Medical Views on Pornography

[LA Ute]

I'm looking for the medical part of that article LA posted, and frankly I don't see it. LA, where did you get that thread title?

I suppose I could have called it "public health views on pornography." I assume you read the blog post I linked. It is simply a quick and dirty review of studies on the public health aspect of pornography. But let's leave all that picayunish quibbling aside. I want you to spend a few posts here defending pornography on public health grounds. Tell us how great it is, or how harmless it is, to society in general and to the public health.

[Two Utes]

I suppose I could have called it "public health views on pornography." I assume you read the blog post I linked. It is simply a quick and dirty review of studies on the public health aspect of pornography. But let's leave all that picayunish quibbling aside. I want you to spend a few posts here defending pornography on public health grounds. Tell us how great it is, or how harmless it is, to society in general and to the public health.

Can you just get me some peer reviewed studies showing that it is harmful before we put it on par with real public health problems? No anecdotes. Show me the studies.

[SeattleUte]

I suppose I could have called it "public health views on pornography." I assume you read the blog post I linked. It is simply a quick and dirty review of studies on the public health aspect of pornography. But let's leave all that picayunish quibbling aside. I want you to spend a few posts here defending pornography on public health grounds. Tell us how great it is, or how harmless it is, to society in general and to the public health.

I think in reality it's generally or usually a matter of choice--for the participants in the media as well as the consumers--which is a good thing. I listened to part of that podcast about it, or maybe it was on Netflix, and I was surprised or interested to hear some of the women say that they enjoyed their work including the sexuality of it. I note that the blogger says that there is much porn that is probably healthy. I assume because it provides outlet for frustrated or pent up desire for sex. (You're probably wondering about my personal interest in porn; yes I have checked out porn and I have absolutely no guilt or concern about looking at porn, but in general I find it boring if not outright stupid and unsexy; I much prefer soft core porn with a good story that is somewhat explicit and is integral to the plot; Lust Caution (unrated version) is probably the Holy Grail. I guess my taste is for "porn" that could be defended as art.)

To the extent there's a public health concern, I agree with the author of the blog that we have much bigger problems and not enough resources to address those bigger problems, and therefore Utah's public health crisis designation is ludicrously overblown--and of course driven by religion. To the extent that porn is misogynistic, I'm not interested and the objective in raising sons is of course to make it uninteresting to them--but I don't think such porn is a public health crisis or increases risk to violence against women; probably pro football is worse for society including in this respect. I don't believe porn harms marriages; it is at most a sign or harmless or helpful byproduct of a deeper, different problem.

This is one more way the LDS Church has made itself look foolish with its obsession with sex. I've said it should call itself the Anti-Pornography Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Also, your use of the word medical was not trivially accidental. The LDS Church would very much like to generate an at least marginally legitimate dialogue over medical issues arising from porn.