Surprises in Internet Pornography Survey.IF your husband, son or boyfriend is spending several hours a night locked away with his computer, at least you know he's probably not looking at porn. If he were, you see, he'd be finished a lot sooner. A recent survey conducted by MSNBC.com found the average Internet sex hound hound, classification used by breeders and kennel clubs to designate dogs bred to hunt animals. Most of the dogs in this group hunt by scent, their quarry ranging from such large game as bear or elk to small game and vermin; ground scenters trail slowly with the head spends no more than three hours a week on his or her habit. That figure is surprisingly low, particularly since it takes nearly that long just to delete porn-related spam from my e-mail in box. When you consider the bulk of those three hours are likely spent waiting for dirty pictures to creep across dial-up connections, the time spent actually looking at them seems small indeed. Don't get me wrong: Three hours a week of porn is surely three hours too many for parents and others who worry about the influence of sexually explicit material Sexually explicit material (video, photography, creative writing) presents sexual content without deliberately obscuring or censoring it. The term sexually explicit media is often used as euphemism for pornography. on the Internet. But if the figures in the survey are anywhere close to accurate -- and there is reason to doubt them, by the way -- that influence isn't quite so dramatic as it might seem. Controlling urges Nearly 40,000 visitors to MSNBC MSNBC Microsoft/National Broadcasting Company responded to the survey designed and conducted by Alvin Cooper of the San Jose San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. Marital and Sexuality Centre. About 38,000 of those responses were deemed usable, leading Cooper to describe it as "one of the largest surveys of human sexuality This article is about human sexual perceptions. For information about sexual activities and practices, see Human sexual behavior. Generally speaking, human sexuality is how people experience and express themselves as sexual beings. ever," Reuters reported. Apparently, size does matter in sex surveys. Cooper told Reuters the study confirmed earlier research that has shown most Net users are capable of controlling their urges to visit the Net's seedier side. "For the vast majority of people, sexuality online is not going to be a problem," he said. "But for some people, it is going to be a big problem." About 9 percent of survey participants who visited sexually explicit sites indicated they did so compulsively. The rest indicated that cybersex The online equivalent of a telephone sex line, with two differences. First, it typically takes place in a chat room or IRC channel. Second, it is almost always a non-paid conversation between consenting adults. hadn't caused them any problems, including a full third who claimed online porn and other sexually explicit sites had complemented or improved their real-life relationships. While it's possible some respondents didn't have many of those relationships to begin with, these are the sort of glowing numbers you might expect, to find on promotional material for those Pam and Tommy Lee This article is about the American drummer Tommy Lee. For other uses, see Tommy.
Tommy Lee (born Thomas Lee Bass on October 3, 1962), is a Greek American rock musician. videos. So can we believe them? The unscientific unscientific Unproven, see there survey can't really claim to represent the attitudes of Net users at large since it invited volunteers to respond. Valid scientific polls require researchers to find a random sample of representative people rather than relying on visitors to a particular site who have some spare time on their hands. Access, not interest But Cooper told Reuters he believes such anonymous online surveys elicit more honest answers about sex than traditional polling methods. He may have a point there. If I was spending my nights visiting those sites I get spam about -- something about "Hot Teen Sex Now!" springs to mind -- I doubt I'd tell some nice lady on the phone exactly how much hot teen sex I'd been having. But I might type an accurate response into a Web form, if only because I couldn't see a good reason for doing otherwise. If the survey is accurate, perhaps online porn doesn't have quite the hold on people that some frightening media reports would suggest. The Internet has made pornography infinitely more accessible, but it hasn't made it any more interesting to the majority of people who aren't predisposed pre·dis·pose v. pre·dis·posed, pre·dis·pos·ing, pre·dis·pos·es v.tr. 1. a. To make (someone) inclined to something in advance: to compulsive behavior Compulsive behavior is behavior which a person does "compulsively", i.e., not because he enjoys it but because he feels he "has to". The two most common forms are: I don't doubt that some relationships have been damaged by pornography -- more, perhaps, than the survey's respondents realize. But I also suspect most Net users can control their urge to visit the seedy URLs that pile up in their e-mail trash bin. In short, it seems the threat of Internet porn shouldn't keep people up at night - at least, no later than three hours past their bedtime. |
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