We also argue that there is a need for serious, systematic funding for research on sexual behavior and pornography use.

This is a call we’ve made before, but it is still as needed as ever. Without formal funding mechanisms that examine these topics, we will likely see more biased actors move into this space

Flowing from this then, we argue that the empirical study of online sexual media and its effects is absolutely essential for the health sciences

Of course, this would involve many of the health sciences letting go of the sigma they have against sex research more broadly and embracing these topics as the types of things that serious scientists do indeed engage with


Thought I might elaborate some here. We wrote this opinion piece to comment on and build upon Nelson and Rothman’s 2019 article in AJPH that shows, quite systematically, that the idea that only sexually explicit media is a public health crisis is simply nonsense.

thanks, in large part, to the COVID-19 crisis, there have been no further efforts by any states  to pass legislation calling such media a public health crisis