Look, I’m not going to spend too much time on this one because the hysterical opinion and anecdote-based, copy-and-paste rant on Psychology Today “Porn-Induced Sexual Dysfunction Is a Growing Problem” already got used in March as the poster child for porn research hoaxing.
Media literacy – is seriously lacking in media outlets. Stop pulling our dicks already.
The “porn causes impotence” meme fakery is back in the headlines and it hasn’t somehow gotten any more factual over summer vacation. The story got its first push back in March by Fox News. It resurfaced as if it was new this weekend in the Daily Mail.
Today it is cited as cautionary fact by CNET’s (appropriately named) Technically Incorrect in Research: Web porn stops men from performing. There was no research. The title is false, the article’s facts are incorrect, and while at least that writer is pretending to be sarcastic, the article is troublingly baseless linkbait – and full of statement foundations like “studies say” which means whatever follows might as well be presented as fiction.
Daily Mail and AOL (they picked it up as news today, too) – we expect them to spew inaccurate crap. That it’s on CNET is embarrassing to me because I write for CBSi and CNET is in our “family” – and I have a few respected colleagues at CNET that would never do something like this.
- The Psych Today article is stories and opinions that two anti-porn writers put together citing an Italian survey that academics doubt is real in the first place.
- The Italian report that claims to link porn use to male impotence is a survey, not a study.
- It was a presentation at a conference, not a peer-reviewed clinical article. The abstract is not available.
- The leader of the team is a clinical pathologist, endocrinologist and andrologist, not a behavioral scientist – nor specializes in sexual physiological function, psychology, or the media effects of pornography.
- Internet porn has been virtually ubiquitous for 15 years or more. Men almost invariably have more erection problems as they age. Asking a man to evaluate his erection problems “before internet porn” would be ridiculous.
- The conference program where this survey was discussed and its materials do not mention anything about pornography.
- The survey, allegedly of over 28,000 Italian men, would be nearly impossible to conduct properly without extensive funding (code and analysis of 28,000 data points takes serious work by trained data analysts and research assistants who must be paid). Unless it was a tick-box internet WordPress plugin.
- The survey’s doctor belongs to “Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine” which leads to en expired website.
- A survey is not research, a survey is not a report, and a survey is not a study. A study is conducted under controlled clinical conditions. A study is what you need to have – several or even many of them, actually – before the FDA will even consider an application to approve a new drug.
I’m not saying that porn might or might not affect anyone’s libido positively or negatively. I’m just saying this is some criminally made up bullshit that is being re-spun for pageviews, and reader beware.
Now, let’s get back to that explicit adult imagery that turns us on and makes us reach for the nearest hottie (even if that’s ourselves!)
Photo by the amazing Oliver Rath.
This is the usual media BS trying to sound like science. We should respond by quoting “studies” (notice the quotes — it means they are not studies), that show that genetically modified foods cause impotence. Or maybe trans fats or masturbation or television or wearing tight pants are the true cause of impotence, or a drop in fertility, or reduced female arousa, or child pornography. We get the formula of
“(choose your dubious cause) leads to (choose your scandalous effect), as shown by (choose your bogus proof).”
We can create such news headlines as:
“Masturbation leads to extreme political positions as shown by the research of the American Family Letter Writing Group.”
Hell yeah!! This kind of “science” exists solely to make people feel bad about what they’re into, encourages those who already don’t approve to pat themselves on the back for disapproving, and tries to make everyone panic!