This Metaphor Is Bad for Our Health

In a solicitation from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, I found a reminder of an irritating practice of theirs that I'd always meant to comment on. I've just done so now in an email to them as follows:

I'm writing to express my disapproval of your use of the phrase "food porn." Clearly you are trying to convey the concept of food that tastes good but isn't good for you. Trouble is, that's not true of porn itself.

Despite generations of attempts to scientifically prove the "common sense"* that porn is bad for us, such evidence is essentially nonexistent, and sometimes it suggests just the opposite. Here, for instance, is a court brief debunking the idea that it's "harmful to minors":
http://www.fepproject.org/courtbriefs/ashcroft.pdf

And here's a study refuting the idea that the availability of porn lowers women's status: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3812808?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

This isn't a merely "academic" question. These false notions about porn have been used to justify restrictive laws and customs which, so far from protecting people, may well contribute to psychosexual problems and leave children more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, as discussed by Judith Levine in her book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex.

*"What many people refer to as common sense is nothing more than a collection of prejudices accumulated before the age of eighteen." -- Albert Einstein