There has been a renewed effort recently to “prove” pornography is dangerous both to its consumers and to victims of sexual assault.

Today, antiporn campaigners compare porn-viewers to drug addicts, and describe pornography as a “health crisis.” Even the most recent Republican party platform declared: “Pornography, with its harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the lives of millions.” Pamela Anderson and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach seem to be the two latest antiporn evangelists. They warn that porn has become a “public hazard of unprecedented seriousness,” that threatens to produce an entire generation “inured to intimacy and in need of even greater graphic stimulation.”

Much as in the 1970s and 1980s, many modern antiporn activists seem motivated primarily by puritanical attitudes toward sexuality. Beneath a pseudo-scientific veneer, groups like Fight the New Drug — which is responsible for slogans such as “Porn Leaves You Lonely,” “Porn Kills Love,” and “Porn Hates Families” — are closely affiliated with religious institutions that have long opposed pornography on moral grounds. But the rhetorical hyperbole of their claims masks a glaring problem: There is no proof that watching porn leads to the negative consequences they describe.

In previous efforts to ban pornography, “proof” was offered that pornography directly caused consumers to rape. However, even the Meese Commission, which was established by the Reagan administration to validate this hypothesis, failed to demonstrate any causal relationship between porn consumption and sexual violence. On the contrary, several studies have since come to the opposite conclusion: Porn usage has correlated to fewer incidents of sexual assault in the United States. In fact, as Americans have consumed more and more porn, rates of rape have dropped dramatically. The same has held true in other countries, including Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Japan, and China. As governments have relaxed restrictive pornography legislation and access to pornography has increased, rates of rape have plummeted.

Such evidence may be anecdotal, but at the very least, as a 2009 review of scientific literature on the relationship between porn consumption and sexual violence concluded: “It is time to discard the hypothesis that pornography contributes to increased sexual assault behavior.” There is absolutely no demonstrable evidence establishing a causal link between pornography and sexual violence.

So now, those who are trying to censor pornography are making a slightly different claim. They argue that pornography is a public health hazard, that it causes addiction among consumers, that it engenders sexism, and that it has an impact on productivity, on marriage, and on general health. The easy availability of pornography on the internet and other sources has made it pervasive. Consumers no longer have to go to theaters or sex shops. Everyone with a smartphone is just a click away from easy access to free porn. This has been true now for at least a decade, perhaps more. One would expect, therefore, that the alleged evils associated with pornography by antiporn activists would have multiplied dramatically.

Instead, rates of sexual violence and rape have decreased dramatically since the advent of internet pornography — between 1990 and 2010, the number of rapes per capita was cut in half; in 2013, they reached their lowest point since the 1960s. Moreover, scientists have concluded that regular consumers of mainstream pornography have roughly the same sexual experiences, and experience the same degree of intimacy in their relationships, as people who do not watch porn. There is also no evidence to support the claim that porn leads to sexism. A 2007 study concluded that there was no correlation between regular porn consumption and negative attitudes towards women. Scientists have also debunked the comparison between drug addiction and porn addiction. In short, as a researcher at the University of Hawaii observed, “There’s absolutely no evidence that pornography does anything negative.”

Even the Meese Commission failed to demonstrate any causal relationship between porn consumption and sexual violence.

The evidence strongly supports that people who consume pornography do so simply to give themselves momentary pleasure. Porn is largely an aid to masturbation, and masturbation is an important part of sexuality for many people of all ages and genders. The Bible prohibits masturbation, calling it onanism; but there is no legal prohibition, nor should there be, against what used to be referred to as self-abuse, but now is widely seen as self-pleasure. In fact, the Declaration of Independence takes the supporting view that the pursuit of happiness is an important component of liberty. Meanwhile, Puritanism has been described as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

The reality is that some people simply don’t like other people enjoying porn. They believe it coarsens sensibilities; projects sexist images of women; reduces sex to sport; objectifies both women and men; and projects negative values regarding love, romance, and sexuality. Some radical feminists even describe pornography as “sexist propaganda.” These debatable arguments may all be true, but they make a strong case for why pornography must be deemed a constitutionally protected form of expression. There is a vast difference, in a democracy governed by the rule of law, between objecting to a form of expression and trying to ban it by means of governmental or other institutional censorship. Let the debate continue about the virtues and vices of porn, but let the law stay out of our smartphones, computers, and bedrooms.

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