According to a new study published in the Journal of Sex Research, people who watch porn are actually more likely to see and treat women as equals, and are just as likely to classify themselves as feminists as people who may be staunchly opposed to porn.
The study, performed by a research team from the University of Western Ontario, used data from more than 28,000 people who participated in the General Social Survey, a nationally representative, annual study of American attitudes from 1975 to 2011. Survey respondents were asked if they’d watched an X-rated film in the past year, as well as several questions on their attitudes toward women — like how they felt about women working outside the home, women holding political offices, and the legality of abortion. They were also asked if they thought of themselves as feminists.
About 23 percent of the respondents said they’d watched porn in the past year, and both men and women in that porn-watching group had more equal attitudes about women working outside the home, and were generally more supportive of abortion rights compared to people who said they didn’t watch porn.
