Pornography and Fertility Rate

[ku]

Would increased supply of pornography in a society increase or decrease birth rate? Are there any studies that look at this question?

 

An argument can be made that pornography encourages sexual expression, increasing the likelihood of impregnation, thereby increases birth rate. On the other hand, the sexual expression may be in a form that doesn't involve sexual penetration (e.g. masturbation). Furthermore, high birth rate is dependent on stable families and pornography exposure may give viewers unrealistic expectations about how beautiful women should be and how frequent sex should be, weakening the importance of family.

[Ophiolite]

That's a damnably interesting question! There must have been studies. It's a well known fact that psychologists and psychiatrists will use any excuse to look at pornography. (Glider, I am sure will attest to this. )

 

What does strike me (as a wholly uncontrolled comparison) is that the birth rate in mainland Europe, where pornography has been pretty freely available for three or four decades, is significantly lower than it is in the UK, where pornography has generally been suppressed to some extent.

 

I assume when you are talking about fertility rate you are actually meaning birth rate /1000 women, rather than the the percentage of those women wishing to have children who are succesful.

[ku]

I assume when you are talking about fertility rate you are actually meaning birth rate /1000 women, rather than the the percentage of those women wishing to have children who are succesful.

Thank you, you're right. I've edited it.

[coquina]

Well - first one would need to know who looks at pornography.

 

I would think that the situation which would lead to an increased birth rate would be if married couples viewed it together.

 

Unmarried people are not inclined to want a child to result from a stimulated encounter, so they would use protection.

 

I might be wrong about this, but I believe married men look at it when they are missing something in their relationship - either the wife is not as interested in sex as the man, or perhaps not as adventurous. In any case, I don't see that him becoming aroused would increase her ability or desire to procreate.

 

From a woman's standpoint, I would suspect the fertility rate would increase with the amount of romantic attention - flowers, chocolates, dinner out, a walk on the beach or a moonlight cruise would be a bigger instigation than looking at a book or a film or someone else in a sexual encounter.

[Glider]

That's a damnably interesting question! There must have been studies. It's a well known fact that psychologists and psychiatrists will use any [/i']excuse to look at pornography. (Glider, I am sure will attest to this. )

 

Oh yeah. I had loads of pornography, but I couldn't find a pornograph to play it on, so I had to get rid of it.

[ecoli]

And, it's important not to confuse causation and correlation. Just because birth rates may go up when the porno industry does, it doesn't mean the porno industry is responsible. It could societal factors that influence the porno industry also influence birth rates.

[Luminous]

I think it all depends on the person. Maybe through porno some "less than attractive males" would completely lose their motivation and just be content with wanking it their bathroom for the rest of their life and thus, a decrease in the birthrate. On the other hand, there are alot of phsycos our there you get stimulated and excited by pornos and go out and rape people. So there is really no certain answere because everyone is different. But examples very sad, but very true =/

[michael.m]

From a psychoanalytic perspective.

 

Rolo May, a psychiatrist puts forth that with our newfound sexual freedoms, (from the 60s) which pornography could be considered an addition to, actually creates new forms of repression.

 

According to my sources, from antiquity, until relatively recently, people did not have a problem having babies. They got married out of necessity and had no problems reproducing. However, we have all sorts of fertility problems now. Some believe this can be explained psychogenically. Now that we have so much more time and information available at our fingertips and we are becoming smarter, people realize perhaps subconsciously the effects that having a baby may have. Therefore, just like psychological impotency, the woman's body won't get pregnant.

 

From a psychoanalytic perspective.

 

Rolo May, a psychiatrist puts forth that with our newfound sexual freedoms, (from the 60s) which pornography could be considered an addition to, actually creates new forms of repression.

 

According to my sources, from antiquity, until relatively recently, people did not have a problem having babies. They got married out of necessity and had no problems reproducing. However, we have all sorts of fertility problems now. Some believe this can be explained psychogenically. Now that we have so much more time and information available at our fingertips and we are becoming smarter, people realize perhaps subconsciously the effects that having a baby may have. Therefore, just like psychological impotency, the woman's body won't get pregnant.

 

Although, search some databases, or google scholar.