by Jason Stotts
I’m a little behind on this story, but new research shows what everyone, besides feminists, has known for years: porn is good for you.
On the Psychology Today blog Homo Consumericus, Dr. Gad Saad talks about some of the recent studies that support porn as being beneficial. His article is “Pornography: Beneficial or Detrimental? It turns out that Pornography is good for you.” He starts out by saying:
For the past several decades, a debate has raged as to whether or not pornography yields deleterious effects at the individual and/or societal levels (e.g., increased negative views toward women; increased rate of sexual crimes against women). In many instances, those who have sought to link pornography to countless ills have been ideologically motivated, as the aggregate scientific evidence hardly supports such conclusions.
He then points to two major studies. The first is “Pornography, Public Acceptance and Sex Related Crime: a Review” by Milton Diamond in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. The abstract of the article is:
A vocal segment of the population has serious concerns about the effect of pornography in society and challenges its public use and acceptance. This manuscript reviews the major issues associated with the availability of sexually explicit material. It has been found everywhere it was scientifically investigated that as pornography has increased in availability, sex crimes have either decreased or not increased. It is further been found that sexual erotica has not only wide spread personal acceptance and use but general tolerance for its availability to adults. This attitude is seen by both men and women and not only in urban communities but also in reputed conservative ones as well. Further this finding holds nationally in the United States and in widely different countries around the world. Indeed, no country where this matter has been scientifically studied has yet been found to think pornography ought be restricted from adults. The only consistent finding is that adults prefer to have the material restricted from children’s production or use.
The article concludes by saying:
Indeed, the data reported and reviewed suggests that the thesis is myth and, if anything, there is an inverse causal relationship between an increase in pornography and sex crimes. Further, considering the findings of studies of community standards and wide spread usage of SEM [sexually explicit material], it is obvious that in local communities as nationally and internationally, porn is available, widely used and felt appropriate for voluntary adult consumption. If there is a consensus against pornography it is in regard to any SEM that involves children or minors in its production or consumption. Lastly we see that objections to erotic materials are often made on the basis of supposed actual, social or moral harm to women. No such cause and effect has been demonstrated with any negative consequence.
So, not only does not having access to porn not cause more sex crimes, availability of pornography will either cause a decrease in sex crimes or at worst no increase. This has really got to piss off the feminists, as the entire basis of their argument just got shot down. Science: 1, Feminism: 0.
The second study Dr. Saad talks about is “Self-Perceived Effects of Pornography Consumption” by Gert Martin Hald and Neil M. Malamuth from the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Dr. Saad notes:
In their survey of 688 young Danish adults (men = 316; women = 372), Hald and Malamuth found that respondents construed the viewing of hardcore pornography as beneficial to their sex lives, their attitudes towards sex, their perceptions and attitudes towards members of the opposite sex, toward life in general, and over all. The obtained beneficial effects were statistically significant for all but one measure across both sexes. Now here is the kicker: A positive correlation was obtained between the amount of hardcore pornography that was viewed and the impact of the benefits reaped. This positive correlation was found for both sexes. In other words, the more that one watched porn, the stronger the benefits (for both sexes)!
Thus, not only is pornography good at the social level, as it decreases sex crimes, it is also good at the individual level.
Dr. Saad stops short of actually recommending porn to people, but I have no such reservations. Look at porn! Science says that porn is good for you and who are we to argue with Science. Porn won’t make you into a sex monster and it may just even make your sex life better.
Personally, I think that the best part of porn is that ability to try out new sexual ideas and desires, without actually having to do them. Porn can function as a way for us to see the things we might like to try so that we can see if we are actually aroused by them. Further, porn can open our minds to sexual acts that we might never have thought of and which we might greatly enjoy. Porn can function as a more real level of fantasy that can allow us to test our desires. Of course, there are always fantasies that we might enjoy as fantasies, but which we would never actually want to do in real life. For these kinds of fantasies, porn is indispensable.
If you’ve never looked at porn, and this is likely a null set, go check out most of the internet. There are tons of free sites that give you access to a wide range of porn. Odds are, you’ll find something you like and probably lots of things you had no idea you’d ever like!