London, Sep 17 (IANS): This may hurt some souls but the fact is that feminists are most likely to watch porn and other explicit material, an interesting study has revealed.

According to the study from the University of Western Ontario and reported by the Telegraph, people who had watched an adult film at least once in the past year had more egalitarian ideas about women in power and women in the workforce, along with less negative attitudes towards abortion.

“According to radical feminist theory, pornography serves to further the subordination of women by training its users, males and females alike, to view women as little more than sex objects over whom men should have complete control,” read an abstract from the study published in The Journal of Sex Research.

In a complete contradiction of radical feminist ideology, the researchers found that watching pornography did not make viewers hold more hostile attitudes towards women.

“Taken together, the results of this study fail to support the view that pornography is an efficient deliverer of 'women-hating ideology',” the authors wrote.

For the study, the researchers analysed data collected between 1975 and 2010 for the "General Social Survey" which asked Americans about a wide range of issues and personal views - including gender equality and pornography consumption.

The study surveyed 10,946 men and 14,101 women with a series of questions about pornography use as well as attitudes towards women.

“While unexpected from the perspective of radical feminist theory, these results are consistent with a small number of empirical studies that have also reported positive associations between pornography use and egalitarian attitudes,” the authors maintained.

The team, however, insisted that the results are based on the broad analysis of the data available and “no cause-and-effect statements are warranted or implied” here.

“Instead of demonstrating strong associations between pornography use and support of non-egalitarianism, if anything the current findings actually suggest weak associations in the opposite direction,” news.com.au reported, citing the study.