Since I was the one responsible for that post on erotic imagery, I'll be among the first responders here. I'll be unabashed and say that I LOVE PORN!!!! And I love it particularly while watching with my spouse.

I see a major flaw in your female friend's argument regarding impressionable men. I know a lot of fat women who have small breasts and are regularly getting laid. Obviously, therefore, there are a lot of men who, despite the media, go after overweight women. Why? What your female friend totally misses the boat on is that we are hardwired for sex. Men universally are attracted to women with a low waist-hip ratio and facial symmetry at a minimum. These are features that the vast majority of women possess. Now beyond that, there will of course be individual personal tastes. Citing a case study of 15 year old boys looking at pictures of boobs and deciding on what is "normal" speaks more of the flaws in the design of the study rather than what it says of 15 year old boys. Is there any evidence in evolutionary psychology or neuroscience to back up what she claims? Likely not. If she is going to present evidence, then it should be more robust scientific evidence aimed at achieving the truth. Men love women of various body types. Look at this BBW site and tell me that men don't jerk off to it:

http://www.carrieland.com/ (personally, I think Carrie looks hot)

And I bet you there are so called studies of teenage boys who find fat girls such as the one on the website as being "abnormal."

Folks who think porn is degrading are IMO hypocrites. I bet you your female friend masturbates to sexual fantasy (either written or mental imagery). One could easily make the same argument that those forms of erotic imagery are degrading to men and women and that argument (just like the anti-porn argument) would be dead wrong.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with watching consenting adults have sex. The only thing degrading is that for so long, women have been denied watching porn. It is very encouraging that more porn is being produced that appeals to a variety of tastes for men, women, gay, straight, etc..

Now can there be adverse consequences with porn (eg. addiction, self esteem issues, etc..). Of course. But there are adverse consequences with any form of pleasure (eg. alcohol, burgers and fries, violent sports, watching too much TV, etc..). And honestly, watching sex is the least likely to cause problems.

Combining Occam's razor with the fact that I have the attention span of a ferret at the moment, I'm going to agree with Jill here based entirely on the fact that hers was the only post short enough for me to read. In all honesty, I lost interest as soon as I realized the thread didn't contain porn links.  Oh, look, shiny things! Gotta run.

Ya hit the nail in the head on this one Jill, a friend an I were having this exact same discussion, because he got ragged out online by a female because he had lost interest in his wife sexually,  she had gained some weight (about 40 lbs) but she didn't look healthy, which is the argument really, men are attracted usually (a good majority of us anyways) to healthy looking women, doesn't mean they have to be Paris Hilton skinny, but healthy (personally for me a real woman has curves). But the many females that we mentioned this to were upset about this and say that we should love them no matter what, are forgetting is that in the end we are animals, and what my friend and I called the law of the jungle, we still have primal urges that are genetically there in us which have us tending to look towards a healthy looking female usually, because you want to pass your genetic material the healthier female not to the one that looks out of shape and/or sick.

We know of a few of our female friends that are on the plus side but still look amazing, and we know females on the skinny side that look sickly. It's a matter of perception and desirability. In the end, it wasn't that he had fallen out of love for her, but his desire for her had dropped because she no longer looked healthy, and she is a plus size woman, and now that she lost those 40 lbs, she looks great.

In skype chat yesterday, we touched on the same topic from a slightly different angle.  It's not fun to think about, but the reality is that we are not in control of our sexual attraction.  That is, I can't look at a girl and decide to be sexually attracted to her.  I can decide to try to get to know her to see if sexual attraction develops, or I can decide to try to think about her sexually to see what happens, but in the end, sexual response is not a choice.

(I was going to avoid the obvious, but then I remembered that nothing I think is obvious seems to be obvious to most people.)  This doesn't mean you can't have sex with someone you're not attracted to, even for guys.  Any guy worth his college stories has ridden a moped at least once.  The point is that our feelings are not under our control.  Our actions can belie our feelings.  (Witness the thousands of guys who still have sex with their wives even though they stopped being attracted years ago, and the women who still suck their lard-ass husband's dick while he watches football and drinks beer.)

