The Atlantic dismissed all moral charges against pornography as largely irrelevant but admitted that it poses a public health crisis.
“Surveying the world around me, it just doesn’t seem as if the men in younger generations are more likely than their forbearers to use and abuse women,” said the Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf. “In fact, just the opposite seems to be true.”
Friedersdorf noted that prisons have high rape rates and no access to porn and that domestic violence and rape rates have fallen as the availability of porn has risen.
“None of that answers whether pornography is medically healthy or morally permissible,” Friedersdorf admitted.
“Lots of countries with ubiquitous pornography seem to be much more successful, and to treat women much better,” he claimed. We must look closer at “how porn functions in the real world” before claiming that it breeds selfish men.
“I don’t think anyone should be confident about what facts will emerge, what the true costs and benefits will be, insofar as it will ever be possible to know them.”
However, the health concerns associated with porn go hand in hand with moral and societal concerns. It is by no means proven that porn has no effect on men’s attitudes toward women. In fact, three separate psychology studies pointed to just the opposite.
The studies found that pornography use contributes to infidelity and diminishes commitment.
Shira Tarrant, professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Cal State Long Beach is a fan of porn being widely distributed, but she cautioned about the darker side of the industry.
“There’s that whole other shadow world where people are trafficked or exploited,” she said, adding that the rates for porn stars do not hold in that realm.
Tarrant said actresses receive around $800 for a lesbian performance and $1000 for a straight one. Actors get $200-600 for a straight performance and $500-1000 for gay shots.
Tarrant blamed the stigma against pornography for the industry’s inability to break free of secrecy and abuse.
Pirated content and the monopoly of MindGeek, which is estimated to own 8 out of the 10 largest tube sites remain unscrutinized in the porn industry since is not the focus of serious business attention.
“There are the questions about ethics and crime, but we're also talking about a lot of money,” Tarrant commented.
The professor also retains health concerns regarding mass consumption of porn.
“There can be an immersive experience where people can go down the rabbit hole and emerge hours later. That concerns me, and I do think in a sense that that's the sort of future that people feared,” she said. She added that watching internet porn during work hours, especially by professionals such as police officers was also a cause for concern.
