the Meese Commission on Pornography declared, ìIn both clinical and experimental settings, exposure to sexually violent materials has indicated an increase in the likelihood of aggression.î It all sounded plausibleóbut between 1980 and 2004, an era in which porn became more available, and in more varieties, the rate of reported sexual violence dropped, and by 85 percent. Correlation isnít necessarily causation, but the sharpness of the decline at least suggests that porn may reduce sexual violence, by providing an outlet for some potential sex offenders. (Indeed, the best way to deter a rapist might be to hook him up with a high-speed Internet connection: in a 2006 study, the Clemson economist Todd Kendall found that a 10 percent increase in Internet access is associated with a 7 percent decline in reported rapes.)

Go back to Philip Weissís pal and listen to him talk: Porn captures these women before they get smart Ö Itís painful to say, but thatís your boysí night out. This is the language of a man who has accepted, not as a temporary lapse but as a permanent and necessary aspect of his married life, a paid sexual relationship with women other than his wife. And itís the language of a man who has internalized a view of marriage as a sexual prison, rendered bearable only by frequent online furloughs with women more easily exploited than his spouse.

Calling porn a form of adultery isnít about pretending that we can make it disappear. The temptation will always be there, and of course people will give in to it. Iíve looked at porn; if youíre male and breathing, chances are so have you. Rather, itís about what sort of people we aspire to be: how we define our ideals, how we draw the lines in our relationships, and how we feel about ourselves if we cross them. And itís about providing a way for everyone involved, men and women alikeówhether theyíre using porn or merely tolerating itóto think about what, precisely, theyíre involving themselves in, and whether they should reconsider.

...

Which is precisely why itís so easy to say that the spread of pornography means that weíre just taking a turn, where sex and fidelity are concerned, toward realism, toward adulthood, toward sophistication. All we have to give up to get there is our sense of decency.

Disabled Porn Star, Yoshihiko Kumashino, is a founder of NOIR, a nonprofit set up to support the sexuality of people with physical disabilities. The name is deliberately inspired by the noir genre. As well as holding educational seminars, NOIR works to improve disabled access to love hotels and brothels, and assists in the design of "barrier-free" sex toys.

One of NOIR's sex toys is a small pink vibrator attached to a long curved handle that is easy to grip. The booth also displayed a hard-core porn video starring Kumashino.

And while the clichÈ is that it's the sex-starved husband who is driven to furtively spending some "me" time in the bathroom, research shows that most men's masturbation habits have nothing to do with how often they have sex.