You can read news articles one after the other, different organizations and some personalities, debating about something a bit taboo to talk about – pornography. Sure, one can always say “it’s our choice, we have the right” or “freedom of choice, freedom to watch, freedom of speech and freedom of reporting” – but the main question still lingers. Is watching porn healthy, in all aspects?

It is estimated that the porn business all over the world is a whopping $97 Billion US dollar industry. Who would have thought that it could go this big, huh? But it has and it will continue to be massive. Let’s just say that countries with access to internet and adult video films watch 40 minutes of porn each week and that’s the minimum time. What if they spend more? What good will it bring?

Taking everything from the point of view of an adult film model and actress, issues have been raised and answered. Casey Calvert, only a stage name, is one of the most well-known actresses in the porn industry. Even if she auditioned for non-pornographic gigs using her real name, employers would recognize her and with that, won’t give her the wholesome role. Still, it didn’t stop this magna cum laude graduate from University of Florida to iron out the façade of pornography.

She says that online porn such as Smut6.com and sexual morality are two different ideas which must not be interchanges as to opinions. The actress believes that porn is progressive and there are benefits for people and society as to watching porn.

Ms. Calvert states that porn is not the yesterday. Porn is not the today. It is the tomorrow – it always has been. In porn, various sexualities were recognized and displayed as if it was normal and regular. Porn provided a release for people who cannot be generally categorized as a straight man or a straight woman. Because of porn, various individuals even with their “no-category” sexual orientation, has a “place”. They were accepted for who they were, sexually, without reservations or conditions.

These people who feel different with their sexual preferences can relate to what pornography has to offer. She says that it is a very bad feeling to be isolated and to feel that because you are a man and like another man, for example, you have no place in this world. You are on your own. But with porn, you don’t have to be.

Casey also adds that it is not absolute for all people to find certain someone that they can spend the rest of their life being intimate with. Not all are lucky to have that. So, if you can’t, there will always be adult sex films. It is sort of an intimacy replacement. It must not be denied to them.

A society that is healthy in all aspects like the financial, the mental and the emotional is a well-rounded society. It will be a beneficial society, she often reiterates. She also wants to label porn as a business and an industry just like all the other businesses that can provide jobs for millions of people and has the economic power as well.

There are no standards to base on just to prove that porn is destructive. The subject of pornography is debatable until now but some studies were done to shed some light. In 1986, Dr Neil Malamuth of UCLA spearheaded a research study about men who were bombarded with sado-masochistic images. After such viewing, it was observed that these men were rougher to the opposite sex and they had the tendency to enact those violent thoughts into actions, like rape. Their behavior has obviously sprouted from watching the films.

There is a BUT to this, though. Dr. Malamuth also said that the observation may be oversimplified. Men are naturally aggressive when it comes to sex since it is their nature. There is no effect on men who are already unusually assertive in sex when they watched the violent porn film. Also, those who are labeled as “ordinary” men are not affected by what they watched, as well.

Internet has made everything easily available, especially to the world of porn. And it has been shown in surveys that porn usage has increased dramatically – in six internet searches, one is about pornography. With that, a computational neuroscientist from United States named Ogi Ogas, compiled a data regarding billions of web searches. His compilation resulted to something pretty ordinary – yes, people searched for porn and no, they didn’t search for extreme adult films. In fact, they went for the “regular” type of sex films where only two people were participating. Day in and day out, that’s what the people went for when it comes to porn, according to Ogas.

Internet has been around for more than a decade and the kids who had the first use to it are now turning into young adults. There are some researches on the effect of porn because of its effortless introduction. The way people react after watching the porn film, the amount of time they spend watching the porn movies and if they have sexual issues due to their psychological health even before watching the films are not interrelated to each other. Dr. Malamuth’s initial findings back in 1986 have also been omitted due to ethical criteria. One cannot put through a group of people for a study on extreme porn if there is a possibility for them to become rapists. Do you get the idea?

Last March, there was a study about watching porn and if done in normal amounts, it doesn’t hamper the norms on sex. The study also showed that the man watching porn would like for his wife or partner for a real life sex session. This is a positive result.

There were also some studies which revealed that porn usage can lessen stress, improve overall mood of the person and produce a healthier relationship with the opposite sex.

Simply put, porn cannot be isolated as a root cause for something “bad”. A person who watches porn all the time and turns out to be a danger to women, it cannot be concluded that his behavior sprouted because of the films he watched. It is highly possible that the person acted out because he already has an underlying personality disorder. Porn cannot be pinpointed as the root cause of rape, for example.

As Dr. Malamuth said in his research, a man can react negatively after watching porn if he has had an abnormal life as a child, if he is promiscuous at a young age, if he shows competitiveness when it comes to the sexual act and if he possesses the “hostile masculinity” personality.

(Hostile masculinity is when a man who’s narcissistic are violent to the opposite sex and shows power to them. There are levels to this problem and watching porn alone over the internet or on home videos cannot be limited to such action. The factors mentioned, however, are really serious and this is what requires total attention instead of blaming everything on porn.)

Porn has turned some people to be prejudiced and biased. Casey Calvert’s campaign is no use to them. The UK Children’s Commissioner requested Middlesex University to check data regarding porn use and how it influences the young. They had to eliminate write-ups that were poorly researched or terribly partial. Out of the 40,000 plus articles that were forwarded, only 276 were deemed to be informative.

To close, Calvert said that porn will always have sufficient evidence to defend itself.