validity and reliability are limited or in question. Moreover, especially with the inherently controversial topics of human behavior, the proper conduct of science must be discriminated from the wealth of literature and alleged "investigations" that are merely the vehicle of an ideological agenda.

In this context, the review of research publications on which this testimony is based focuses on scientific investigations that:

·specify clearly the methodology employed

·are based on a non-biased sampling of the population

·use measures of behavioral or attitudinal effects that are valid and reliable

·present statistical data in a manner open to rational evaluation

·draw reasonable, circumscribed conclusions that are logically derived from the data that are reported

There are many misleading statistics, unscientific studies, and bogus "researches" in this field. Two examples of frequently cited and generally misinterpreted investigations are as follows: A 1983 study of convicted rapists showed that over 80% of them had used "pornography." From this data, it has been incorrectly inferred that pornography causes rape when:

(1) We do not know what percentage of the population of men who are not convicted rapists have been exposed to "pornography" (it might be more, it might be less than 80%)

(2) Even if it were proven that convicted rapists use such materials more frequently than other men in the general population, this would establish an association not causation. (Notice that gray hair is statistically associated with the behavior of cashing social security checks, but is not the cause of this behavior).

Another 1980s study reported that a particular county in Oklahoma enjoyed a reduced sexual assault rate coincident with a five-year period in which the local District Attorney "cracked down" on "obscenity." From this it has been erroneously concluded that enforcement of obscenity laws causes reduction in the crime rate, when in fact:

(1) During that same period the frequency of sexual assault in surrounding counties increased over 20% (i.e., the criminals may have relocated rather than decreased their activities),

(2) The study never informs us what other measures this District Attorney was taking to deter sexual assault in that particular county during this period (such as increasing the vigorous enforcement of the laws against rape, assault, and abuse).

In pursuing this review of what science can tell us about the effects of adult entertainment and the accessibility of erotic materials and services, the Midwest Institute of Sexology has tried to parse out inconclusive or erroneous "studies" such as the two cited above. It also drew only conservative and justifiable conclusions exclusively from those investigations that meet customary standards of scientific credibility such as those listed above.

Summary of Conclusions Based on Comprehensive Review of Available Scientific Evidence:

The available scientific evidence permits us to assert five major conclusions, which will be mentioned below (full citations, references, bibliographic materials, and procedures used in this review are available at the offices of the Midwest Institute of Sexology):

The availability of sexually explicit materials reduces the frequency of sex-related crimes, including sexual assault and child molestation. Several landmark studies contribute to this conclusion.

For example, a mid-1990s study of six U.S. cities, using FBI Uniform Crime Reports and data from the Audit Bureau of Circulation, showed that decreased consumption of sexually explicit magazines is associated with increased incidence of rape. Another late-1990s investigation of four States (Maine, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Washington), each of which had periods in the 1970s and 1980s during which no anti- pornography statutes were operative, found that:

...non-enforcement (with increased availability of sexually explicit materials) was not associated with increased frequency of property offenses, rape, prostitution, and other sexual offenses.

In research comparing several western societies, each with different laws pertaining to the availability of "pornography," the analysis of aggregate data of rape and other violent or sexual offenses finds no evidence for a causal link between the incidence of these offenses and the accessibility of sexually explicit materials. The Danish experience in the late 1960s, and the Japanese experience from 1972 to the mid-1990s, are both clear in their implications (despite the extensive debates they have evoked):

...concurrent with the legal deregulation and increased availability of "pornography" came a significant decrease in the frequency of sex offenses, including a substantial reduction in the amount of child molestation occurring in those countries.

It has been found that, in some limited situations, exposure to the depiction of coercion, aggression or violence in sexually explicit media can be associated with a transient increase in an individual's aggressive attitudes or hostile mood; however, this effect:

... has not been demonstrated in "real life" but only in laboratory studies;

... is on attitude or mood, and no effect on behavior has been unequivocally demonstrated;

... is mediated by other factors such as predisposition to aggressive or dominance based behaviors (i.e., in the artificial conditions of academic experiment, exposure to aggressive stimuli may, for a man already predisposed to aggression, temporarily facilitate the expression of aggressive attitudes or hostile mood... but that is all that these studies have shown)

... the effect is countered by contrary laboratory studies which demonstrate that, for other individuals or in other circumstances, exposure to aggressive stimuli may temporarily inhibit the expression of such attitudes or mood.

Obviously, it has been repeatedly demonstrated in laboratory studies that sexually explicit stimuli and exposure to erotic materials or services temporarily activate sexual excitation, mood and emotional state in a substantial portion of consumers. However, in general, patterns of sexual responsiveness are quite stable, such that an individual is only likely to be excited by erotic materials that correspond to his or her particular pattern of sexual response.

