CHICAGO — In the 1980s, conservatives and feminists

joined to fight a common nemesis: the spread of pornography. Unlike past

campaigns to stamp out smut, this one was based not just on morality, but also

on public safety. They argued that hard-core erotica was intolerable because it

promoted sexual violence against women.

“Pornography is the theory —

rape is the practice,” wrote feminist author Robin Morgan. In 1986, a federal

commission concurred. Some kinds of pornography, it concluded, are bound to

lead to “increased sexual violence.” Indianapolis passed a law allowing women

to sue producers for sexual assaults caused by material depicting women in

“positions of servility or submission or display.”

The

campaign fizzled when the courts said the ordinance was an unconstitutional

form of “thought control.” Though the Bush administration has put new emphasis

on prosecuting obscenity, on the grounds that it fosters violence against

women, pornography is more available now than ever.

That’s

due in substantial part to the rise of the Internet, where the U.S. has a

staggering 244 million Web pages featuring erotic fare. One Nielsen survey

found that one out of every four users say they visited adult sites in the past

month.

So

in the last two decades, we have essentially conducted a vast experiment on the

social consequences of such material. If the supporters of censorship were

right, we should be seeing an unparalleled epidemic of sexual assault. But all

the evidence indicates they were wrong. As raunch has waxed, rape has waned.

This

is part of a broad decrease in criminal mayhem. Since 1993, violent crime in

America has dropped by 58 percent. But the progress in this one realm has been

especially dramatic. Rape is down 72 percent and other sexual assaults have

fallen by 68 percent. Even in the last two years, when the FBI reported upticks

in violent crime, the number of rapes continued to fall.

Nor

can the decline be dismissed as the result of underreporting. Many sexual assaults

do go unreported, but there is no reason to think there is less reporting today

than in the past. In fact, given everything that has been done to educate

people about the problem, and to prosecute offenders, victims are probably more

willing to come forward than they used to be.

No

one would say the current level of violence against women is acceptable. But

the enormous progress in recent years is one of the most gratifying successes

imaginable.

How

can it be explained? Perhaps the most surprising and controversial account

comes from Clemson University economist Todd Kendall, who suggests that adult

fare on the Internet may essentially inoculate against sexual assaults.

In

a paper presented at Stanford Law School last year, he reported that, after

adjusting for other differences, states where Internet access expanded the

fastest saw rape decline the most. A 10 percent increase in Internet access,

Kendall found, typically meant a 7.3 percent reduction in the number of

reported rapes.

For

other types of crime, by contrast, he found no correlation with Web use. What

this research suggests is that sexual urges play a big role in the incidence of

rape — and that pornographic Web sites provide a harmless way for potential

predators to satisfy those desires.

That,

of course, is only a theory, and the evidence he cites is not conclusive.

States that were quicker to adopt the Internet may be different in ways that

also serve to prevent rape. It’s not hard to think of other explanations why

sexual assaults have diminished so rapidly — such as DNA analysis, which has

been an invaluable tool in catching and convicting offenders.

Changing

social attitudes doubtless have also played a role. Both young men and young

women are more aware today of the boundaries between consensual and coercive

sex. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, thinks the

credit for progress against rape should go to federal funding under the

Violence Against Women Act and to education efforts stressing that “no means

no.”

But

if expanding the availability of hard-core fare doesn’t actually prevent rapes,

we can be confident from the experience of recent years that it certainly

doesn’t cause such crimes. Whether you think porn is a constitutionally

protected form of expression or a vile blight that should be eradicated, this

discovery should come as very good news.

Stephen Chapman is a

columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune besides being a Creators

Syndicated columnist.