PROVO — Men are by far the main consumers in the mammoth worldwide porn industry, but today's college women are surprisingly permissive about pornography, according to a new Brigham Young University study.

The BYU researchers discovered that 49 percent of the female college students they surveyed find pornography acceptable. Only 37 percent of their own fathers agreed.

That information is groundbreaking because it is a subject that hasn't been addressed by family or development journals, said Jeffrey Arnett, editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research, which published the study.

The study of 813 college students at six American colleges and universities — BYU was not included — is titled "Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults."

The research found that 86 percent of college men and 31 percent of college women viewed pornographic material in the previous year. Men said they used it far more frequently — 48 percent used it at least weekly while 3 percent of women did.

Still, Arnett said, "One-third of female students said they'd used it. That surprised me it was that high."

The key question asked of students and their parents was if they agreed or disagreed that viewing pornography is an acceptable way to express one's sexuality. Lead author Jason Carroll, a BYU family life professor, offered two explanations for high acceptance among college women and men, 67 percent of whom agreed.

"One is that this is a life-course finding," Carroll said, "that we captured them at a high point in time and their acceptance will decrease and they'll be like their parents. The other argument is that because of the proliferation of pornography, this generation has a unique acceptance of pornography different from their parents, and that it will last. I think there is a compelling argument that is the case."

Arnett rarely publishes quantitative, or statistical, studies. He prefers qualitative data based on subjective interviews. He made an exception this time.

"This is a hugely important issue," he said, "given that pornography is so massively popular on the Internet. There are questions about how will it affect people's sexuality and their views of gender roles, and how is that going to affect relationships between men and women. Maybe it will just be a form of entertainment. We just don't know yet."

Arnett and Carroll said BYU's findings raised as many questions as they answered.