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I suspect any academic study proposing to show pornography to minors is going to get shut down pretty quickly. In my own anecdotal experience I’d say it defini

I suspect any academic study proposing to show pornography to minors is going to get shut down pretty quickly. In my own anecdotal experience I’d say it definitely can be dangerous and depends on a variety of factors, a key one IMO being what kind of pornography we’re even talking about. In my youth we discovered a friends dad nudie mag stash. Lots of glamour photography of topless women, some full nudity too but always pretty tame all things considered. I don’t think it had a negative effect on me. But the kind of porn available (and popular) on the internet is not that. From talking to a friends much younger brother I know they all have access to it and it’s led to some weird perceptions about what sex is, should be, etc. It’s rough, it’s often degrading, it’s almost exclusively focused on male satisfaction. It’s much more about one person’s power over another then snore any kind of intimacy. The solution to all of this is, as always, parental and school sex education to ensure kids are learning the right things. But as a society we’re kind of terrified of that.

berkes 4y ago
> I suspect any academic study proposing to show pornography to minors is going to get shut down pretty quickly. I highly doubt this, because it's both important and relevant. 16y/o will consume pornography. I know I did, and I was 16 way before internet. Young adults will have had exposure before engaging in actual sex. This is important because it might be problematic. Because it changes behavior. But also because the right nudges, education and context probably make the difference between this growing into problematic behavior or healthy, normal, human behavior. I know this is a difference between Europe and the US. Where the US (or any society under pressure of religious extremists, really) tries to simply forbid such research or knowledge. And hope (and pray) that by not knowing how this is shaping generations, it might simply go away. I'm pretty sure it won't just go away by praying hard and forbidding research. I'm pretty sure academics in this area know this very well too.
- nathan_compton 4y ago
  Any research which involved actually showing pornography to minors would almost certainly be shut down for ethical reasons. Studies would almost certainly have to be observational and post-facto, studying people who admit to having been exposed as minors. Medical ethics practices in the U.S. are actually very advanced and restrictive. I cannot imagine an IRB ever approving showing minors pornography especially given that there is a reasonable expectation of harm and essentially no expectation of benefit.
  - haldujai 4y ago
    You are completely correct with the minor edit that this study would never be shutdown as there is a 0% chance it ever gets approved. Beyond how strict IRB/REB boards are in general, there are also additional federal requirements that must be satisfied when submitting a study proposal on children including surveys and not just interventions. In the US these are the pathways: Section 404 requires that research poses no more than minimal risk. As the intervention itself is a federal crime this is not satisfied. Section 405 allows for more than minimal risk if the anticipated benefit for the study subject justifies the risk. There is no individual benefit to the minor for watching pornography. Section 406 requires that the risk is "commensurate with the subjects expected or actual psychological and social situations" which is hard to argue is expected when it is illegal to begin with. It also requires that the intervention is "likely to yield generalizable knowledge about the subjects’ disorder or condition which is of vital importance for the understanding or amelioration of the subjects’ disorder or condition", hard to argue that answering whether children viewing obscenity is addictive provides knowledge that is vitally important when there is no clear reason why children should be exposed to pornography. If an IRB cannot satisfy sections 404-406 the only other way to get such a study approved is section 407 which requires direct approval from the Secretary of Health and Human Services if the "research presents a reasonable opportunity to understand, prevent, or alleviate a serious problem affecting children’s health or welfare, and, in addition, determines that the research will be conducted in accordance with sound ethical principles and that adequate provisions are made for soliciting the assent of children and permission of their parents or guardians". It is impossible that this would be satisfied as children NOT watching pornography (the alternative treatment/status quo) is hardly a problem let alone a serious one. This has nothing to do with religious justifications but is due to very reasonable and heightened ethics requirements when conducting research on children, be it pornography or a new medication. Canada is essentially the same and I can't speak to Europe but I imagine most countries have similar requirements regarding to needing to demonstrate likely benefit to research subjects or contribute to understanding of a disease (which is nonexistent in paediatrics). Every researcher thinks their question is relevant and important and that's why we have these rules in place. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/45-cfr-46/common-rule-subpart-d/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/...
ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
Meanwhile, people used to (before the invention of chimneys) live in the same room as their family and it would have been common for parents to be having sex whilst their children were sleeping in the same room (or pretending to sleep). I wonder if modern pornography is a response to our society become more prudish and private.
zuminator 4y ago
If the intention is to expose young people to porn and then measure longitudinally how they fare in life, ethical issues aside, I suspect that wouldn't work because your control group is very likely to become contaminated. And good luck getting the experiment underwritten. Rather I think you'd take a large sample of adults at a given age range, interview them as to the earliest age they recall consuming pornography, and compare it with their life outcomes: income, alcohol addiction, educational achievement, etc. Of course you're only measuring a correlation, but at least you'll be able to get your study funded. And naturally such studies have been done, although I suspect many are agenda driven: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6571756/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6571756/ https://wchh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tre.791 https://wchh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tre.79... (Many many more results in a casual web search)
- htag 4y ago
  If you go the interview approach you'll run into many potential confounds. If the average age of first exposure is 13, and someone says they waited until 17, it's possible that a third variable delayed them from seeking porn and also will have an impact on other life incomes. This is why random assignment is the gold standard. With a large enough sample size random assignment will account for all confounds. Here, we can only measure likely confounds and attempt to 'account for' them with statistics. All of these introduces more noise and generally reduces the validity of the study. In general, I dismiss all scientific studies with these looking back questionnaires as little more than well documented hunches.
babypuncher 4y ago
Well the state of Utah defines pornography as anything showing a female nipple, so they don't really have any ground to stand on when it comes to defining what is or isn't "harmful".

