American men aren’t getting married with the frequency they once used to, and researchers in Germany think they have found the reason why: INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY.
That’s right, internet pornography isn’t all roses and that weird musk that emanates off your hand for a few minutes after you’ve masturbated. No, it can keep you from finding true love. From the Washington Post’s
Wonkblog (which I’ve dubbed Wankblog for the purpose of this post):
A team of researchers, who published
their findings in The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Germany, determined that the rise of free Internet pornography is not only correlated with a pronounced decline in percentage of young adult males who are married, but might actually be contributing to the trend.
“The results in this paper suggest that such an association exists, and that it is potentially quite large,” the study notes.
How is wonderful, beautiful, wonderful porn preventing men from getting married?
The researchers, while careful to say that their findings fall short of being conclusive, insist that the relationship between the two also “likely runs in the direction that we assert.”
The reason, Malcolm explains, is likely tied to the relationship between marriage and sexual gratification. If pornography is viewed as a means of alternative sexual gratification, then it could be undercutting the need for marriages to serve this function, at the very least during a younger age. Think of it as a milder form of premarital sex.
Well, I’ll be danged. I do love jacking off to pornography. And it is easier than going to a bar, meeting someone and hoping they are interested in sex. Guess maybe I’ll never get married now. Actually, I won’t. Because alongside a love of XNXX.com, I’m poor, and being poor is another indicator for not getting married.
The decline of marriage in the United States is well-documented. Marriage rates have been falling for decades. Divorce rates, while leveling off, are still historically high. Even those couples who are still tying the knot are doing so later and later as time passes.
There are many reasons for the trend. One of the most provocative is the rise of wealth inequality. Andrew J. Cherlin made this point in a
recent op-ed in the New York Times: Historically, low and stable inequality has coincided with periods of higher marriage rates among all socioeconomic groups. Marriage can be a expensive institution, especially without two sustainable sources of income. It’s likely of little coincidence that the United States is
particularly unequal today, and its poor are particularly less likely to marry than the rich.
Yea, I’m fine with masturbating alone into the dwindling pile of cash I have. Ain’t the best life, but it ain’t the worst.
