Pornography has few defenders among those not busy making money out of it.
Morals campaigners say it corrupts the young; computer buffs complain it clogs up the Internet.
But researchers in Australia have put a different view in a landmark government-funded study.
The Understanding Pornography in Australia study came out on the side of liberality, arguing that pornography was not a monster devouring all before it but a friendly giant that gave simple pleasures to many people.
"When you look at people who are using it in everyday life, over 90 percent report it has had a very positive effect," author Alan McKee said.
Of the 1,025 respondents to his survey, only 7 percent said pornography had had a negative impact on their lives. In contrast, 58 per cent said pornography had improved their attitudes towards their sexuality. McKee, who conducted the study with fellow academics Catherine Lumby and Kath Albury, warned that "the more we try and turn porn into something that's seen to be bad and has to be kept away from families the more problems we might be causing for ourselves."
Some respondents said pornography added spice to a jaded sex life. Others said it smoothed a rocky marriage by soaking up the excess sexual demands of one partner. Still others credited porn with making them more attuned to their partner's pleasure and more accommodating of bodily imperfections.
The research findings were immediately attacked by Clive Hamilton, the director of private-sector think tank The Australia Institute, who was quite categorical in denying any social benefit accrued from the multi-billion dollar industry.
"No man who regularly uses pornography can have a healthy sexual relationship with a woman," he stated bluntly.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
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