According to a recent study conducted at the University of Maryland, public opposition to pornography has declined in the past 40 years. In 1975, 53 percent of women and 34 percent of men believed there should be laws against the distribution of pornography. But as recently as 2012, these numbers had fallen to 43 percent of women and 23 percent of men.
Despite this crumbling opposition to erotic films, it's notable to see that men have become more accepting of the genre in greater numbers than have women. The authors of this study—Lucia Lykke, a Ph.D. and Philip N. Cohen—believe that this gender gap exists because men are increasingly "groomed" into becoming pornography consumers. Meanwhile, women continue to feel conflicted about this form of entertainment, their feelings "complicated by competing feminist ideologies that both support and oppose pornography." Read more about this interesting dichotomy, and about the study, here.
