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Pornography is replacing the desire among young men for marriage, according to a new study that finds males are chasing “low-cost sexual gratification” on the web over a wife and family.

“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,” said the report.

The report published by Germany’s Institute for the Study of Labor and co-authored by a West Chester University of Pennsylvania professor suggested that the government crack down on porn access, especially as more and easier tools to tap into the Internet, such as smartphones, expand. Saving marriage, said the report, will help the economy and society.

The study is being highlighted by the group Morality in Media, which sent it to Secrets Tuesday. “Pornography is a marriage killer and thus it has monumental negative ramifications for society’s future,” said Patrick A. Trueman, president of the group. “Research has shown for some time that porn use in marriage destroys the marital bond, but now we can see that porn use destroys even the desire to get married,” he added.

As an aside, the study found that those who look at religious websites are pro-marriage.

Researchers analyzed data from 1,512 surveys completed by American men aged 18-35 between 2000-2004. What they found is that porn use makes marriage unappealing. The study is titled: “Are Pornography and Marriage Substitutes for Young Men?”

The researchers were interested in how declining marriage rates impact society and the economy. They said that “stable marriages create substantial welfare improvements for society, especially to the degree that marital stability produces high-quality children.”

Porn use, they said, can be credited with cutting the marriage rate. They cited statistics showing that men 25-34 are six times less likely to be married than the same age group was in 1970. They also found that divorce rates are twice what they were in 1950.

“Given the rapid decline in marital formation and stability in western countries, a natural question is how quickly this trend will proliferate in developing countries as their standards of living rise. Nowadays, widely available Internet access almost always accompanies rising living standards. Thus, the results in this paper suggest that technological proliferation and access to pornography specifically can be a causative factor that underlies these rapid demographic changes that occur concurrent to economic growth,” said the report.

S_Parc wrote:There are actually two female student bodies, the first is from Columbia itself and the 2nd, from Barnard College, a seven sister college, co-located around Broadway. That's a red flag in itself. Since there's full cross registration of courses (as well as integrated residential options), together, they make the female to male ratio nearly 2:1 among undergrads. In reality, however, it's one of the worst schools for dating and has the phrase, *stuck up rotten feminist b*tches*, written all over it. In my brief life, I'd never seen a school with such an enviable female/male ratio produce so many miserable guys.

So far, of all my acquaintances, friends, and colleagues who'd been there, none were able to sustain a GF there for more than a few weeks (or mos) w/o giving up on her. Everyone of them had to get GFs from other places like City College, Hunter, NYU, SUNY, Yale, or UConn to be able to one, have a relationship and two, to stay sane. I remember one jubilant attendant from the Boston area, all excited about the female/male ratio until his sophomore year, when he was always going downtown to NYU's campus parties to meet women.

Jester wrote:Funny that SParc mentions Columbia

Princeton in the late seventies was also bizarre. Really similar to what young men report about society in general now. Entering freshman cuties got way too much attantion from a hugely male student body... then became stuck up rapidly... then by the time they were seniors, all the guys they had snubbed earlier no longer wanted them, and they went dateless... a minicosm of society.

But my guess is that Columbia was farther down the trail, since Princeton had more Southerners, more conservatives, and fewer Jews.

S_Parc wrote:I disagree with the premise of these correlation studies because I don't believe that sex is the primary purpose of marriage. I believe that marriage is for companionship and plausibly, starting a family, if the situation suits it.

The researchers were interested in how declining marriage rates impact society and the economy. They said that “stable marriages create substantial welfare improvements for society, especially to the degree that marital stability produces high-quality children.”

Teal Lantern wrote:Imagine a study claiming photos and websites dedicated to cars were lowering sales of actual, drivable cars.
Would anyone other than religious nuts and low quality automakers see banning images, levying fines, and other nonsense as solutions preferable to improving car quality?