“Man see – man do”? Testing the influence of pornography on sexual violence in Croatia: the public crime statistics approach

Landripet, Ivan. (2004). “Man see – man do”? Testing the influence of pornography on sexual violence in Croatia: the public crime statistics approach. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Sociology. [mentor Štulhofer, Aleksandar].

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Abstract

Worldwide reseach of the effects of pornography use on attitudes and behavior has predominantly been of the microscopic and experimental nature, with considerably less studies based upon “macro” perspecties and mid-range theories. One such approach focuses on change in legal treatment of pornography and dynamics of sexual crime during a time span sufficiently long to cover transition from pornographic scarcity to abundace of easily available sexually explicit material (the dynamics of sexual crime is in the same time controled by the dynamics of the comperable non-sexual crime). The results coming from none of the national studies conducted so far indicate the increase of sexual violence that could be related to change in the SEM availability. This paper implements the “public crime statistics approach” to the case of Croatia, assuming the results will match those of other national studies. The time range of tracking and comparing temporal trends of the aggravated sexual and non-sexual crime (rape and sexual assault versus murder and assault) dates back from 1978, through the year of 2003. During that period, the change in legislature is being observed, mainly in regards to definiton of the relevant offences, but also concerning liberalization of SEM. The results indeed do not support the notion of significant and independent increase in sexual crime conditioned by the increase in pornography availability, but rather indicate certain structural causes that determine somewhat matching trends both of sexual and non-sexual violence.

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