Watching porn boosts support for same-sex marriage

[A Turtle Named Mack]

There is no delicate way to say this: Exposure to pornography softens opposition to same-sex marriage among the largest group of naysayers, heterosexual men.

A new scholarly analysis suggests that the more straight guys, especially those who are less educated, watch pornographic videos, the more they warm to same-sex marriage. The reason: Porn opens their mind up to accepting non-traditional sexual situations, like gay sex.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/study-...rticle/2520461

WARNING: Link includes images which may be offensive to some.

[Mad Jay]

Dis they look at what kind of porn has that affect? Is it mostly when they watch straight porn? or when they watch gay porn?

[Esprise Me]

I'd be surprised to learn that a significant proportion of straight men watch gay porn, so I'm guessing the former.

[erwins]

Since the study looked at existing porn consumption rather than showing men porn and measuring attitudes before and after, I think this is a case of correlation rather than causation.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Esprise Me

I'd be surprised to learn that a significant proportion of straight men watch gay porn, so I'm guessing the former.

Well, it does mention lesbian porn:

Of note, the authors suggested that since lesbian porn "is quite popular among males," the change seen in the men toward same-sex marriage suggests "a change in males' attitude regarding male-male marriage."

(And no, I can't figure out the end of that sentence either.)

[Mad Jay]

Originally Posted by Steve

Well, it does mention lesbian porn:

Right. I want to know if does watching straight porn boost support for gay marraige more than watching lesbian porn? It would be very interesting if it did.

[nonnieyrissa]

The general consensus amongst my group of friends, many who are also lesbians, gay male porn holds the most appeal for most that watch porn. I think a big part of it is the submissive role one usually takes, because as a male in our society he is taking that role by choice. Or maybe I am over-thinking it.

ETA- We do not spend a lot of time discussing porn, but it has come up at get-togethers. Just ftr.

[nonnieyrissa]

Originally Posted by Esprise Me

I'd be surprised to learn that a significant proportion of straight men watch gay porn, so I'm guessing the former.

I know several straight men that watch gay porn, just anecdotal. They also watch straight porn.

[erwins]

Originally Posted by Mad Jay

Right. I want to know if does watching straight porn boost support for gay marraige more than watching lesbian porn? It would be very interesting if it did.

As I mentioned, I bet it is correlation rather than causation. I would suspect that even among the consumers of only straight porn the proportion of people supporting gay marriage would be higher than the population as a whole--but there would also be some people in that group that would be very anti marriage equality.

It seems to me that weeding out people who don't consume porn would decrease the proportion of people who are very uptight about sexuality and are prudish about porn--and probably more likely to be disapproving of non-straight sexual orientations. Likewise, as porn use increased, it would likely increase the proportion of people who are very open minded about sexuality and sexual expression.

But it would just be altering the proportions of the groups, which is not the same as taking someone who is disapproving of marriage equality, showing them a bunch of porn, and them changing their mind about it. (Which is not what this study did).

[Wolf333]

Originally Posted by A Turtle Named Mack

WARNING: Link includes images which may be offensive to some.

Did I miss something?

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Originally Posted by Wolf333

Did I miss something?

Didn't you see the photo of same-sex kissing!?!?!?!