The paragraph you quoted is literally saying "although evidence suggests porn does not increase assault, no matter what you believe about it it helps shape the views of people who watch it on sex and gender" which is the most obvious, tepid, noncontroversial statement that is devoid of any framing at all. You are literally complaining about an example the author uses of an opinion she does not have. The primary complaint you should have about this paragraph is how contentless it is, not some weird claim about how the statement that media effects culture is somehow malicious framing.
>Seriously, NYTimes? This is activism, not inquiry. I'm disappointed.
Yes, how dare someone who writes about a topic have actual experience with it that informs their opinions. I think it's actually far worse to have a "detached, impartial observer" (which of course does not exist) writing about a topic on which they have zero relevant experience. Which is pretty much standard operating procedure with NYT. How many articles are there in NYT from media elites pretending they understand the poor? Countless. This article is a refreshing positive change.
But the notion that media influences culture (for which there is overwhelming evidence not only scientific but in the form of every for-profit organization that has a marketing division, and which is even a truism - media IS culture) being stated in the New York Times in 2018 is like taking a paragraph in a Nature article to explain yes, the moon exists.
Color me shocked!
Once you recognize the pattern, you see it in articles everywhere.
That's because this is a critical theory analysis, not a critical thinking one.
My favorite kind of reasoning!
"You might think that A would cause B, but the data doesn't show that. However, it's reasonable to ask if A does have any effects other than B."
"You might think that {something} would cause {the outcome that fits my, and the audience's agenda/preconceptions}, but the data doesn't show that. However, it's reasonable to ask if there's something going on, right? Also, feel free to quote the first sentence in clickbaity titles and social media posts! If you repeat it enough times, it will actually become truth :)"
I am tired of seeing issues framed this way: "Despite the objective evidence, my ideology drives the view that it must be making men brutal and compromising women's power"
> For years, Gallop has been a one-woman laboratory witnessing how easy-to-access mainstream porn influences sex. Now in her 50s, she has spent more than a decade dating 20-something men. She finds them through “cougar” dating sites — where older women connect with younger men — and her main criterion is that they are “nice.” Even so, she told me, during sex with these significantly younger nice men, she repeatedly encounters porn memes: facials, “jackhammering” intercourse, more frequent requests for anal sex and men who seem less focused on female orgasms than men were when she was younger. Gallop takes it upon herself to “re-educate,” as she half-jokingly puts it, men raised on porn.
This article seems more like activism than inquiry to me. The foot feels heavily on the scale. I believe the topic deserves better than this.