your views on modern day porn consumption

[Catholic_Lady]

I've been curious for a while now to know how ya'll felt about today's consumption and unlimited availability of free porn. It is very different now from how it used to be 20 years ago, where one would *usually* have to go into an adult book/video store and show an ID proving that they are an adult in order to get access to porn. Now a days, any 9 year old can have access to thousands of videos of an extreme sexually graphic nature, just with the click of a mouse, and continue to grow up on that. Any loyal family man can easily fall into the habit of an "easy off" through porn consumption rather than work for/depend on intimacy and closeness with his wife (and vice versa). 

Is porn's unlimited availability and access nowadays harmful for society? Is it particularly harmful to our culture's perception of women and of sexuality? Or is there absolutely nothing at all wrong with porn and its unlimited availability? Should any steps be taken to educate and bring awareness about the possible damaging effects of porn, or at least, should it be more strictly guarded against children viewing it? 

This article makes the case that yes, it is harmful and it is a problem for society: 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opini...p_0=134894 

Here are some excerpts:

After 40 years of peer-reviewed research, scholars can say with confidence that porn is an industrial product that shapes how we think about gender, sexuality, relationships, intimacy, sexual violence and gender equality - for the worse.

A 2010 meta-analysis of several studies found "an overall significant positive association between pornography use and attitudes supporting violence against women." A 2012 study of college-age women with male partners who used porn concluded that the young women suffered diminished self-esteem, relationship quality and sexual satisfaction correlated with their partners' porn use.

The average age of first viewing porn is estimated by some researchers to be 11. In the absence of a comprehensive sex-education curriculum in many schools, pornography has become de facto sex education for youth. And what are these children looking at? If you have in your mind's eye a Playboy centerfold with a naked woman smiling in a cornfield, then think again. While "classy" lad mags like Playboy are dispensing with the soft-core nudes of yesteryear, free and widely available pornography is often violent, degrading and extreme.

Thoughts? 

PS: Please completely disregard the first paragraph. This isn't meant to be about politics or about any sort of biases for liberal or conservative views. So please don't let that influence your personal opinion on this issue.