Watching porn regularly may make you more religious, study says
Technically Incorrect: A researcher at the University of Oklahoma theorizes that guilt might be involved.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
The sign of a believer?
It's easier to watch porn than go to church these days.
It's there on your computer, while your church might be miles away.
Many porn clips are a few minutes. Not so, many church services.
How, though, might porn and religion be related?
Samuel Perry, an assistant professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, thought he'd look into it.
So he delved into the Portraits of American Life Study. This included a group of 1,314 adults who answered questions between 2006 and 2012 about aspects of life. Religion and porn, for example.
Perry's study had something of a happy ending for those who believe that religion and porn are perfectly compatible.
He said that viewing pornography "can reduce religiosity over time." Those who viewed porn two or three times a month turned out to be the ones who shunned religion the most.
There again: "At higher frequencies of porn viewing however, the trend in religious salience later on appears to increase slightly."
Another fascination was that those who view pornography once a day or more attend religious services at almost the same level as those who say they never, no never look at porn at all.
Perry says one possible conclusion is that some people simply detach porn viewing from their religious beliefs. Another, however, is that those who might be deemed to have a porn habit raise their religious attendance as an expression of guilt.
You might be wondering, though, how many people admit to watching porn at all.
Well, 39 percent confessed they had done it in the previous 12 months. Almost three times as many men admitted to watching porn as women.
Women are said to be more religious, too.
Perry did offer another caution: "It must also be kept in mind that greater levels of religious practice do not necessarily amount to traditionalist sexual views in the first place."
Such a view is supported by research from PornHub that showed regions of religiosity as being some of the biggest areas of porn use in America. Perhaps that explains the Oklahoma man who allegedly stole a church computer and demanded that the porn block be removed.
Our consciences aren't often consistent. We are excellent at justifying our behavior, while being less excellent at making it either logical or even understandable.
I wonder if anyone's ever made a porn movie about that.