November 29, 2005 | Sex & Society

Porn stat proves false

Pinocchio told them. So did Richard Nixon. Even Martha Stewart has been caught fibbing. Now -- gasp! -- a U.S. senator is telling lies, too.

The "truth" in question? That children in the United States typically get their first exposure to Internet porn at age 11.

Hoping to put a 25 percent excise tax on purchases of online porn, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) cited the statistic upon introducing the Internet Safety & Child Protection Act in July. The media has repeated it countless times since. But now, thanks to the sleuthing of Forbes editor Seth Lubove, Lincoln's truth has been exposed as false.

Surprised? Neither was Lubove. In a Nov. 23 column for Forbes.com, he traces the origin of the statistic to "The Drug of the New Millennium," a self-published tome by former porn addict Mark Kastleman, who says he "doesn't remember" where he got the statistic from.

Maybe that's because he made it up. Kimberly Mitchell of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center and Michele Ybarra of Internet Solutions for Kids told Lubove that the assertion that "extremely young children" are browsing Internet porn sites "may be overstated." They cited their own analysis of a survey of children ages 10 to 17, which found that kids don't begin seeking out Internet porn until age 14, when they are "age-appropriately curious about sex."

"It seems to suggest that the Internet may not be posing the threat that some are concerned it is," Ybarra told Lubove.

Perhaps Senator Lincoln should rely a little more on the excellent research services of the Library of Congress rather than cherry-picking from biased and false "statistics" to support her personal war on porn. 

• Sex, lies and statistics [Forbes]