From a first-of-its-kind survey conducted on the MSNBC Web site, researchers are concluding that the Net may pose a danger for sexual compulsives.

We need a scientific study to tell us that?

Actually, we don't have a scientific study yet. The survey in question, conducted in 1998, allowed visitors to MSNBC.com to answer questions about their time spent online in pursuit of sexual material. But, as critics have pointed out, the survey involves "self-selection" or voluntary, nonrandomized responses, and is thus not scientifically valid. (Statistics 101.)

Still, "sex researchers" at Stanford and Duquesne, armed with some kind of data, are enjoying their 15 minutes of fame and drawing conclusions with gusto. One study, according to The Associated Press, was published Tuesday in the journal Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity; and according to Reuters, another is to appear in the March issue of Sexual Addiction and Compulsion: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention.

The study to be released in March shows, allegedly, that women, gay men and other "disenfranchised groups" are at risk of compulsion, as well as students, who have too much free time and too much Net access on their hands. The study contrasts this with "heterosexual men" who have learned to manage their impulses.

But this neat little classification, aside from the planted axioms about who does what disenfranchising to whom, misses an important point about human nature. Who says that heterosexual men can manage their attraction to pornography better than others?

If anything, sound scientific biological research would probably indicate that the male of the species, be he student, homosexual, heterosexual or whatever, is more inclined to seek out visual, anonymous sexual stimulation than women - shunning real intimacy for "virtual intimacy." That's the knock on men in general, isn't it?

I'll wait for better studies. Even the editors of MSNBC said the survey was just for fun. But there will always be folks ready to jump on a "cool" social phenomenon like the Net to advance their careers using junk science.

The more important issue is a philosophical one, which the study can raise despite the limitations of its data. There is no doubt that there is an explosion of, and easy access to, pornography as never before in our history. Are we on the verge, then, of increasing decadence? Or what the researchers describe as a growing "public health hazard"?

I recall here an argument from my old colleague John O'Sullivan, the former editor of National Review and speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher. John is a brilliant social philosopher. He used to argue that porn on the Net could be better for society than porn on the streets. The "creative destruction" that results from cyberporn may reduce the squalor we witnessed in places like Times Square prior to its redevelopment, and drive sleaze into the neater environs of the Net. The Net will become, in other words, a virtual red-light district.

That may be true - but if we consider the growth of the Net, we see that virtual also means expansive.

Right now, the Net is only available to the higher-income groups, those who have crossed the so-called "digital divide." That also means, however, that it is increasingly available in the suburbs.

It will continue to spread. Libraries and schools are being wired. Jails will follow after civil rights lawsuits determine that Net access is as normal a part of life as the phone or television, and thus should not be denied to prisoners. Civil rights cases will also determine, as they have with respect to libraries, that filtering should not be allowed.

Then there is the explosive growth of wireless Net surfing. In just the past few weeks we have seen reports of cell phones being pumped up to receive streaming media. Doesn't research show that a certain number of molesters and rapists use pornography before committing their crimes? Will mobile phones do anything to boost those numbers? Cars also are apparently being wired up for Net access.

A virtual red-light district might be fine, if it stayed in one place. But what about if it can go anywhere? A recent article in Business 2.0 noted that the New Economy is the "impulse economy" as buyers are immediately connected from the media to the products they seek. Couldn't a generation of Web surfers living the e-commerce experience generalize those impulses to extend to other kinds of personal gratification?

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not sure what will follow, and in any event, I don't believe problems like these can be solved through the law.

But I also disagree with the mechanistic arguments advanced today that there are people who consume Net porn in a "healthy" manner - which, according to the survey, was less than 10 hours. I follow the ancients rather than the moderns here, believing that habit can change any angel into a monster over time. Pornography is destructive of the soul - and the practice of virtue is crucial.

All of this reminds me of a book by C.S. Lewis, called The Great Divorce. In it, a man takes a bus ride from an English suburb to heaven. As the story unfolds, what becomes clear is that the bus has departed from hell.

Hell, in Lewis' vision, is a place that anyone can leave at any time. But it is a comfortable suburb, and many of the villains there, like Napoleon, are trapped in their isolating habits. They can't break out of themselves, and just keep moving farther and farther away from the bus stop. Sounds a lot like the wired, porn-infested suburb of the future.

I just hope there's a bus out.