“Young adult men’s support for redefining marriage … may be, in part, a byproduct of regular exposure to diverse and graphic sex acts….of the men who view pornographic material ‘every day or almost every day,’ 54 percent ‘strongly agreed’ that gay and lesbian marriage should be legal, compared with around 13 percent of those whose porn-use patterns were either monthly or less often than that….”
Mark Regnerus has written another sex and sociology article sure to make waves.
In short: He suggests a correlation among young adult men (but not women) between regular porn consumption and support for same-sex marriage.
Regnerus mined his New Family Structures Study for “a possible link between porn and sentiment toward same-sex marriage.” His conclusion: “Young adult men’s support for redefining marriage … may be, in part, a byproduct of regular exposure to diverse and graphic sex acts.”
From his recent article in Public Discourse:
But of the men who view pornographic material “every day or almost every day,” 54 percent “strongly agreed” that gay and lesbian marriage should be legal, compared with around 13 percent of those whose porn-use patterns were either monthly or less often than that. Statistical tests confirmed that porn use is a (very) significant predictor of men’s support for same-sex marriage, even after controlling for other obvious factors that might influence one’s perspective, such as political affiliation, religiosity, marital status, age, education, and sexual orientation.
“Of course, correlation doesn’t mean causation, and I’m not suggesting causation here,” wrote Regnerus. “But I’m also pretty confident the “causal arrow” wouldn’t run in the other direction.”
[Editor’s note: One or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]
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