Monday, May 28, 2007

I don't care enough to come up with a title for this post

I found this odd. The Sydney Morning-Herald sent me an e-mail containing a number of headlines, including this article, "How porn is wrecking relationships":
The internet has brought an explosion of pornography into the home and workplace of virtually every Australian. Just a mouse-click away are images that exceed the bounds of fantasy or imagination. In 1961 the introduction of the pill helped usher in a sexual revolution. It had a profound effect on sexual attitudes, practices and relationships. It brought worry-free sex first to married couples, then to singles. And now there are experts - psychiatrists, sociologists and relationship counsellors among them - who argue that the social and psychological impact of internet pornography is potentially as huge.

For some Australians, the rising tide of internet pornography has offered a form of sex education. It has helped extend sexual repertoires, re-invigorated flagging sex lives, and assuaged anxieties or hang-ups. It has been, some argue, a liberation.

But internet pornography is also emerging as the new marriage-wrecker. More and more clients, counsellors say, have begun to cite internet pornography as a factor in their relationship breakdowns.

The technology has created what some call an addiction. Others are more cautious, describing it as a compulsion. Whatever the label, internet pornography is becoming yet another outlet for those with pre-existing compulsive personalities while for others, it has made it easier to do the things that a former head of the American Academy for Matrimonial Lawyers, J.Lindsey Short, says "traditionally lead to divorce".

An increasing number of men appear to be hooked, and the women in their lives are flailing about in unhappiness, self-doubt and self-blame.

The entire article is about men getting addicted to pornography and how this affects women. And yet in the same e-mail there's another article, which says that one-third of porn viewers are women:
RECORD numbers of Australians are visiting pornographic websites, including sexually explicit dating sites - and one in three of them is a woman.

...

[W]hile some women have suffered from their partner's internet porn obsession, women in general are considered the new consumer growth market, according to Fiona Patten, chief executive of the Eros Association, the adult retail industry's peak body.

I don't mean to trivialize any actual problems discussed in the first article, but it almost seems as if they're furthering the stereotype that only men look at porn.

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