LOS ANGELES – Ostensibly, David Horsey’s “Top of the Ticket” column in the L.A. Times is a place for political commentary. A quick perusal of his recent subjects suggests Horsey likes meaty, controversial topics and sweeping, categorical conclusions.

A couple of his most recent columns include a piece about the ongoing national conversation about strained relations between law enforcement and the African-American community, (“Is it about race? You bet it is”) and the recently published Congressional report on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques (“John McCain has moral clarity about CIA torture report”).

Horsey appears to shun complexity in his presentation of issues, as well. To Horsey, for example, John McCain’s stance on torture is presented as principled, devoid of political considerations and something to be regarded in a vacuum. Horsey doesn’t note or question McCain’s support of other foreign policy decisions which seem contrary to American values, like the targeting of individuals for lethal drone strikes with nary a thought given to due process, often based on pretty thin evidence on which to confirm the target’s identity, much less his or her guilt.

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, to find Horsey’s new piece about internet porn completely lacking in nuance. Starting with the title, “Internet porn is an experiment in dehumanization,” Horsey’s position is staked out in uncompromising, predetermined fashion.

“Thanks to the internet, Americans have been pushed, unwittingly, into a vast social experiment testing whether unfettered access to the most freakish and foul pornography will warp sexual relations for generations to come,” Horsey flatly states in his opening paragraph.

Perhaps I’m confused on the definition of “unwittingly,” but I for one have never accidentally or inadvertently watched porn in my life. I’m also pretty well aware of when I’m online. In fact, getting online generally requires a volitional act on the part of the user—in my experience, at least. Maybe some people sleep with their Google Glass units on and wake up to the wonders of the internet unfolding before their very eyes.

“It’s a quick descent into an endless display of photographs and videos depicting sex in every variety, but dominated by perverse male fantasies of women performing like whores for men whose sexual techniques appear to have been learned in a prison cell,” Horsey continues.

This paragraph is where one of the fundamental problems with Horsey’s analysis really shines through: a brief, bare mention of photos and videos “depicting sex in every variety” is as close as Horsey comes to acknowledging his thesis about “dehumanization” might not apply to every sexually-explicit pixel currently displayed on the internet.

Do simple nude photos “dehumanize” those they depict? How does gay porn fit into Horsey’s contention of a market “dominated by perverse male fantasies of women performing like whores for men?” One assumes the answer to the latter is no, but as to the former, who knows? Maybe Horsey thinks the controversial image of a naked pregnant woman included in a Florida art exhibit really is “pornography” as a couple members of the Jacksonville City Council contend.

Avoiding such complexity and proceeding in tried and true hyperventilating porn-critic fashion, Horsey proceeds to describe the “soul-disturbing” content through which the porn industry “rakes in its billions.” Citing recent studies (and stating the conclusions thereof with a certainty far greater than that of the study’s authors), Horsey makes the case internet porn is warping the sexual behavior of young men.

Anectdotally, Horsey says young sex offenders are being influenced by the porn they watch. What Horsey and other porn critics like him don’t explain, ever, is how it’s possible for it to be the case, simultaneously, that there’s a) more porn available to young men than ever and b) porn is “causing” young men to commit sex crimes, but c) there’s a lower rate of sexual assault now than in the years prior to the internet’s existence.

To select just one category of sex crime, “forcible rape,” according to FBI statistics (handily collated and reported here by DisasterCenter.com and also available directly from the FBI), in 1980 there were 36.8 rapes per 100,000 Americans; in 2013, the figure was 25.2.

No, one cannot assign the reduction in forcible rape to a positive impact of internet porn. Such a claim is just as logically suspect as saying porn is causing rapes to be committed. If you’re going to take the position internet porn is “warping” the minds of young men, making them less respectful of women and less respectful of the idea of informed consent, however, you do have to address the reduced rate in some fashion. Tempting though it might be for those who have watched the third season of The Wire, you also can’t just attribute the trend of reduced sexual assault rates to “juking the stats” on the part of local law enforcement to make the crime rate in their area appear lower than it is.

Does over-consumption of porn have a negative impact on those who watch too much of it? Probably. Can the same can probably be said of people who watch too much football, reality television or C-SPAN? I would say yes…but admittedly, I haven’t conducted a phone survey which “proves” such yet.

What definitely isn’t true is the notion all porn is created equal.

At a very basic level, if you’re going to argue porn is warping young minds, shouldn’t you at least have to account for how it does so, and whether there is any variation in the degree or manner of “warping” dependent on the nature of the material in question?

Put another way, which is more unreasonable: thinking there’s a substantial difference between the impact of watching Max Hardcore expand a woman’s anus using a speculum and seeing Capri Cavanni and Claire Robbins go down on each other in Bad Lesbians 3, or thinking all internet porn is equally and inherently “dehumanizing” by virtue of sharing the same platform of distribution?