A new study analyzing porn use among young men has found that those who consume it are potentially less likely to get married.
The study, titled, “Are Pornography and Marriage Substitutes for Young Men?” which was conducted by economics and finance professor Dr. Michael Malcolm of the University of West Chester, Pennsylvania, and George Naufal of Timberlake Consultants, found that smut has become a replacement for marriage for many of the 18 to 35 year old males who use it, the Christian Post reported.
Photo credit: Shutterstock
Photo credit: Shutterstock
Published by the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, a German economics organization, the research determined that “substitutes for marital sexual gratification may impact the decision to marry,” according to the abstract.
Internet porn has become a cheap alternative to marriage when it comes to sexual gratification, potentially impacting the decision of some men to marry, Malcolm and Naufal concluded.
“We investigate the effect of Internet usage, and of pornography consumption specifically, on the marital status of young men. We show that increased Internet usage is negatively associated with marriage formation,” the abstractreads. “Pornography consumption specifically has an even stronger effect. Instrumental variables and a number of robustness checks suggest that the effect is causal.”
The study highlights some of the shocking variables that cause concern surrounding porn’s potential impact on marriage, including the fact that the proportion of men today between the ages of 25 and 34 who have never walked down the aisle is six times higher than it was in 1970.
“Traditionally, one of the reasons to enter into a marriage was sexual gratification. But as options for sexual gratification outside of marriage have grown, the need for a marriage to serve this function is diminishing,” the study reads. “The NIH reports that the fraction of 20 year-olds who have engaged in premarital sex grew by about 50% between the late 1950s and the late 1990s. Besides premarital sex, another option is consumption of pornography, which has become widely more accessible since the proliferation of the Internet.”
Malcolm and Naufal explored data from the General Social Survey captured between 2000 and 2004, looking at parameters surrounding Internet usage and marital status. They found that heavy Internet usage and the use of pornography were associated with lower marriage rates. And when they dug deeper into the data, the authors determined that this relationship was causal, according to the study.
You can read more about the complex models they used to reach this determination in the study here.
This is only the latest information to emerge surrounding the potential impact of porn use. As TheBlaze previously reported, Donna Rice Hughes, CEO and president of Enough Is Enough, a nonprofit devoted to ensuring the Internet is a safe place for children, recently wrote a research article on the subject titled, “The Internet P*rnography Pandemic.”
In the piece, which was published in the Christian Apologestics Journal, Hughes provided an overview of the research that has been done on the subject of pornography, calling the findings “eye-opening” and claiming that Internet smut has a “harmful impact on the emotional, mental and sexual health of young children, tweens and teens.”
Photo credit: Shutterstock
Photo credit: Shutterstock
“Every child deserves a protected age of innocence and the opportunity to thrive during childhood. Their hearts and minds are innocent, tender, and trusting and need to be safeguarded from the negative influences of increasingly violent and sexualized media,” Hughes wrote in the article. “Unfortunately, online pornography damages children, and the consequences are mostly irreversible. Pornography is ‘deforming the sexual development of young viewers and is used to exploit children and adolescents.’”
Hughes argued in the piece that porn sometimes overshadows parents in teaching kids about sex, leading to what she believes are some profoundly damaging effects.
“Powerful lies portrayed in exploitative pornography can take the lead in educating children on very important life issues,” she wrote. “Pornography teaches sex without love, intimacy, tender touch, responsibility, and commitment.”
Earlier this summer, statistics also showed that an almost identical proportion of Christian men report watching smut each month as their non-Christian counterparts — research that has concerned many faith leaders.