Page 2981 - Week 13 - Thursday, 23 November 1989
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APPENDIX Incorporated in Hansard on 21 November 1989 at page 2738
PORNOGRAPHY AND THE ABUSE OF W0MEN
It is now well established that pornography plays powerful role in causing physical and sexual violence in women. Work cone by a Canadian psychologist James Check, in association with various cc-researchers, is very important in this area. Check has set cut to examine the role of pornography in verbal and physical abuse of women.
Research of J. Check, E. Sommers on Pornography and Violence:
Check and his associate Evelyn Sommers studied a group of 44 women who had suffered severe battering by .their partners, and compared then with a group of women who had not been battered. Very clear differences emerged between the groups.
Among other tests carried out, each women was given a Pornography Questionnaire. Pornography was defined simply as "sexually explicit or sexually arousing" materials. Clear differences emerged between the groups, as can be seen from Table 1.
TABLE 1: Estimated Frequencies of Consumption of Pornography by
Battered Womens and Comparison Groups (percentage) (from 0.203 Sommers/Check report).
Question Battered women Comparison group
1. As far as you know, how often does your partner read or -:few Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, or other magazines of this type?
Several times a week 11 0
Several times a month 14
Once a month 3i 7
Once or twice a year 28 28
Never 17 3:
2 . As far as you know, how often does your -partner ware:: sexually explicit (pornographic) movies or video takes?
Several times a week 7 0
Several times a month 11 3
Once a month 19 0
Once or twice a year 44 34".
Never 19 02
A clear link was established between pornography and pan-sexual violence against women. Here are some comments from the report page 204):
"A total of 39% of the battered women versus only 3% of the women in the comparison group reported that they had beer. upset by their partners asking them to imitate pornography. In addition, the battered women reported much more frequent pornography consumption by their partners than did the women
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