Online porn doesn't cause increase in sex crimes

In researching for this week's column, I came across Paul Joannides' piece about a recent study showing that bringing the internet and porn to Croatia did not cause an increase in sex crimes.

...before the fall of the Soviet Union, places like Croatia were not exactly hubs of the porn trade. However, since the fall of the evil empire, porn is now readily available in Croatia, as well as the technology to view it and to download it. So you've got a pretty neat lab setting to do a before-the-influx-of-porn and after-the-influx-of-porn study. And that's exactly what researchers like Milton Diamond have done. Here's what he reports:

"We've just finished a porn study in Croatia. As a post-Communist country, it shows, like all the other countries we've looked at so far, despite a major influx of available porn, there was NO increase in sex crimes."

Paul goes on to make some interesting observations about the role of online porn in sexless marriages and in divorce rates in America. It's an intersting article, and I'm glad I found it because now I know he writes a regular sex column. (Hint to Paul: Set up a feed, so I don't miss it.)

Paul Joannides – a research psychoanalyst who is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Sex Education – is the author of The Guide to Getting It On, one of my favorite sex books, and I'm hoping to be able to quote him on Friday.

A new edition just came out that includes a few bits about sex and the internet but I've not had time to read them yet.