back to article Study: Gay marriage support linked to pr0n consumption

A research paper by two American academics has concluded that one of the key factors in the increasing support among straight men for same-sex marriage comes down to how much pornography they consume. The research, published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Communication Research, is based on a six-year study of 500 US …

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  1. Comments are attributed to your handle
    Meh

    Hold on a second...

    If it can also be shown that an increase in IE market share leads to an increase in web developers targeting IE, then I might be able to get behind that last graph.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hold on a second...

      So perverts support perversions. What a surprise!

  2. Someone Else Silver badge
    Pint

    Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...

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

    And by the transvestite...er...transitive property of equality (or something like that...it's been a loooong time since high school), one could surmise that pr0n makes you smart...or that only smart people use pr0n, or...oh bother! It's beer-thirty, already.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...

      Perhaps surprisingly, there is actually a well established correlation between intelligence and libido.

      1. smudge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...

        "'Allo darlin' - 'ave you seen the size of my IQ?"

        And what does this say about Paris...?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...

        Do you mean "scientists need to get laid more"?

        1. sisk
          Pint

          Re: Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...

          Frankly all intelligent people need to get laid more. Here's to fending off the future predicted in Idiocracy.

      3. TeeCee Gold badge
        Meh

        Re: Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...

        Perhaps surprisingly, there is actually a well established correlation between intelligence and libido.

        I suppose this means that Viagra could be a study aid? Then again, taking an exam while afflicted with a monumental boner is bound to be rather uncomfortable and distracting, so it may be a zero-sum game.

      4. DM2012
        Happy

        Re: Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...

        A correlation thoroughly contradicted by the first 5 minutes of that thoroughly well researched and peer reviewed movie, Idiocracy.

  3. mIRCat
    Coat

    It could be argued that a browser like IE 6 could not only trigger homicidal rages, but encourage those in such a state outdoors!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed. IE has certainly driven me into a blind rage on more than one occasion. Although my impulses tend to be directed more at the poor monitor than homicidal. Each to his own I suppose.

      Makes me wonder if the IE/homicide correlation is more worthy of examination than this other crap. ;o)

      1. wowfood

        Games don't kill people. Internet explorer kills people.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Well, if Darwin was right, being queer should eventually wipe out queers.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      and I thought it was only me who felt the urge to kill when I use IE.

      I am not alone :)

      1. Colin Millar
        Pirate

        Death to statistics

        Statistics* show that Firefox browsing NRA members are the most unlikely to go on murderous rampages.

        *NRA poll - 200 out of 500 Firefox browsing NRA members agreed with the statement "just cos I have the god given right to kill people doesn't mean that on any particular day of the week I would go on a murderous rampage"

        PS the other 300 shouted - "get off of my property ya commie homo Firefox browsing pinko liberal" while liberally spraying fully automatic assault rifles everywhere in accordance with their 2nd amendment rights to kill every damn thing that moves . No one knows if they agreed with the statement so we put them down as "don't know"

        1. Dana W
          FAIL

          Re: Death to statistics

          Enough, our "assault" rifles are NOT fully automatic. "Mine certainly isn't" Full auto has been illegal in the US for anyone except a very few owners of very expensive, old register hard to get weapons. And no, gang members need not apply. "You could get a very nice car for what it costs to even START in in that hobby, assuming you ever got past the Federal background checks."

          And for the record. My shooting friends and me are Liberal Democrats, so take your phobia, and your bigotry and stick it.

          1. Colin Millar
            Mushroom

            Re: Death to statistics

            Where's the sense of humour metldown icon?

            O - here it is

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Effect ≠ cause.

    Open legs lead to open minds

    Really?

    Or do open minds lead to open legs?

    Or are both trends the result of other causes?

    Or is the apparent connection a quirk of the tiny sample?

    The only potential "discovery" I can see in this "research" is a prude is a prude.

    I do wish data miners would stop presenting themselves as anything other than halfwits.

    1. LaeMing
      Facepalm

      Re: Effect ≠ cause.

      Yes!

      People who are open-minded about one thing are more likely to be open-minded about another thing.

      News at 11.

      1. P. Lee
        Facepalm

        Re: Effect ≠ cause.

        > People who are open-minded about one thing are more likely to be open-minded about another thing.

        In other news, nobody seems to know what being "open minded" on an issue means.

        Most of the people I hear about who support gay marriage seem very closed-minded on the issue.

        1. Paw Bokenfohr
          Stop

          Re: Effect ≠ cause.

