I had planned to blog about ex-gay ministries and reparative therapy after attending a survivors of the ex-gay movement session at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Creating Change conference just over a week ago.  It had gotten me thinking about my own experiences with "therapy" when I was a teen dealing with my sexuality, and in particular a social worker who I think may have had some unscrupulous intentions during my sessions.  I decided to do some internet research on the ex-gay movement and was fascinated to learn that all of those underwear ads, porn, and masturbation are probably what lead me down the sinful path of the homosexual lifestyle. In light of this revelation, I've decided to put off the ex-gay stuff for a rainy day (don't worry, I'll tell you all about that rascally social worker another time).  Instead, I thought I'd ponder pornography for a bit...

For my dissertation work, I explored young men's experiences with sexual learning during childhood and adolescence.  As you can imagine, the men in my study reported getting information from a variety of sources including parents, school, church, and peers - the information from all these sources was often confusing and contradictory.  There was one source that most of them talked about that left little room for confusion or misinformation and was...