Dear reader, have you ever damaged a particularly valuable part of your anatomy while viewing a video of unclothed humans rubbed against each other sensuously? Because unless you believe Satan is eating your soul if you watch porn, that’s the only real way you can get hurt by using it.
It’s not surprising that according to a new report from Barna Group, “being less risky than actual sex” is a quite a large motivation in teens and older adults. In a graph acquired by the Washington Examiner, over 20% of teens aged 13-17 listed that reason. Then it dips between 10 to 20% for ages 18-24 and rises back close to 20% again for 51-69 age set. The study was conducted among a population of 3,000 “teenagers, young adults, and Americans in general as well as pastors and youth pastors.”
The report also found that a greater amount of younger women are using porn. Teenage girls and young women are much more likely to seek out porn, 56% versus 27% among women over 25, and a third seek it out monthly.
Interestingly the announcement (which is just preliminary until the full report dubbed the The Porn Phenomenon will be available in April) mentions that a portion of the study attempts to discover what Americans consider as porn. In a section about digital porn, the report claims that “magazines, graphic novels, on-demand videos and cable or rented/purchased DVDs are a very small part of the ‘market.'”
Does this mean that when measuring women’s usage of porn that they included more typically female-oriented sexual stimulants like romance novels or that women are increasingly attracted to conventional video porn? We’ll have to wait for the full report in April to find out, but for the time being you can evaluate Barna Group’s other research projects here. Barna Group is particularly interested in questions of morality, religion and Christianity. Obviously, care should be taken in considering how bias may reflect in the study or its methodology, but for the time being the figures are at least an interesting conversation starter on how the narrative on gender may influence people’s sexual norms.
If we are to trust the studies’ findings, and they do not include the typical woman-centered pornographic mediums, then the endless sex-negative feminist ramblings about how porn is bad for women does not seem to be shared by a growing number of young women. This might reflect that other statistic of how only 18% of people consider themselves feminists and how truly insular their ideology has become. Or it might reflect that a greater proportion of young women are sex-positive feminists.
Even if the study’s methodology turns out to be flawed, I do believe that repeating the survey has a high possibility of repeating similar figures for younger people. The last two decades have shown a worldwide trend in first world countries that includes both a shrinking amount of the younger generation hooking up and declining birth rates, first made popular by Japan, but also increasingly spreading to other European and Asian countries.
Is it just the case that as a country comes in line with modern norms that its population becomes less interested in romantic entanglement? Or is it that the feminist narrative is scaring away a younger generation from being sexually risky with all their horror stories of rape, and with it, the specter of a false rape accusation for young men? MGTOW are an obviously one reflection of the latter, while Japan’s “herbivore men” are a possible reflection of the former. It’s difficult to untangle the complicated webs of cause and effect for such a complex issue such as sexuality, but in the fight for reasonable sexual standards in the law, it may be one more data point worth keeping an eye on.
Thanks to Ashe Schow of the Washington Examiner for picking up on this story. You can watch her discuss a variety of topics in gender equality, including her specialty of stories on the campus rape hysteria, on The Honey Badgers’ Fireside Chat 17.
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Still surprised that there exists a Japanese person capable of high quality English. it seems like such an impossibility given how the education system does its best to not teach actual English.
I don’t know if we should get our hopes up yet in regards to the low amount of those recognizing themselves as feminists. We do have to keep in mind that for the most part those who will attribute the label to themselves are either political feminists or heavily involved sentimental feminists. The other sentimental feminists are out there supporting the same narrative; they just don’t want the negative connotations to be applied to them.
Big problem with porn period is the age, and actual willingness of the participants. It is safer to view and self-pleasure to, then meeting up with some absolute stranger to hook up with. However, it be nice to know these weren’t people being held against their will.