Pamela Paul

Pamela Paul is an American journalist and author whose work examines the intersections of consumer culture, family dynamics, and evolving social norms. She gained prominence through books such as Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families (alternately subtitled How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families) (2005), which analyzes pornography's societal impacts based on interviews and data, and Parenting, Inc.: How We Are Buying and Selling Our Kids (2008), critiquing the commercialization of child-rearing. Other notable titles include My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues (2015), a memoir of lifelong reading, and 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet (2021), reflecting on digital-era losses in human experience.

Paul joined The New York Times in 2011 as children's books editor, advanced to editor of the Book Review in 2013—overseeing it for nine years and hosting its weekly podcast—and assumed responsibility for all books coverage by 2016. In 2022, she transitioned to Opinion columnist, producing essays on culture, politics, and ideas, including defenses of sex-based distinctions in language and sports, arguments against hasty medical interventions for gender-distressed youth informed by detransitioner accounts, and concerns over identity politics' erosion of women's categories. These pieces, such as her examination of how both political extremes diminish the term "woman," prioritized biological realities and empirical evidence over ideological conformity, eliciting backlash from advocacy groups while aligning with emerging data on transition outcomes. She left the Times in April 2025 amid staff changes, reaffirming in her farewell column a dedication to unvarnished truth in journalism, and subsequently became a writer at large for The Wall Street Journal.