Researchers Find Little Connection Between Porn Use And Actual Sex Among Young People

Over the years, pornography has been condemned for a lot of reasons, one of which is its supposed effect on younger people. If new research is to be believed, however, any such claims have been greatly exaggerated.

According to US Weekly, researchers in the Netherlands surveyed 4.600 people between the ages of 15 and 25 and asked them a slew of questions about their pornography use, their religions, their upbringings and their sexual behaviors. It took more than two years to compile all the data and write all the necessary paperwork, but when those conclusions were drawn in the Journal Of Sexual Medicine this month, they painted a pretty clear picture. Pornography and actual sex are only vaguely related, or at least are only vaguely related among this group. Somewhere between .3 and 4 percent of all sexual behavior in that group could be argued as being attributable to porn use. The rest is some combination of personality, family life, religion and other influences.

Since Dr. Kinsey first completed his groundbreaking sex research and Masters & Johnson made great strides in our collective understanding, pretty much all studies focusing on getting busy have had their sample pools questioned. After all, people more likely to talk about sex are more likely to be the ones having sex. This study allowed users to remain anonymous and allowed them to fill out surveys online. In theory, that should have improved some of the pool errors, but even if it didn’t completely, the link, or lackthereof, seems obvious enough to stand against scrutiny.