The link between rape and porn

A lot of researchers will tell you that a link can’t be made between rape and pornography, or that they’re not sure yet if one exists.

Meet someone who does know with certainty.

“I saw her leave [Meijer] and, being unable to control my thoughts and emotions, I was in a fantasy,” he said. “I walked down [Coolidge Road], and when I got to her, I grabbed her and told her not to scream.”

Wilder went on to say that he watches fetish-themed pornographic movies that depict sexual abuse and he was in “fantasy mode” when he attacked his first victim.

The woman was dragged into a wooded area, where she suffered a sexual assault that left her battered and bloody. In both the victim’s statement and Wilder’s statement, the woman tried to reason with her assailant, saying that he could take all the money she had and hoping that he would calm down.

“She kept telling me ‘you’re not a bad person,'” Wilder said. The victim said that after she told him this and tried to reason with him, he continued to punch her in the face and threatened to kill her if she did not stop talking.

Speaking here is Oswald Scott Wilder Jr., who prowled the area around Michigan State University campus. And before you start saying that this was just a one-time thing, a rarity, know this: He was a serial rapist, and he did it again. In the next attack, even more violent than the first, he bashed a woman’s head into a dumpster and caused her to bleed  heavily, and only stopped when another man walked nearby. The woman crawled to the other man begging for help, and he walked away (can you imagine? Who would do that???) Finally, a nearby resident helped her.

In giving his confession to police, Wilder cited the influence violent pornography had on him.

“I’ve seen fantasy movies about abuse and things of that nature,” Wilder wrote in the statement. “What I did was not right and I live with it every day. It eats at me because I have a conscience; I feel badly about what I’ve done to both of these [women].

“I am sorry for what I’ve done,” he wrote. “I’m not proud of it, and I am ashamed of myself. I have to live with my actions every day.”

Yeah. You’re not the only one, Oswald.