I came across the following article, and at first I thought, “Hey wow, that’s cool, women are opening up more and more to explore their sexual needs.” Then I read past the headline. What a piece of shit. I don’t pretend to be a writer, I’m quite sloppy going about my word-smithing, but I do know a thing or two about statistics and science. I hope to arm you with enough knowledge and wisdom to spot poor sexual information & advice.
The first thing to know is, you can make statistics say anything you want. Let’s take a look at the following chart and manipulate it to say things it really doesn’t:
Disingenuous interpretation: “Wow! As a white heterosexual male or lesbian female, I’m not in any risk group for HIV. COMMENCE WITH THE FUCKING!”
Proper Interpretation: “Hmm, this chart lists 85% of the High-Risk groups, as a heterosexual white male or lesbian female I may not be high-risk for HIV, and thus not represented on the chart, but it doesn’t mean we can’t contract it, lets get some protection!”
The article in question…it fails to provide citation for its survey sources, going only as far as to link us to another website that claims to have found survey data related to women becoming addicted to internet porn – but when you check that link, it only links you back to the original website with the link as search string topic for additional articles, wtf? I guess you have to do your own sleuthing for proper porn statistics.
Further reading leads us to Expert Opinions – Mary Anne Laden, a Women’s Studies professor is quoted in the article as saying “”The more pornography women use, the more likely they are to be victims of non-consensual sex…the earlier the male starts using pornography, the more likely they are to be the perpetrators of non-consensual sex.” This is so full of bullshit it makes me want to punch things. First of all, multiple studies and data sets have shown that viewing porn leads to less non-consensual acts against women and children. Ignoring the actual conclusions of the studies I linked, lets assume that after masturbating furiously to internet porn, a would be sexual deviant is just too damn tired to act out sexual inappropriateness on others. (Actually, it’s from a wide range of psychological and physical factors, but that’s much less fun then saying masturbating furiously).
The article continues with unsubstantiated and bogus claims, and eventually ends, although my rage does not. Whenever checking a link that isn’t an insta-recognizable source, always try to check out its legitimacy. The Washington Times comes off like a knock-off of Washington Post, and upon investigating, was founded by Sun Myung Moon, who has claimed he is the second coming of Christ. So that should tell you a bit about its legitimacy.
The biggest hurdle of poor sexual advice usually isn’t print media, (despite every woman’s magazine at the checkout counter telling you “100 Sex Tips He Will Love”), it’s our friends. People today share and swap sex stories between their close social circles like they were at a 70s Key Party. That’s all well and good, being open about sexuality does prevent Prissy Prudeness, but sometimes what’s shared is just plain bad advice. A friend of mine thought she didn’t need to see a GYN until she started becoming sexually active, and since she was saving herself for marriage, she didn’t go to see one until she turned 28. Another friend thought that every time you come, it’s an orgasm. Another friend thought that he was broken because he would never ejaculate after masturbating, when in fact he was just DOING IT WRONG -a couple grip and stroke adjustments, and he was golden…but he wouldn’t have known that if he didn’t start looking for advice outside his normal circles.
Let’s sum up: a bunch of tightasses who can’t stand the thought of people having any kind of sex (or fun), made up a bunch of trash ‘foundations’ who may or may not have conducted bogus studies that show that pornography will turn us all into raving rapists despite the fact that violent crime (including rape) has gone down since porn was made widely available. Furthermore, we listen to our friends who may be more sexually experienced then us, but in reality don’t know any more then you do.’
So, for your own sake, stop believing everything you hear, check your sources, and have a good healthy, fan-fucking-tastic sexual life.
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