An interesting article (with a somewhat lurid headline) from The Age (Australia). The part that jumped out at me was this:
The researchers have dismissed moral panic that argues pornography is encouraging men to pursue degrading and perverse sexual habits. Ogas said porn was a reflection of male desires rather than a creator of male desires and erotica generally functioned to liberate and satisfy male sexual interests.
My reaction was "Well, duh!" I left a comment in the group that directed me to the article to the effect that the idea that somehow pornography is in control seems to come from those "moral crusaders" whose world view depends on authority for human actions. Basically, it seems they believe that people do not direct their own actions because people have no authority to do so, so it must be god or the devil. I suspect that's why free will is such a knotty problem for them.
The other point of interest was how many commenters (male) objected to this:
"The four body parts that both straight and gay men are wired to find sexually interesting are: chests, butts, feet and penises. Heterosexual men are very interested in looking at penises, especially large penises."
Orgas said heterosexual men searched for penises almost as often as they search for vaginas and out of the top 35,000 most popular adult sites, roughly 1000 were devoted to large penises.
A couple of the comments ran "Well, they must be wrong -- I'm not interested in penises." Obviously these guys have forgotten being teenagers in the school locker room -- I find it hard to believe they weren't interested in what kind of heat the other guys were packing. And there's always at least one show-off.
And of course, there were the usual suspects who would prefer to believe that the world is corrupt rather than that interest in sex is normal and healthy.
It's apparently a relatively new study, but I don't see anything earth-shattering in the conclusions -- unless, of course, you believe that pornography is the work of the devil and takes control of men's minds. (And why is it always men who are corrupted by pornography?)
2 comments:
Good summary and analysis, mate. :-)
(security code: poxier!!!)
The idea that fantasies are somehow evil is more than a little ridiculous. If one considers that porn is, for most people, a way to indulge their fantasies without harm, then it all becomes even more ridiculous.
A stray thought: one question I've always wanted to ask those crusaders who want to ban all pornography because it "demeans women" -- how are women demeaned by gay porn? Because they're not included?
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