Using taxpayer dollars, Professor Alan McKey conducted a survey on more than 1,000 Internet users who regularly surfed the web for porn sites.
"It came as a surprise to us that pornography is in actual fact a good thing in many ways," McKey stated. "About 90 percent of pornography users who use it every day said that it produces a very positive effect."
In McKey's interviews with regular porn surfers, he determined that people who exposed themselves to pornography on a regular basis had more relaxed, open attitudes toward sex. Additionally he discovered that porn viewers were more interested in maintaining satisfying sexual relationships with a partner.
McKey also concluded that porn surfers had more relaxed feelings about their own bodies when it comes to weight.
And while none of the study's subjects were in favor of child pornography or exposing children to porn, McKey concluded that many users felt that children, within a reasonable age range, should not be kept from using pornography, but instead should be educated on the subject.
"The more we try to make pornography a bad thing that should be kept away from the family, the more problems we have," McKey stated. "Giving children access to such images, however, is a disadvantage. Children should not be banned from using porn, but educated before they experience the shock of seeing what adults get up to together."
Previous studies on the sexual behavior of Australians have revealed that a large swath of citizens use sex toys, watch X-rated videos, and liberally surf the Internet for porn.
"Australians do not have particularly conservative attitudes towards sexuality," stated researchers from La Trobe University and the Universities of Sydney and New South Wales, who conducted a phone survey of more than 19,000 men and women aged 16 to 59 years during 2000 and 2001.