For example, delinquent and non-delinquent youth do not respond differently to nonviolent sexual stimuli, but an individual already disposed to aggression is more likely to have his or her aggressive feelings temporarily aroused by exposure to the depiction of aggressive acts. The depiction of coercion, aggression or violence in sexually inexplicit media, such as network television, has been found, in extensive investigations, to have similarly facilitative effects on attitude and mood.

Sexually explicit media that depict nonviolent eroticism have positive educational value in helping individuals toward responsible modes of sexual satisfaction, more stable partnered relations, and improved health (anxiety reduction, improved mood, better communication skills, and lowered stress). For this reason, sexually explicit materials have been routinely used, with proper contextual and preparatory procedures, in the professional practices of therapists, educators and healthcare workers.

Such use has been demonstrated as effective not only in individual and couple counseling, but also in the treatment of sexual adjustment problems and of behavioral disturbances (including antisocial behaviors). Erotic materials and services are often to be recommended to individuals and couples who intend to improve their level of communication, intimacy and relationship satisfaction.

Sexually explicit media also contribute significantly to clinical and educational programs designed to reduce prejudice, to promote safety, and to encourage responsible and reciprocal communication between individuals and groups. In relation to these positive characteristics of sexually explicit media, there are often "threshold effects" implying that the benign effects operate optimally within a context that recognizes and respects the individual's prior experiences, value systems, etc.

Sexual fantasy life, the ability to engage eroticism in the conscious imagination as well as the opportunity to self-stimulate,

...is crucially important for every individual's health, and is essential as a safe "outlet" for sexual desires that are risky or antisocial and that are inherent in the sexual patterning of many, if not all, individuals.

A history of clinical and laboratory studies of sexual fantasy life, including self-stimulation behaviors that often accompany fantasy life, indicate the importance of these phenomena for healthy development and sexual adjustment. Research on the functions of sexual fantasy demonstrates the essential mediating role of fantasy in all human sexual arousal and activity. In this respect, clinical findings strongly suggest:

...that it is "normal" or normative - i.e., occurring in socially adjusted individuals - to have "abnormal" or non-normative fantasies, and that tolerance or acceptance of such mental activity

...as well as its engagement in imagination and self-pleasuring, supports the individual's capacity for safe and responsible sexual behavior.

Conversely, the suppression of sexual fantasy life, and of the body's capacity for self- administered pleasure, can result in the impulsive or compulsive "outbreak" of risky or antisocial behaviors. For example, one controlled scientific study of over 500 men indicates that criminal activity is associated with the suppression of fantasy life, rather than with elevated levels of "deviant" fantasy.

This, and other related investigations, suggests that providing individuals with opportunity to cultivate their sexual fantasy life, with accompanied self-stimulation, probably has an important "outlet" function that alleviates the inclination to enact behaviorally any potentially "deviant" or antisocial mode of sexuality.

These sorts of clinical and laboratory research strongly support the idea that freedom of fantasy - with the support of nonviolent sexually explicit media and the opportunity for self-stimulation - contributes functionally to social and personal health and adjustment. Both the evidence for positive effects of sexually explicit materials and services, and the evidential ambiguities of the scientific literature concerning potential connections between violent "pornography."

And antisocial behaviors, implies that arguments to the availability of erotic materials or services to consenting adults on the basis of their causing direct harm or provocation to direct harm are untenable. In this context, the only scientific justification for restrictions in the availability of sexually explicit materials or services would be on the basis that:

• Minors should never be exposed to adult sexual activities or fantasy life. There is extensive literature from the clinical and experimental sciences of child and adolescent psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, to support this precept.

• Offense might be caused to some adults such that disgust, shock, or embarrassment might be suffered by some individuals exposed to materials or services that conflict with their personal history, values, and prior experiences.

Such a detrimental effect would, of course, be contingent on the context of the individual's consent to:

• be exposed to such experiences
• as well as the individual's personal history and previous exposure to sexually explicit experiences
• as well as the value systems concerning such materials or services, including the social context of community standards, etc.

Any detrimental effect, such as that described in this paragraph, would not, however, bear on the potentially educative effects of such experiences, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Barnaby B. Barratt, PhD, DHS
Director, Midwest Institute of Sexology

Testimony to the Committee on Constitutional Law and Ethic,
Michigan House of Representatives, February 15, 2000.

By Barnaby B. Barratt, PhD, DHS
Director of the Midwest Institute of Sexology, http://www.mwsexual.com/
© 2000-2002. All rights reserved. Duplication with permission only from the Midwest Institute of Sexology (248) 737-3984.

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