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Canadian Politicians Are Trying to Figure Out Porn

This is what happens when you don't grow up with the internet.

Canadian politicians recently asked themselves, "what can we waste valuable resources on and ruin for everyone?" The answer, porn.

The House of Commons passed a motion last week to form a committee that will research and examine "the public health effects of the ease of access and viewing of online violent and degrading sexually explicit material on children, women and men," according to the CBC.

Even though porn has yet to be scientifically linked to any negative health effects or result in sexual violence.

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But this committee will spend countless hours and tax dollars to find out if that's true or not, regardless of what the experts say. Because this is about upholding the moral standards of Canadian decency, which evidently involves consuming copious amounts of yoga porn.

The motion to create the committee was proposed by Alberta Conservative MP Arnold Viersen (best known for his terrible rapping) who related porn watching to the problem of addiction. "We have mental illness that is being caused—both to men and to women—due to addiction issues," he told the CBC, "but also due to abuse issues that go unresolved. We have erectile dysfunction that is happening. Brain structures of individuals being altered because of prolonged use of these kinds of images. We don't know what the impacts of all of these things are."

While numerous reports have been published linking everything from erectile dysfunction and premature ejectulation to porn watching, research has yet to conclude that pornography itself is to blame.

This noble cause may have come too late since a 2014 study showed that 40 per cent of teenage Canadian boys admitted to already having watched porn.

A committee devoted to examining the effects of porn that may or may not exist sounds like a sus use of government resources. But if it's successful, we'll just have to adjust and return to our Puritan roots of practising exceptional sexual restraint.

Follow Lisa Power on Twitter.