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July 14, 2007
Experts Say Yes Please to Porn
Statistically porn is very popular. According to Nielsen/NetRatings NetView, a world leader in internet analysis (and alliteration), 4.3 million Australians visited adult websites between January and March this year. These findings may be slightly skewed because one of the visitors was me, in my research for this article, so I wouldn't count as an actual 'porn user' per say. I can assure readers that I was in the office at the time (which is admittedly a home office, and doubles as my bedroom).
But wait on, hang on a gosh darn second here. Do I have reason to hide my forays into voyeurism with such feeble disclaimers, less I appear less human in the eyes of the moral majority? Should I feel sufficiently ashamed, to cover my rampant trawling of filth vendors like some starving fisherman searching for prawns in an oil slick? Apparently not.
A new survey entitled Understanding Pornography in Australia has found that porn might actually be good. Not just in its own right either. Good for people.
Dr Alan McKee (Queensland University of Technology) and his colleagues surveyed more than 1000 pornography users. Did they shake hands with them? That's besides the point. What they discovered was that a majority of users found porn to be pleasurable, educational, and re-assuring. "To find out that overwhelmingly people who use pornography experience it as good was surprising," says Dr McKee.
Should it be surprising that people think porn is good? Isn't porn essentially imagery of people enjoying themselves (or at least pretending to with gusto), designed to bring out a little enjoyment in others? Maybe even bring out some enjoyment onto the faces of their loved ones? To many people the revelation that porn f*cken rocks doesn't come as a surprise at all.
Apart from being great, porn has plenty of positive effects. Porn breaks through racial barriers, often depicting different cultures working in unison. Porn brings people together – sure, sometimes in protest – but other times in uninhibition (sic). Porn opens people's minds (among other things) to new experiences (among other things). And most importantly, as one teenage country girl told the researchers, "It teaches you how to have sex." Only if you don't want children darlin'!
In conclusion, it's wonderful that scientific study has finally validated porn's benefits to society. A word of warning however, to Dr McKee etc; there's still a lot of anti-porn sentiment out there, so be prepared to take criticism as you fight the good fight, and in times of doubt ... remember Galileo.
*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*
Posted by Sam Bowring at July 14, 2007 05:11 PM