YNOT – Two recent studies have shed light on the decades-old debate about whether adult pornography is harmful to women, relationships and the culture at large. In direct contravention to outspoken criticism of the entertainment medium, both reports concluded porn consumption can benefit individuals and couples’ sex lives, according to Psychology Today. In addition, one study concluded porn use has an inverse causal relationship to sex crimes (that is, as porn usage goes up within a group, sexual assaults decrease).Reporting on the magazine’s blog, Dr. Gad Saad, author of the book The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption, analyzed two scholarly papers written by two philosophically opposed groups. In the end, both groups arrived at strikingly similar conclusions about pornography.

The first paper, published during 2009 in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, is a survey of “a very broad number of studies that have explored the supposed ill effects of pornography,” Saad wrote. Researcher Milton Diamond ultimately decided porn is nowhere near as liable to warp psyches and society as has been alleged.

“Indeed, the data reported and reviewed suggests that the thesis is myth and, if anything, there is an inverse causal relationship between an increase in pornography and sex crimes,” Diamond concluded. “Further, considering the findings of studies of community standards and widespread usage of [sexually explicit material], it is obvious that in local communities as nationally and internationally, porn is available, widely used and felt appropriate for voluntary adult consumption.

“If there is a consensus against pornography, it is in regard to any SEM that involves children or minors in its production or consumption,” he added. “Lastly we see that objections to erotic materials are often made on the basis of supposed actual, social or moral harm to women. No such cause and effect has been demonstrated with any negative consequence.”

The second study, conducted by Gert Martin Hald and respected pornography researcher and denigrator Neil M. Malamuth, surveyed 688 young Danish men and women aged 18-30 to determine whether pornography usage caused demonstrable negative results. In order to minimize bias, the researchers developed a tool they call the Pornography Consumption Effect Scale, and they measured subjects’ responses against the scale. The data collected indicated test subjects of both genders actually benefitted in several life areas, including sexual relationships, attitudes about sex, and perceptions of and attitudes about those of the opposite gender.

Even more significant in Hald’s and Malamuth’s data: “A positive correlation was obtained between the amount of hardcore pornography that was viewed and the impact of the benefits reaped,” Saad wrote. “In other words, the more that one watched porn, the stronger the benefits (for both sexes)!”

The research must have surprised Malamuth, who often has argued for the supposed ill effects of porn, but as Saad noted, “ideology should never trump scientific evidence.”