Porn and religion go hand in hand

[mrswdk]

Watching Porn Frequently Could Make You A More Religious Person: Study



Pornography sites get more visitors than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined. Despite this, X-rated videos remain a taboo, something people rarely talk about or admit to viewing because of a moral stigma. In an ironic turn of events, a study published in the Journal of Sex Research suggests that those who watch porn more than once a week tend to become more religious.

The research followed the same people over a period of six years, measuring both their pornography use and religiousness along the way. The sample included a nationally representative group of 1,314 adults who answered questions about their pornography use and their religious habits. Even after controlling for outside factors like age and gender, use of pornography was associated with low religiousness at the end of the study until the rate of consumption became more frequent than once a week. At this point, religiousness increased.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/watching-po ... efs-385986

[waauw]

correlation doesn't per sé imply causation.

[Dukasaur]

The headline misrepresents what the study says, which is actually quite a bit more interesting.

It seems this is not a linear progression, but a curve.

The research followed the same people over a period of six years, measuring both their pornography use and religiousness along the way. The sample included a nationally representative group of 1,314 adults who answered questions about their pornography use and their religious habits. Even after controlling for outside factors like age and gender, use of pornography was associated with low religiousness at the end of the study until the rate of consumption became more frequent than once a week. At this point, religiousness increased.

“Findings suggest that viewing pornography may lead to declines in some dimensions of religiosity but at more extreme levels may actually stimulate, or at least be conducive to, greater religiosity along other dimensions,” wrote study author Samuel Perry of the University of Oklahoma.

It seems porn use declines with religiosity, except at extreme levels. When you get into the extreme end, that's where the trend suddenly reverses, and extreme porn watchers suddenly get very devout.

The authors of the study have a very benign view of why this is:

He further explained that exposure to pornography may inspire guilty feelings, especially if a person is violating the rules of their religion. This could at first lead them to distance themselves from religious activities. As pornography viewing increases, people may find ways to rationalize their behavior, or even turn to religion to try and overcome the behavior that is making them feel guilty.

Personally, I think that less benign theories could be constructed. It could be, for instance, that the devout (who are forbidden by the scriptures to indulge in anything but straight-up penis-in-vagina) find themselves turning to porn for sights of forbidden fruit like oral or anal. Or, for that matter, fruit.