          @P.Lee, "Most of the people I hear about who support gay marriage seem very closed-minded on the issue"

          Yup, it's called "making a decision" or "having an opinion". You could say a similar thing for most of the people who are against equal marriage. Or about most of the people who want tax cuts. Or about most of the people who enjoy football.

          Or most anything where you have to state a preference one way or another.

          Few of us have absolutely no opinion about whether or not we should all have equal rights and responsibilities under the law, and I think equally few of us can be persuaded from one stance to another *over a short period of time* such as during a 15 second TV interview, or even over a few weeks of debate.

          Changing "closed-minds" as you put them, takes a long time, whether you're trying to change them towards or away from intolerance.

  5. Rampant Spaniel

    Mechanism please.

    This is absolute BS. Without a mechanism you have nothing more than a pretty graph from SPSS that highlights a coincidence (at best). There is a strong correlation between opposition to gay marriage and c**tishness. Marriage predates Christianity ergo they have no claim over the usage of the word.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      re: Mechanism please.

      Q1, Do you consider yourself an open minded liberal type

      Q1a do you view porn

      Q1b do you support gay marriage

      Q2, Do you consider yourself a conservative christian

      Q2a do you oppose porn

      Q2b do you oppose gay marriage

      Then only publish the correlation between 1a/b and 2a/b

      1. sisk

        Re: re: Mechanism please.

        What about open minded, liberal Christians? (Yes, they do exist. They're just a relatively quiet bunch.)

        1. Rampant Spaniel

          Re: re: Mechanism please.

          I think being quiet is the problem :) Most topics these days (of the social kind) are debated by the extremes and those of us in the middle are too quiet. We need to be louder and then we might end up with more sensible, practical compromises.

        2. kain preacher

          Re: re: Mechanism please.

          It's not that the christian left is quiet, it's just that the Christian right is much louder. When it comes to the media angry crazy man tends to get more air time.

    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Devil

      Anything can be shown to correlate to anything

      All you need to do is chose the _CORRECT_ scale.

      Correlation coefficient is the probability of two functions being linearly dependent on each other. So, for example, if you have y = x^2 and you try to compute the correlation coefficient directly off the values from that you will get that the two variables are independent when in fact they are not. So you have to chose the correct scale/conversion - root, log, exp, etc before you compute it. And here be dragons...

      When there is no obvious reasons to use a particular one you can pretty much chose anyone you like ending up with a graph of AOL vs Good Cholesterol. Just like in this case.

  6. frank ly
    Facepalm

    re. prospectively predicting stuff

    'prospective' means relating to the future. So, 'prospectively predicting' means predicting things about the future.

    I thought that predicting was always about the future. Is there another kind of predicting?

    1. Androgynous Crackwhore
      Holmes

      Re: re. prospectively predicting stuff

      "Is there another kind of predicting?"

      Indeed there is. Retrospective prediction - where the oracle contrives the prediction after the event, looks back and says "there, told you so". Commonly exhibited by both "climateologists" and more traditional politicians.

  7. Esskay
    Meh

    a fairly farcical study.

    Shirley the study could also demonstrate a relationship between people who are conservative types who abhor pornography (and therefore won't admit to watching it in a survey/interview) and, being conservative types, abhor gay marriage (and therefore won't support it)?

    A more accurate conclusion to the study, I believe, would be "conservative prudes who say they don't watch porn have a tendency to be opposed to gay marriage as well".

    Which more or less tells us what we already know. Ultimately though, the study seems fairly broad and nonsensical - conducting a survey about what many perceive to be sensitive personal stuff will only ever produce a result that demonstrates people's refusal to be truthful in such matters - the way the questions are presented will, as always, have a large impact on the result of the study, and people have a tendency to give answers that show them in the light they want to be shown in, rather than how they actually are.

  8. southpacificpom

    This article just tells me that if you get rid of Microsoft altogether then the US gun laws don't need to be modified.

  9. Alex in Tokyo
    Coat

    Actually...

    Shouldn't that be 'cum hoc ergo propter hoc'?

  10. Persona non grata

    My favourite in this line of statistical analysis:

    http://xkcd.com/925/

    correlation ≠ causation etc.

    1. Alan J. Wylie

      Correlation between autism and organic food sales

      http://imgur.com/1WZ6h

  11. Someone
    Paris Hilton

    Physical to virtual

    The acquittals of Simon Walsh and Michael Peacock might seem to support this hypothesis in Britain, but I believe there’s a better Internet-related explanation. In the past, communities would be based on physical locality. People would want to be physically surrounded by other like-minded individuals. With the move to virtual communities, especially now we have mobile connectivity, it matters less what others around you are doing.

