Perhaps one of the touchiest topics related to sex is that of pornography. Pornography can be defined as any media basically intended to entertain or arouse erotic desire. This is the common definition used by researchers and the courts.

Among other things, pornography has often been accused of inducing persons to rape, commit child sex abuse, foster negative views of women as well as degrade society’s morals. Persons and groups thinking thus consider the term itself and associated materials to have negative connotations. For others pornography is viewed positively.

They see such materials as an expression of fantasies that provide pleasure, media that can inhibit sexual activity and materials that can act as a positive displacement activity for sexual aggression. And many identified feminists consider that pornography actually empowers women by loosening them from the shackles of social prudery and anti- sexual restrictions.

As any person must admit there is a significant difference between accusations, personal opinions and evidence. There can be no argument that for some individuals there can indeed be some negative effects. But, as for any major social question, the focus must be on the overall effect on society. On that basis the evidence is that easily available sexually explicit materials (SEM) have been documented to be good for society.

From ancient times Ireland had church Sheelanagigs and Seanagigs to contend with. Consider this current evidence. Some 10,000 to 15,000 pornographic movies are produced annually in the United States and others, along with sexually explicit magazines, publications and images of all sorts, are produced and available in the many thousands in countries around the world. All of this is dwarfed by an upsurge in internet usage. More than a quarter of internet users download porn at work. It is obvious that interest and desire for sexually explicit material is widespread. According to the Christian internet monitoring group Family Safe, the pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix and Earthlink. According to the BBC a 2004 Durex Global Sex Survey, has reported that 50% of the British population watch porn with their partner.

In a Christianity Today survey in 2000, 33% of Christian clergy admitted to having visited a sexually explicit website. Of those who had visited a porn site, 53% had visited such sites “a few times” in the preceding year, and 18% visited sexually explicit sites from a couple of times a month to more than once a week.

And it is not just men but women, too, who are increasingly indulging in both the use and production of porn. Family Safe reported that 34% of female readers of Today’s Christian Women’s online newsletter admitted to intentionally accessing internet pornography.

The Nielson/Net Ratings report for September 2003 stated that more than 32 million unique individuals visited a porn site in September of that year. Nearly 71% were male, while 29% were female. A 2004 Elle/MSNBC survey of more than 15,000 persons found that two-thirds of women and more than half of the men claimed that the “pornosphere” has boosted their sex and love lives. And a 2008 study of college students, a population with more than 50% women revealed that roughly two-thirds of the men and one half of the women agree that viewing pornography is educational and enjoyable.

With such widespread usage worldwide, any negative effects of pornography should be readily obvious. The evidence, however, is otherwise. In every country in which it has been scientifically examined (Croatia, The Czech Republic, Denmark, West Germany, Poland, Japan, Sweden, the United States) according to governmental records, that as the amount and availability of sexually explicit materials dramatically increased, the incidence of sex crimes decreased or remained about level. This would probably hold as well for the Irish Republic should the matter be scientifically studied.

Particularly revealing is what these national studies tell us about child pornography and child sex abuse. Concerns over these sex issues are probably among the most contentious. In those areas where child porn became legally available the incidence of child sexual abuse turned significantly lower than when its availability was restricted. As with adult pornography appearing to substitute for sexual aggression everywhere it has been investigated, it is believed the availability of child porn substitutes for the real exploitation of children. Real children need not be involved in the production or distribution of child porn; artificially produced materials might serve. As it is, with restrictions on even materials for the scientific study of the phenomenon forbidden to all but police enforcement agencies, these real-life studies are the only way to begin to understand the phenomenon.

Other matters examined by reliable research are relevant. Consider that no community studied has ever voted, in a secret ballot, to deny SEM to adults. The only feature of a community standard that could be found is intolerance for any materials in which children or minors are involved either as actors or viewers.

No researcher has found that exposure to pornography — by any definition — has had a correlation with any sex crime and a correlation must exist before any statistical cause-and-effect relationship can be established. In real life no detectable relationship of the amount of exposure to pornography and any measure of even misogynist attitudes has been demonstrated.

Among identified feminists, attitudes toward pornography are mixed. The pro-censorship feminists base their efforts on the largely unexamined assumption that ridding society of pornography would reduce sexism and violence against women. But there is no such evidence to be found. In Islamic countries, where all SEM is banned, there is a recognised current of misogyny and wife abuse. Many other social features generate negative attitudes toward women.

A number of those against pornography want SEM criminalised as a reinforcement of morality- based rather than harm-based standards. While much porn does depict women in ways that may foster misogynist attitudes, there is no evidence that it is a significant process by which sexual relations are constituted and sexual aggression against women is generated.

We live in what may be called an indulgent era, in which much personal time and income — even in times of recession — is allocated to the acquisition of SEM. While pornography might be accused of negatively affecting some individuals or families it has in no community or population been found to be generally harmful.

A last word. Some equate or link pornography with prostitution. That is like associating eating with animal slaughter, just because some animals are killed for people to eat. Any link might or might not be proper depending upon the context. As a proper and ethical society establishes laws to protect animals, even regarding their slaughter, so too should it protect those that work in any area, even if is related to sex.

Were prostitution decriminalised those that are abused could properly report it to the authorities and have the abusers punished. Those women or others engaged in sex work ought to have agency given to them so that their interests and welfare are guarded, as those of other sectors in society.

And, as for saying that many are engaged in sex work only because of poverty, that unfortunately holds for all those millions that stay in non sex work they despise for the same reason.