We live in a society that places an emphasis on preventing harmful behaviors. Smoking is no longer allowed in most public buildings, and public service announcements warn us about unhealthy diets. From seat belts to drunk driving laws, our society works to reduce the harmful impact of risky acts.
Except when it comes to porn.
Porn floods into countless homes through the Internet, being consumed at a rate so high that it is difficult to calculate. One popular pornography site alone gets 480 million visits a month.
Only now are people beginning to realize its side effects.
According to a new study[i] out of Indiana University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, porn consumption is significantly linked to increases in sexual aggression.
This meta-analysis assessed 22 different studies from 7 different countries around the world, and the results were staggering:
“Consumption [of pornography] was associated with sexual aggression in the United States and internationally, among males and females… Associations were stronger for verbal than physical sexual aggression, although both were significant.”
Would you intentionally or regularly ingest any material that’s been shown to increase rates of verbal and physical sexual aggression?
The study’s conclusion states:
As with all behavior, sexual aggression is caused by a confluence of factors and many pornography consumers are not sexually aggressive. However, the accumulated data leave little doubt that, on the average, individuals who consume pornography more frequently are more likely to hold attitudes conducive to sexual aggression and engage in actual acts of sexual aggression than individuals who do not consume pornography or who consume pornography less frequently.
Today’s consumers are familiar with the idea of consequences. We know that eating a dozen Twinkies will boost our blood sugar. We know that an extra glass of wine means we shouldn’t be the one to drive home.
And we also now know that watching porn can be unhealthy and even dangerous for our relationships and the sexual culture at large.
This is no small side effect, and it’s time for us to spread the word about the ways that porn harms.
[i] Wright, P. J., Tokunaga, R. S. and Kraus, A. (2015), A Meta-Analysis of Pornography Consumption and Actual Acts of Sexual Aggression in General Population Studies. Journal of Communication. doi: 10.1111/jcom.12201