So, there are two different discussions we can have:  Are men generally more attracted to healthy women with proportionate figures?  Resoundingly yes.  No question.  There isn't even a way to begin to argue against this.  It's science, and it's proven beyond all reasonable, and most unreasonable doubt.  Speaking of the obvious... proportionate means 1) a shoulder to waist to hip ratio that looks approximately hourglass-like, 2) reasonable symmetry, and 3) conforms approximately to the golden ratio for trunk and head compared to legs.

If a man marries a woman who is healthy and proportionate, and she becomes disproportionate and unhealthy, will he become less sexually attracted to her?  Does the pope wear a funny hat?  Yes, of course, most of the time, he's going to be signficantly less attracted to her sexually.  Will this translate into him having sex with her less or loving her less?  Maybe, maybe not.  Sexual attraction is part of a long term bond, and not the only part.  Some men place much more emphasis on other things, so there's no way to answer this question with a blanket generalization.

Here's the bottom line.  There is simply not a question of what human males find most attractive in females.  Scientists have it down to... well... a science.  Generally speaking, fat and/or unhealthy looking women are less attractive to more males than proportionate healthy looking women.  (Yes.  I know some of you don't fit the norm.  Remember the bell curve and don't bother pointing out the obvious, mmmkay?  Also, remember that we tend to become more attracted to women we think we have a chance with.*  Take that into consideration before you brag.)

We can talk about the psychology behind this knowledge.  Think about this:  When someone has the audacity to complain in a polite social conversation about fat people being unattractive, what exactly is going on in your brain when you feel the urge to defend fat people?  Do you disagree with everything that's being said deep down in your core, or do you disagree with the speaking of it in polite company?  We're all basically aware of the rules of the game.  (If you're feeling uncomfortable with what I'm saying right now, are you uncomfortable because I'm saying it or because you believe it's patently false?)  Here's a good way of thinking of it.  The rules are part of us.  We are attracted to what we are attracted to.  Society has a habit of magnifying things and also of getting tunnel vision.  It's a scientific fact that we like young, thing women -- on average.  Society then takes every young thin woman it can find and puts them all on pedestals and TVs.  Thus, the effect is magnified.  Women who are attractive but not young and thin (read: proportionate MILF) can get a complex from watching too much TV.  They'll exaggerate what they instinctively know about the rules of human attraction, and their self esteem will suffer.

So, in a cruel twist, you get lots of women with self esteem issues -- attractive women who don't "fit the current mold" have unnecessarily low opinions of their own attractiveness as compared to the flavor of the month.  Women who genuinely are less attractive than average are even worse off because they have been knocked down an artificial rung by the myopic media.  This, IMHO, is why real knowledge of sexual attraction is helpful.  Science can prove -- and has proven -- that the flavor of the month is just that.  It's just the current fad.  The range of shapes and sizes that men naturally find attractive is much wider than the media ever portrays it.  Arm young women with this knowledge, and they become better able to stick to their own sense of style, self worth, and body image when they happen to go through a year or five of being "not traditionally beautiful."**

 * Again.. since nothing is obvious about sex... When we become more sexually attracted to people we think we have a chance with, our taste is changing slightly, but again, it's not under our control.  We don't decide to like less attractive women and then it magically happens.  As we discover our limitations, we unconsciously adapt to them.  That's plasticity, and it's what our brains are good at.  Consider that as we age, we tend to find people our own age more attractive than we used to, and though we may recognize the beauty of youth, it's somehow less appealing than it used to be...

** T minus... let's see... two posts before somebody says, "Hamby, I really am attracted to fat women, and there are lots of guys who are.  You're wrong!  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  Seriously, folks.  Don't make me put the bell curve over your head and hit it with a hammer.

Um... I'm not sure what you're suggesting the inverse is, but it's not just about looks.  Looks are a big part of it, of course, but I never believe men who say they get laid all the time and have no game.  We've all been around the block a time or two.  "No Game" can be very charming if played proberly.

I was more kidding on the square, though I'm not particularly surprised a 15 year old guy watches porn, I thought testosterone kicked in at about 17-19

My testosterone started kicking me in the groin  around 10.