Does the thought of equal rights for the sexes make you horny, baby?
IN AN UNEXPECTED-BUT-TOTALLY-APPROPRIATE TURN OF EVENTS for a world that doesn’t make sense anymore, it turns out that people who watch porn perceive women as more equal to men than their prudish, teetotaler brethren. So say the researchers behind a new study published in The Journal of Sex Research, against all popular belief for the last two decades. I’m guessing the number of guys trying to explain their porn habits to angry girlfriends with “But babe, porn’s helping me become more feminist!” is about to skyrocket.
Actually, maybe not. Led by Tayor Kohut of Western University, the study looked at data from more than 28,000 people’s responses on the General Social Survey, compiled over 1975-2011. While people who admitted to watching porn (23% of the subjects, both male and female, to be precise) did exhibit “better attitudes towards women working outside the home, and were more supportive of abortion rights” than people who did not self-identify as porn consumers, there was no positive correlation recorded between watching porn and explicitly identifying as feminist. In fact, pornography viewers and non-viewers exhibited similar rates of taking up the feminist mantle. Whether this has to do with the fact that the “feminist” label is still something many people unfortunately want to avoid being associated with was undetermined (but most likely the case, if we’re being realistic).
Likewise, porn consumption habits had no bearing on the subjects’ attitudes towards traditional family gender roles, either, although male porn consumers were more likely to say that they viewed women as more empowered in politics and the workplace as opposed to male non-viewers. This is good news! You no longer have to worry that your hubby’s secretly harboring resentment that you’re a high-powered CEO or Congresswoman, since the latest Brazzers video he’s spanking his monkey to will make sure that he views you with the utmost respect and admiration… just as long as you come home in time to cook dinner, clean the house, and put the kids to bed, of course. Is a Retina display a trade-up from a glass ceiling, you think?
Jokes aside, this doesn’t really come as a surprise, if you take a second to think about how this study was conducted. The 28,000 subjects who participated over the course of the study were asked to self-report on their porn habits, and 23 percent of them were honest about their habits. I’d bet you 28,000 dollars that at least half of the people who reported that they hadn’t watched porn in the last year, if not more, were flat-out lying. Honesty is a trait associated with upstanding character and integrity; upstanding people with integrity would probably be more inclined to view the sexes as equal.
Perhaps the biggest and most important takeaway from this study is that porn (certain kinds of porn, anyway, since some types of porn shouldn’t be made, no matter what anyone says) does not seem as detrimental to society’s perception of women as it is commonly believed to be, or as some feminists claim it is. So don’t feel too bad if you or your significant other likes to wind down (or get riled up) in front of the computer every once in a while — women all over the world will thank you in the long run!
h/t PsyPost
