The Gateway Fallacy

Watching porn leads to noncing.

Viewing pornography does not mean someone will necessarily escalate to illegal sexual images but, for the men the foundation worked with, “adult pornography often serves as a gateway to viewing sexual images of children”.

I call bullshit. While there’s some weird stuff out there, it does not follow that one thing leads to another. These people do like their  absurd correlations in order to justify their prejudices. It does not follow that someone who likes adult porn will then seek out child porn.

The theory about how one leads to the other is thought to be because some people become desensitised in their response to pornographic stimulus.

The operative word here is ‘theory.’ In other words, some obsessed activist pulled it out of their arse and is now trying to do some policy based evidence creation.

12 Comments

  1. “The theory about how one leads to the other is thought to be because some people become desensitised in their response to pornographic stimulus.”

    “The operative word here is ‘theory.’”

    Another important word is “some”.

  2. Now all the friends, religious mentors and relatives of Sonia Sodha ( a good porn star working title of ever there was one) will be looking at each other wondering on whom she is basing her claim.

  3. On the other hand you could make the argument that readily available pornography *generally* leads to a reduction in sexual tension and aggression and therefore fewer sexual assaults and rapes.

    Who can *prove* one theory makes a better prediction than the other?

  4. For as long as I can remember the forces of prudery have been searching for evidence that porn in harmful. They never find it because it isn’t. Rational people revise their opinions on receipt of new information, others prefer just to stay wrong.

    • “I should be enough for him” – Some fat bird.

      I wonder if their is any correlation between the ever increasing use of porn amongst the proles and the ever increasing weight of the average female.

  5. It’s not far short of the logic used by the 2000AD character ‘Judge Death’ – ‘All crime is committed by the living therefore life itself is a crime’

    ‘ The emerging evidence that, for some men, an unhealthy relationship with pornography may be the first step to engaging with online imagery of child sexual abuse is a reminder that the conversation about porn cannot stop at how to safeguard children and young people, as critical as that is. We also need a better understanding of the long-term harm pornography can have on adults, and how they might be able to protect themselves.’

    I can tell this cretin now that any chance of ‘Net Zero’ will involve a massive amount of highly sexual content in the Metaverse if it is to succeed. Trying to ban pornography would be one of the most idiotic policies I could even begin to imagine.

    I’m also fairly sure the author is in favour of the LGBT alphabet soup militants which makes her to a large degree already implicated as being a paedophile. ‘Physician, heal thyself’ comes to mind.

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