A Dose of Porn Makes Straight Men More Accepting of Same-Sex Marriage

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Feb 04, 2013 04:10 PM EST

A healthy dose of pornography might just be the right prescription for homophobic, straight men to become more accepting of same-sex marriage. 

A new study published in the journal Communication Research, which consisted of data from studies of 500 heterosexual men over the past five years, revealed that the more dirty videos a straight man watched, the more likely he is to accept the idea that two people of the same sex could be married.

Researcher Paul Wright, assistant professor of communications at Indiana University found that the pornography effect was particularly strong in men who were not as educated. Wright believes that the change in attitude could be because pornography makes the mind more accepting of "non-traditional sexual situations" like those involving people of the same sex.

He noted that while the study revealed that pornography consumption predicted support of same-sex marriage, support for same sex-marriage did not predict pornography consumption.

"Support for same-sex marriage did not prospectively predict pornography consumption, but pornography consumption did prospectively predict support for same-sex marriage," researchers wrote in the study.  "Education was also positively associated with support for same-sex marriage."

Wright told the Washington Examiner that the latest findings suggest that the more porn straight men, especially less educated, straight men, watch adult videos, the more supportive they become of gay marriage.

"Pornography adopts an individualistic, non-judgmental stance on all kinds of non-traditional sexual behaviors and same-sex marriage attitudes are strongly linked to attitudes about same-sex sex," he said, according to the Washington Examiner.

"If people think individuals should be able to decide for themselves whether to have same-sex sex, they will also think that individuals should be able to decide for themselves whether to get married to a partner of the same-sex," he said.

Researchers said that mass media and education are often thought of as important agents of socialization in American culture, and since portion of individuals sexual attitudes come from the media they are exposed to, its logical that pornography viewers would have more positive attitudes towards gay marriage. 

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