You know how you were always a bit wary of people who watched loads of porn? Maybe you dismissed them as being a bit sleazy and – let's face it – probably a bit sexist. I mean, it's not exactly the wildest conclusion to jump to. Porn, generally, has a pretty terrible rep for promoting gender equality.

However, in a seriously shocking twist, this could all be about to be proved wrong. New research has actually found that people who watch porn are actually more likely to be feminists.

The study, which was published in The Journal of Sex Research, compared people who watched porn with those that don't, and found that the former group held much more egalitarian views. Although both groups were quite similar in their self-identification as feminist, it ended up being the people who watched porn who had a better attitude towards working women, and women in positions of power. They were also more likely to be pro-choice when it came to the issue of abortion.

“Taken together, the results of this study fail to support the view that pornography is an efficient deliverer of 'women-hating ideology,'” The researchers concluded. “While unexpected from the perspective of radical feminist theory, these results are consistent with a small number of empirical studies that have also reported positive associations between pornography use and egalitarian attitudes.”

The study, which took place at the University of Western Ontario, collected data from America's General Social Survey. Looking at a range of results taken from between 1975 and 2010, they found that men and women who viewed porn claimed to have much more respect for women in general. Although the researchers were quick to point out that, while the statistics may be reliable, the link “may have little real-world meaning.”

“These findings do not rule out the idea that there may be negative effects for some men who watch certain types of porn,” wrote sex researcher Justin Lehmiller, in an analysis piece for Playboy. “For instance, among men who are low in the personality trait of agreeableness (i.e., guys who don’t show much care or concern for others), pornography exposure appears to increase their sexist attitudes.”