Helping men keep their distance from the estimated 30,000 pornographic sites on the Internet is a major challenge, but three Michigan sociologists have discovered that men with strong ties to family, church, and conventional society are far less likely to be tempted by the sexual allures provided by the click of the computer mouse.
Using the General Social Survey for 2000, the researchers polled 531 respondents who reported having used the Internet, asking if they had looked at a sexually explicit website during the last 30 days. The strongest predictors of cyberporn use were gender (males being 6.43 times more likely to access pornographic websites than females), those who have engaged in sexual relations for pay (OR 3.7), and those ever having an extramarital affair (OR 3.18). In addition, persons living in the Pacific region, relative to other parts of the United States, were 2.44 times more likely to access Internet porn.
Other significant correlations (p<.05) were having a happy marriage, political conservatism, and church attendance, all of which were inversely related to use of Internet porn. In a multivariate analysis, the researchers found that significant predictors of that happy marriage included political liberalism (inverse association), having teenaged children, being white, and age.
Although drug use was not correlated with cyberporn use, the researchers believe that the robust findings of the study nevertheless suggest that social control theory-which stipulates that bonds or stakes in a community through marriage and work lower the incidences of deviance and crime-apply to "this new form of deviant behavior."
