Porn Use and Support for Same-Sex Marriage, Part II

Although I didn’t blog on it here, back in December I published a piece about the empirical connection between porn use and support for same-sex marriage among men, using the notorious-but-wonderfully-valid-and-versatile dataset called the New Family Structures Study.

It turns out I’m not the only one saying it, which is always nice. Scholars from Indiana University and the University of Arizona are reporting the same phenomenon in the General Social Survey, the granddaddy of datasets. The article itself is appearing soon in the journal Communications Research.

When asked to explain the connection, lead author Paul Wright remarked that “pornography adopts an individualistic, nonjudgmental stance on all kinds of nontraditional sexual behaviors…” and added that “since a portion of individuals’ sexual attitudes come from the media they consume, it makes sense that pornography viewers would have more positive attitudes towards same-sex marriage.”

And that’s not much different from what I said in Public Discourse, where I concluded with the simple observation that, “contrary to what we might wish to think, young adult men’s support for redefining marriage may not be entirely the product of ideals about expansive freedoms, rights, liberties, and a noble commitment to fairness. It may be, at least in part, a byproduct of regular exposure to diverse and graphic sex acts.”

Despite the negative press I get, friends, rest assured: I’m not making this stuff up!