    I think I caught Peter Tatchell on the telly saying how parliament’s vote to legalise same-sex marriage shows that we give gay love the same value as straight love. The truth may be less affirming. Is it consensual? Yes? Just get on with it, we’re not that interested any more.

  12. Suricou Raven

    Not the most reputable.

    A little googling shows Paul j Wright is a nobody - I can't find any other paper he has written at all, or even any mention of him. Ashley k Randall has done a little more, but only got her PHD in 2012. It looks to me like two newcomers to the field confronted with the great problem of graduate researchers trying to establish themselves by studying something a little controversial.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Has anyone here - including the author of this article - actually read the study in question, or is this all based on an undoubtedly farcical distillation of the paper created for the Examiner? If I had a dollar for every time a mass media outlet has mistaken the data of a study for its conclusion, either deliberately in order to poke fun at dumb scientists, or in error out of confusion, I'd be able to start my own university.

    Does everybody here really think that these guys really did all of this work and got PhDs without understanding the difference between correlation and causation? Or is it perhaps just a tiny bit more likely that the people reporting on the study couldn't be arsed to do a good job of it, and instead went for the low-hanging fruit of mocking researchers for discovering the obvious?

    Even if the whole point of the study *was* to find a correlation, that doesn't mean that it's pointless: It's easy to say, "Yup, makes sense there is one" - it's another entirely to prove it, and to do so in a rigorous way that might be useful to other researchers - or to do so on the off chance that there's a counterintuitive result.

    Is it possible that the study is indeed a load of bull? Sure. Is it the most likely option in this situation? I doubt it.

    Either way, I am consistently depressed by the utter failure of people to comprehend some of the most basic principles of science - that in what way is as important as is, and in the utility of actually rigorously testing and proving the "obvious". And, doubly so, as these blinkered attitudes are often evident most in those who consider themselves respectful of logic and reason - and who exhibit the same fallacies of false 'common sense' as the pop-culture demagogues they disdain.

    1. P. Lee
      Unhappy

      I'm sure you're correct. However, I often get the feeling that studies are set up for the very purpose of being media-bait, knowing that the media will seize on the wrong conclusion.

      For example, "porn watchers tend to be well-educated" leads to a couple of incorrect conclusions:

      1) porn watching results from having a good education

      2) a good education is what leads you to the conclusion that watching porn is good.

      When in fact it could be that educated people tend to be at university, universities are in cities, cities tend to create anonymity, anonymity reduces inhibitions which would prevent you form watching porn; or, universities are full of hormonally charged, inexperienced people who have recently left an environment with parental guidance; or even that watching porn/supporting gay marriage is a moral issue and quite independent of how many facts you know about engineering or comp-sci.

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

        "watching porn/supporting gay marriage is a moral issue and quite independent of how many facts you know about engineering or comp-sci."

        But, generally, a better all-round level of education stimulates more progressive approach to resolving morality issues...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "But, generally, a better all-round level of education stimulates more progressive approach to resolving morality issues..."

          Though that makes me wonder - what if you have absolutely no education at all? IE, no input from society, no nothing. Is there a kind of inverse-tolerance bell curve, where societies with the least education and intergenerational tradition and societies with the most education and historical knowledge are more tolerant than some nadir of a knows-enough-to-be-dangerous culture?

          Someone needs to do a study on that. Then newspapers can run stories saying, "Stupid scientists discover that the middle ages sucked." :P

  14. Allan George Dyer
    Coat

    Perhaps...

    it shows that people who oppose gay marriage are more likely to lie about their porn usage?

  15. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    The study sounds plausible

    "many men watch gay porn if it involves two women"

    Doh! It's called "l e s b i a n".

    Overall, this study supports the conclusions I've made for myself long ago. Basically, watching pr0n clearly showed to me that sexual orientation and preferences are quite solidly set and cannot be changed (without involving perhaps a brain trauma) just by watching something. Once you then realise that you cannot become homosexual through being influenced by something or someone you stop seeing homosexuality as a threat.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The study sounds plausible

      "watching pr0n clearly showed to me that sexual orientation and preferences are quite solidly set and cannot be changed"

      Hmmmmm.

      Married men who use rent boys.

      Clergy fancying kids.

      Gay men with children.

      Bisexual.

      Not so sure about that.

