Girls are taught from a young age that men don't want to marry the girls who act too loose in public or act in a sexually aggressive manner. This is not a secret to men either so they know that even though their partners may want to have sex with them they will try to hold back as not to appear whorelike. It sounds like a game and in some ways it is a cat and mouse game in which men are the chasers and women the object that they are seeking. Men then start to believe that women need to be coerced to have sex and that women don't know how to manage their own sexual desires.
This myth is perpetuated in the plethora of pornographic images that are available to men in which men convince women to have sex with them. Women are portrayed as repressed innocents who need men to come along and awaken their sexual desires by aggressively persuading them to have sex. This does not necessarily mean that all men will become violent rapists who threaten to murder women if they will not have sex with them, but it refers to men who use others means to force women to have sex with them. The man's tactics can include remarks such as "if you loved me you would do it," "don't you want to be with me," "if you don't want to have sex with me I can find someone else," and other such statements that lay the proverbial guilt trip on women. This may not fit the traditional definition of rape, but rape occurs according to Morgan anytime a woman is not the initiator of sexual activity.
Pornography plays a detrimental role in rape because it perpetuates the belief to men that women don't know what they want and are not intelligent enough to know whether or not they wish to partake in sexual activity with them. Pornography may not have an effect on those men who violently rape women especially those who use knives and guns, but it can and does have a tremendous impact on other men. These other men are the ones who use more subtle methods like verbal persuasion instead of an obvious physical threat.
Censorship may not be the answer but society needs to take a much greater look at the impact of pornography on male attitudes toward women regarding sexual activity.
