How much porn do you watch?

A study that tried to analyze how pornography affected men's views ran into an unfortunate problem: no control group. It seems there does not exist a population of males that doesn't see some porn regularly. Still, they went ahead and at least got some shaky numbers on porn viewing habits.

Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.

The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.

I found this rather disturbing — personally, I'm way, way down below the average. Was there something wrong with me? But then I had to wonder how they defined "pornography". I occasionally watch R rated movies — does that count? I personally feel that what constitutes pornography is often something I find offensive or distasteful, so I don't watch it…but if it is inoffensive or tasteful, it can't be porn.

If I search for movies of squid mating, am I looking for porn? It matches my image of sexuality, after all. And why are they only looking at men? Don't women ever look at what some might define as pornography?

Now I'm very confused. I don't think there is a normal level, so papers that try to measure one seem to miss the mark.

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Well I am WAY above average, with an exponential trend when broadband became commercially available. (Downloading with dial-up = cold shower)

As for well made pron, well I had a favorite video that got passed around and eventually never made it back, but it was the best I had seen. I actually watched it the whole way through! The movie was called Latex.

Nowadays though, I also prefer the good amateur stuff. Real people doing real people.

By OneHandClapping (not verified) on 11 Dec 2009 #permalink

For men, at least, porn could be defined as anything you use to increase your arousal for masturbation. So no, hopefully, not the squids.