      Maybe the fear you can become homosexual through being influenced by something or someone comes from the individuals true (and sometimes unknown) feelings and not what society has taught them (from religious beliefs?) from the age you learned to speak.

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

        Re: The study sounds plausible

        Sexual orientation is not the same as fertility. Gay men can father a child just as easily as heterosexuals.

        None of the examples you use requires conversion from one sexual orientation to another.

        I don't fear of becoming a homosexual, I am convinced that it cannot happen, but I put it to you that homophobia in general is caused by such fear.

        1. Dana W
          Happy

          Re: The study sounds plausible

          In other words, they In common with many grade schoolers are terrified of "cooties".

          (Don't touch me! Ill get gay on me!)

    2. Dana W
      Meh

      Re: The study sounds plausible

      Sadly no. Most "two women" porn aimed at guys has two straight women it it pretending to be gay, and after they do their routines for the camera, a guy saunters in and does both of them. (To show the "Natural" order of things of course)

      I've hung out in a few Lesbian bars in my day, and these guys come rolling in thinking they are going to pick up two women who will go home and perform for them then show them a three way. Its always fun to see if they leave in horror before they get tossed out on their ear.

      It seems that a lot of Lesbians don't meet their hetrosexist standards of approved appearance "IE: Bleach blondes with rubber boobs" REAL lesbian porn tends to leave straight men both turned off and a bit threatened.

  16. Velv
    Boffin

    Science v Religion

    So occasionally a few trick cyclists gather some data and draw conclusions which may or may not be stretching the truth.

    At least they don't claim to represent God and have every single one of their conclusions based on a wild leap of faith in something totally unprovable.

    < religious down vote in 3,2,1,....>

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I would like to put forward an alternative hypothesis

    All men watch porn.

    Those that are too prudish to admit it are also likely to have conservative views about gay marriage.

  18. Anonymous Coward 15
    Holmes

    Ignobel right there.

    Conservatives are generally conservative, and men generally like women. Is this where US students' massive debt is being spent?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More like it

    Education was also positively associated with support for same-sex marriage

  20. John Savard

    Good and Bad

    I remember one study used to tell us how bad pornography was, by noting that people who view more porn are less likely to support as severe penalties for rapists. Instead of drawing strange conclusions, though, isn't it simpler to expect that people with a more negative or judgmental attitude to sex will be less likely to support gay marriage, more likely to regard rape as a very serious crime (unless they blame the victim; look at the attitudes unearthed in India, which aren't dead here), and less likely to permit themselves to watch porn?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good and Bad

      We should treat sex offenders severely. We should be careful who we consider a sex offender.

    2. Gray Ham Bronze badge

      Re: Good and Bad

      John, I'm not quite sure I understood all of your post ... I read it as implying that people with a reasonably open and positive attitude to sex will tend not to regard rape as a serious crime. I don't believe that was your intention - certainly, I would regard rape as very serious.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good and Bad

        Not as serious as someone who is very close-minded regarding sex.

  21. kain preacher

    So

    Watching a man and a women have sex makes me sumpthatetic to gay people. Scratches head .

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    From the guy who used the F word and got his post deleted.

    A lot of you talk about tollerance. I fail to see how anything I said was intollerant. I just said, I would like homosexuals to stay away from me. Is there anything bad about that? Is there anything wrong with disliking homosexuals? Yes. It's politically incorrect. Though it's OK to dislike children. BTW, where I live, those places (Israel, Saudi, etc) are west. I used to work in Hollywood. One director I used to work with said that over 80% of script writers are homosexuals. He was explaining his experiences at a then recent script writters conference. Do you think that perhaps popular entertainment and news media have an affect on your perceptions?

    My main point was:

    Limitations empower us to be creative: the limit of the lens on a camera, the limits (rules, instructions) a computer operates by, the limitations of time, etc. Those who understand that limitations are an intrinsic part of the universe limit themselves.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: From the guy who used the F word and got his post deleted.

      The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

      And that's "tolerance", youngster. Again, grow up & get educated. Then come back. Ta.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: From the guy who used the F word and got his post deleted.

      "I fail to see how anything I said was intollerant. I just said, I would like Jews to stay away from me."

      "I fail to see how anything I said was intollerant. I just said, I would like black people to stay away from me."

      "I fail to see how anything I said was intollerant. I just said, I would like Asians to stay away from me."

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: From the guy who used the F word and got his post deleted.

        What is so intollerant about that? I don't think it is intollerant to want old people to stay away from me or bankers or drunks or any other group of people or animal. *whipped much?

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