Sexual Crime in India: Is it Influenced by Pornography?

Abstract

Purpose: Studies on whether pornography poses a greater risk for sexually aggressive behavior have revealed conflicting results. This study aims to examine the relationship between the consumption of pornography and the subsequent increase in sexual violence, thus testing the hypothesis that increase in consumption of pornography is related to increased sexual crime, in the Indian scenario.

Materials and methods: The current study explored the association between reported incidence of crime over a period of four decades - 1971-2008 (time periods being divided into: Pre-liberalization and post-liberation - India adopted liberalization policy in 1992) and availability of pornography over internet with a particular focus on crime against women (such as rape, sexual harassment, and crime against women).

Results: Comparison of pre-liberalization and post-liberalization growth of rape rates was not significant. Though there were statistically significant positive correlations between the number of internet users and sexual crime rates, the association was non-significant after controlling for the effects of population growth using regression analysis.

Conclusion: Results presented needs to be interpreted with extreme care and caution. Nevertheless, the results from this study suggest that easy access to pornography did not have a significant impact on rape rates and crime rate against women.

Keywords: Crime against women; pornography; sexual behavior; sexual violence.