I've given a detailed account of the research on the effects of porn use among young heterosexual men in a book chapter in the recent book 'Everyday Pornography'. You can find the book chapter here:
http://www.xyonline.net/content/young-men-using-pornography
Best wishes,
Michael Flood.

I don't know why I do this to myself, but I read Michael Flood's chapter in my lunch hour... and here's a 350-odd word analysis:

Michael, you haven't answered the chicken and egg dilemma: does consumption of pornography lead to the formation of attitudes and behaviours, or do a person's attitudes and behaviours determine their use of pornography? On balance, I would say that the evidence you present could only lead to the conclusion that "people are highly diverse, and peoples' sexual tastes and predilections are correspondingly diverse", and nothing more. The most telling statement you make in your discussion is that "a series of studies have (sic) found that relationships between pornography consumption and attitudes towards women are either weak or non-existent" (p174). This to me suggests that evidence may indicate that people's attitudes, desires, and predispositions determine their pornography use, and not vice versa. But generally it's pretty obvious that more research is needed before you would be entitled to say anything substantial based on this discussion.

You fail to mention mens' wider social contexts, in particular the family and socio-economic environments in which they grew up, which I'll think you'll find are a major source of these attitudes, desires, and predispositions. And if you are worried about the deleterious effects of pornography (they do exist, though you don't mention them), then this is what you should be targeting.

And yet, following the presentation of your evidence, you go on to state towards the end of your piece that "if we agree that boys' and young men's use of pornography [...] is harmful, what do we do about it?", without making any attempt to substantiate this or relate it to your earlier discussion. Could you perhaps explain then, why you think it is harmful?

I do however wholeheartedly agree with your suggestion that "pornography education" is a good way to address difficulties surrounding pornography. I've said before that a culture of critique could improve the quality of pornography, and would also reduce our anxieties surrounding sex, as well as the propensity of the pornography industry to exploit people.

What I would like to add though, is that the reason I engage with these debates - even though I find them rather insignificant, all told - is that I think it's important to emphasise that patriarchy holds absolutely no malevolence towards women, and that we seriously need to get away from the notion that it does. Patriarchy is after all the source of the criminalisation of rape, paedophilia, and exploitation in all its forms. And what Patriarchy would like most is to have men and women work together to tackle injustices and inequalities wherever they exist. However, men can neither read womens' minds (though we spend our lives trying!), nor are we emotional pillars of basalt. Men aren't always able to recognise when women feel as though they are being badly treated. And the best way to rectify this is for women (and "pro-feminist men", if you like, though I personally have met very few men in my 33 years on this planet who would not fit that description) to tell men in a respectful, sincere, meaningful way when we are getting in the way. But whatever you do, don't ever claim that it is somehow in men's nature to objectify, exploit, or control women, and that we should be ashamed of who we are and what we like, because, being the emotional creatures that we are, it hurts so much when you do this that we are likely to start wondering why we bother, and to protect ourselves from these insults by excluding women from our emotional lives.

And I must say, one of the many reasons that I have recently become a fan of Jennifer Wilson's writing is that she is someone who is prepared to argue along the same lines. And in any case, in my 33 years on this planet I have met very few women who don't agree with this perspective.

Dear Jennifer.

You are claiming that the media has no significant effect on behaviour. If you really think that, then stop and listen very carefully. You will hear the advertising executives at Mojo and Saatchi & Saatchi laughing their heads off. The media is largely financed by the advertising industry which claims the exact opposite to what you believe.

The media has the power to set fashions, sell products, endorse candidates, influence elections, provoke wars, propagate lies, cause controversies, provoke violence, and arouse emotions, something which all governments, both democratic and totalitarian, are fully aware of.

The link between media and real life violence has been proven over and over again. It is a fact that the surging rates of violent criminal behaviour now being witnessed in the West are at least partly caused by the glamourisation of violent criminal behaviour by the media. Now this same media is bombarding our children with children with graphic pornography. What effects this will have in the future is difficult to predict, because children have rarely been raised in environments where sexual images are easy to obtain.

But one portent of things to come is that Sydney’s Daily Telegraph once had an item about the epidemic of little boys feeling up little girls in pre schools, behaviour never noticed before.

If a man came to your house and began showing dirty pictures to your kids, you would punch him in the nose throw him off your property. But apparently you see nothing wrong with television executives shoving exactly the same images in your children’s faces by having “Big Brother, Uncut” released at the start of every school holiday.

Lego, I am not claiming that the media has "No significant effect on behaviour." The argument (and an argument made by many more experienced in the field than me) is that we as yet have no conclusive evidence of what the effects of media are on behaviour.

There is a good argument, proposed by the late academic George Gerbner and well supported by other researchers, that media violence increases our fear of violence, but not the acting out of violence. There are very good arguments against the way research into media violence is conducted. As you no doubt are aware, the terms of reference for a study carry a great deal of weight on the outcome and conclusions.

I can see that you have very strong feelings about the way you believe media influences children and society. I understand that, it's shared by many, and many people would like more information and research on just how media affects behaviour. I refer you to the last paragraph of my article. Don't shoot the messenger - I want a safer world just as much as you do, but I don't want panic merchants peddling catastrophic expectations without evidence.

Sam Jandwich, you did a public service in reading and reporting back on that book chapter - the points you make are consistent with many observations about how this sort of research is conducted, and how we have to be cautious about the results.

Jay Of Melbourne,

'The guy who runs Abbywinters was accused of coercing models, suspected of using underage girls in shoots, had lax record keeping practices and allowed photographs and videos to be distributed in contravention of the terms of the model release contracts.'

Accused, suspected, 'allowed' blah blah. I think they are a target *because* they are generally so ethical and attempt to authentically portray women a in realistic way.

The whole day to day show of Abby Winters is run by models. In fact a few models have trained in film making and other careers at the place. There is about 5 shoots ever that have featured a guy, all the photographers are women, nothing is scripted and models involve themselves based on 3 Tiers of graphic content. They don't have any fake breasted girls and have all races, some obviously butch lesbian models, and some frankly rather plain models.

I think it's quite unique in the porn world, so it attracts people trying to shoot holes in it.

There was ONE controversy to do with a model who didn't think AW was doing enough to stop pirating (bit torrent etc) which is a pretty naive accusation. If it was that easy I don't think the recording industry would be so up in arms.

In the end the accusations revolved around one model who regretted her work, and thought AW should inform all models their pictures may end up elsewhere. Fair call, but hardly so scandalous. There was one model that had somehow fraudulent OS identification I believe.

LEGO,

I think you have to accept that the media and advertising execs work within the realm of the tastes and desires of society to begin with.

It's almost as if you credit the media for coming up with male attraction to beautiful women. All they do is exploit male attraction to beautiful women. Do you think the media could make homosexual sex so trendy and market it so well that gay sex was a popular as coke?