Study: Porn may not be such a bad influence on sexual behavior

Heightened exposure, Hald found, was associated with high-risk sexual practices like accepting some kind of payment for sex. He and his team also tied porn usage to “adventurous” behaviors, such as having “real-life sex” with someone they met online, which some experts believe may lead to increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases.

But the researchers emphasize that the tie between porn and risky business isn’t absolute or clear-cut. For example, there may be other contributors to the promiscuous behavior, such as a tendency toward thrill-seeking (which, in turn, could make young people more likely to experiment with porn). Pornography is “just one factor among many that may influence the sexual behaviors of young people,” they concluded, while cautioning that the findings “should not be interpreted as an indication that the influence … is negligible, nonexistent, or unimportant.”