DangerBlog

(this was the subject of an Oxford Union debate and the motion was carried, partially as a result of the following arguments)

1) Porn acts as a safety valve

Masturbating over porn relieves tension and lessens frustration. Thus people are less likely to commit sex crimes.

2) It’s useful in sex therapy. Looking at porn reduces sexual anxiety.

Showing a picture of a pretty pussy isn’t going to turn a homosexual into a heterosexual. Nor should it. But porn is used to educate and help people accept sexual activities better. Most men know that cocks vary a lot in size and shape and so don’t worry about being weird, but women often worry, especially nervous that they played with themselves and made the labia become weird shapes. By looking at photos of all the various kinds of vulva, women learn to relax about themselves.

Showing couples how blow-jobs look helps them feel less nervous; showing pictures of masturbation helps lessen the guilt. Once couples find out it’s OK to masturbate together, sex therapy proceeds quickly and successfully.

3) Porn spices up the sex-lives of millions of couples who’ve been together for a long time. They look at the porn together, get turned on and have hot sex.

Most people have fantasies about having group sex or doing wild things that are difficult to organise or realise. So porn allows you to witness the scenes of your longings, without all the worries of jealousy, breaking friendships - your neighbours might not speak to you again if you invite them round for an orgy - or breaking the law.

4) Porn provides spicy fantasy lives for people without a partner or who are in a dull relationship. Women tend to read novels and men look at top-shelf mags, films and videos, or satellite TV.

5) Porno is very popular. When the photographic process was discovered it was used to create porn before anything else. It has become the main use for the Internet.

The reverend Chad Varah, founder of The Samaritans, relates a story that in the 1960s, Sight and Sound magazine did a survey of West End cinemas during the afternoon. They found there were four times as many viewers squashed on uncomfortable seats in tiny basement porno theatres than in the plush cinemas showing big movies! People love porn!