berkes 4y ago

> I suspect any academic study proposing to show pornography to minors is going to get shut down pretty quickly. I highly doubt this, because it's both important and relevant. 16y/o will consume pornography. I know I did, and I was 16 way before internet. Young adults will have had exposure before engaging in actual sex. This is important because it might be problematic. Because it changes behavior. But also because the right nudges, education and context probably make the difference between this growing into problematic behavior or healthy, normal, human behavior. I know this is a difference between Europe and the US. Where the US (or any society under pressure of religious extremists, really) tries to simply forbid such research or knowledge. And hope (and pray) that by not knowing how this is shaping generations, it might simply go away. I'm pretty sure it won't just go away by praying hard and forbidding research. I'm pretty sure academics in this area know this very well too.

nathan_compton 4y ago
Any research which involved actually showing pornography to minors would almost certainly be shut down for ethical reasons. Studies would almost certainly have to be observational and post-facto, studying people who admit to having been exposed as minors. Medical ethics practices in the U.S. are actually very advanced and restrictive. I cannot imagine an IRB ever approving showing minors pornography especially given that there is a reasonable expectation of harm and essentially no expectation of benefit.
- haldujai 4y ago
  You are completely correct with the minor edit that this study would never be shutdown as there is a 0% chance it ever gets approved. Beyond how strict IRB/REB boards are in general, there are also additional federal requirements that must be satisfied when submitting a study proposal on children including surveys and not just interventions. In the US these are the pathways: Section 404 requires that research poses no more than minimal risk. As the intervention itself is a federal crime this is not satisfied. Section 405 allows for more than minimal risk if the anticipated benefit for the study subject justifies the risk. There is no individual benefit to the minor for watching pornography. Section 406 requires that the risk is "commensurate with the subjects expected or actual psychological and social situations" which is hard to argue is expected when it is illegal to begin with. It also requires that the intervention is "likely to yield generalizable knowledge about the subjects’ disorder or condition which is of vital importance for the understanding or amelioration of the subjects’ disorder or condition", hard to argue that answering whether children viewing obscenity is addictive provides knowledge that is vitally important when there is no clear reason why children should be exposed to pornography. If an IRB cannot satisfy sections 404-406 the only other way to get such a study approved is section 407 which requires direct approval from the Secretary of Health and Human Services if the "research presents a reasonable opportunity to understand, prevent, or alleviate a serious problem affecting children’s health or welfare, and, in addition, determines that the research will be conducted in accordance with sound ethical principles and that adequate provisions are made for soliciting the assent of children and permission of their parents or guardians". It is impossible that this would be satisfied as children NOT watching pornography (the alternative treatment/status quo) is hardly a problem let alone a serious one. This has nothing to do with religious justifications but is due to very reasonable and heightened ethics requirements when conducting research on children, be it pornography or a new medication. Canada is essentially the same and I can't speak to Europe but I imagine most countries have similar requirements regarding to needing to demonstrate likely benefit to research subjects or contribute to understanding of a disease (which is nonexistent in paediatrics). Every researcher thinks their question is relevant and important and that's why we have these rules in place. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/45-cfr-46/common-rule-subpart-d/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/...

ndsipa_pomu 4y ago

Meanwhile, people used to (before the invention of chimneys) live in the same room as their family and it would have been common for parents to be having sex whilst their children were sleeping in the same room (or pretending to sleep). I wonder if modern pornography is a response to our society become more prudish and private.

zuminator 4y ago

If the intention is to expose young people to porn and then measure longitudinally how they fare in life, ethical issues aside, I suspect that wouldn't work because your control group is very likely to become contaminated. And good luck getting the experiment underwritten. Rather I think you'd take a large sample of adults at a given age range, interview them as to the earliest age they recall consuming pornography, and compare it with their life outcomes: income, alcohol addiction, educational achievement, etc. Of course you're only measuring a correlation, but at least you'll be able to get your study funded. And naturally such studies have been done, although I suspect many are agenda driven: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6571756/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6571756/ https://wchh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tre.791 https://wchh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tre.79... (Many many more results in a casual web search)

htag 4y ago
If you go the interview approach you'll run into many potential confounds. If the average age of first exposure is 13, and someone says they waited until 17, it's possible that a third variable delayed them from seeking porn and also will have an impact on other life incomes. This is why random assignment is the gold standard. With a large enough sample size random assignment will account for all confounds. Here, we can only measure likely confounds and attempt to 'account for' them with statistics. All of these introduces more noise and generally reduces the validity of the study. In general, I dismiss all scientific studies with these looking back questionnaires as little more than well documented hunches.

babypuncher 4y ago

Well the state of Utah defines pornography as anything showing a female nipple, so they don't really have any ground to stand on when it comes to defining what is or isn't "harmful".