JERSEY CITY, N.J. – In a couple of her recent columns for Forbes, psychologist and sex-myth-debunker Dr. Zhana Vrangalova has zeroed in on the results of a study with the catchy title “Sexual diversity in the United States: Results from a nationally representative probability sample of adult women and men.”

In the more recent of Vrangalova’s columns, she notes the important thing to take away from the study/survey is the fact “Most Americans Are Not Into Rough Sex Or Anal Sex” – which you might be inclined to think they were, if your only guide to the sexual proclivities of Americans was the porn they choose to watch, search for or even (occasionally) buy.

“If you’ve spent any amount of time reading sex-related media articles or perusing Internet pornography sites… you might be under the impression that two sets of sexual behaviors once considered relatively rare – rough sex and anal sex – are now becoming commonplace,” Vrangalova writes. “So is this true? Are most Americans these days engaging in rough sex and anal sex, and, perhaps more importantly, are these acts something that most people find appealing? A recent study with a nationally representative sample of over 2,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and older indicates the answer is ‘no’.”

I have no problem believing most Americans aren’t into rough and/or anal sex, but I’m a little confused as to why I would think so based on only on articles and statistics relating to porn consumption.

Most Americans, after all, don’t dress up like clowns and murder people, but when it comes to which movie they choose to watch, a whole lot of Americans do, evidently, want to watch movies in which clowns murder people.

By the same token, I suspect most Americans don’t spend a lot of time driving in circles at 200mph, or put on shoulder pads and run into each other at high speeds while carrying inflatable leather ovals, or cook up meth amphetamine inside recreational vehicles. Watching other people do such things, however, or even watching other people pretend to do such things, are popular American pastimes, nonetheless.

Granted, NASCAR’s ratings are down in recent years, as are those of the NFL, but college football ratings are still pretty strong. And while Better Call Saul is no Breaking Bad, it has survived for several seasons, showing the fictional universe of the show has sufficient legs to go beyond the much-watched finale of the original series.

My point has nothing to do with football, NASCAR, make-believe meth production or porn, though. My point simply is it’s a mistake to make assumptions about any group’s (or individual’s) behavior based on their entertainment choices.

It’s also a mistake to make assumptions in the other direction, by believing you can predict what any given population would want to watch based on what you “know” about that population’s cultural or political leanings.

For example, given the long history of political and military tensions (to put it mildly) between Pakistan and India, would you expect Pakistani TV shows to be popular in India? Well, if you were to say no, the numbers suggest you’d be wrong.

The problem with such assumptions is they aren’t relegated to people privately believing them. For years, politicians and pundits have tried to draw causal relationships between entertainment of which they don’t approve and all sorts of problematic or unlawful behavior. They do so without offering any data to prove the causality they claim, usually just asserting their assumptions are “common sense” or “obvious” when given proper thought.

Despite the fact violent crime rates have fallen in recent decades, it’s just common sense to believe violent video games make the people who play them more violent. Never mind that sexual assault rates have been in decline since before internet porn became easily accessible and have continued to decline (yes, even on college campuses) as online porn has become more accessible; it’s obvious watching porn encourages viewers to commit acts of sexual violence.

None of this is intended to dismiss people’s concerns about any of the crimes or abhorrent behavior referenced above. After all, as Nick Gillespie from Reason noted in one of the articles I linked to, “Until the numbers decline to zero, there is no such thing as ‘good news’ in data about rape and sexual assault.”

All I’m saying is if you’re looking for a reflection of peoples’ entertainment choices in their day-to-day behavior, you might be barking up a tree that isn’t there at all, let alone the right tree.

Image © Adriana Herbut