In defence of Porn Superfans

Let's first listen to someone who apparently was an authority. Like the late Nancy Reagan, wife of the late president.

"Pornography is pornography, what is there to see? Movies are attempting to destroy something that's supposed to be the most beautiful thing a man and a woman can have by making it cheap and common. It's what you don't see that's attractive."

Sounds negative but this paper offers some redeeming aspects.

EXPOsing Men's Gender Role Attitudes as Porn Superfans

... we found that “porn superfans” are no more sexist or misogynistic than the general U.S. public on two of the four measures (women in politics and women in the general workplace) and held more progressive gender‐role attitudes than the general public on the other two measures.

and

Our results call into question some of the claims that porn consumption fosters de facto negative and hostile attitudes toward women.

This is accompanied by an increasingly relaxed view on porn.

A 2018 U.S. Gallup poll found that an increasing proportion of Americans are supportive of the statement that “porn is morally acceptable.”

What makes one a Porn Superfan? According to the paper the super fans who watched porn every day came in at 36.1% and those with less than once a day but more than once a week accounted for a respectable 47.3% To put it into an economic perspective:

Porn could have a bigger economic influence on the US than Netflix and also have positive effects on family life.

This research is not seeking to unveil a “hidden truth” about porn fans or porn consumption, but rather, we are seeking to expand porn scholarship by producing new insights into commercialized sexuality, sexualization, heterosexual masculinity, and gender attitudes. Contrary to the prevalent view that negative attitudes toward women are central to the consumption of pornography, our findings provide little support for the claim that pornography fans hold less gender egalitarian attitudes than the general population of men. Our primary results show that (1) male porn superfans show the same amount of support for gendered notions of home, politics, and work, and (2) that these fans are more likely to support working mothers than the general male public in the United States.

Paper here