PORN (Did I Grab Your Attention?)

Pornography has become one of the most pervasive mediums in our society. Raking in over $13 billion a year, selling sex is a bigger business than professional baseball, basketball, and football combined. College aged men view five times more porn than college aged women (and probably have the ruined hard drives to prove it). There’s no questioning the popular notion that “sex sells” (after all, that title did grab your attention). But what effect do these triple-X films have on our perceptions of sex, and the role men and women are supposed to play in sexual encounters?

Unfortunately, the findings aren’t good.

(Trigger warning)

While the types of porn vary (and not all porn is bad), for the sake of argument we’ll be focusing on one of the most disturbing- yet one of the most commonplace- types of adult videos: those depicting sexual violence. A typical video depicting sexual violence begins with a man forcing himself on a helpless, resisting woman. However, quicker than you can say “rape”, the woman is so aroused by his advances that she can’t help but give into him. This formula isn’t even uncommon for non-erotic films: in Gone With the Wind, don’t we see Scarlett O’Hara being carried kicking and screaming into the bedroom, only to wake up the next morning singing?

Images like this present women as flaky and unaware of their sexual desires: women don’t really know what they want, so it’s up to a persistent man to teach them what they want. Researchers have concluded that viewing and internalizing such fictitious scenes can lead to two outcomes: the distortion of how women actually respond to sexual coercion and an increase in men’s aggression towards women.

Exposure to films and TV shows depicting violent sexual acts decreases men’s sensitivity towards sexual violence, while increasing their acceptance of the notion of the “rape myth”- the idea that some women actually welcome sexual assault, and that “no” never actually means “no”. Because of the pervasiveness of these images, it’s not surprising that even women have become more accepting of the rape myth. Studies show that women often believe that other women would enjoy being sexually overpowered, though almost none think it themselves (and if that’s your thing, that’s okay. Just make it clear beforehand).

Furthermore, there have been a number of  studies showing a correlation between viewing sexually violent pornography and actual physical aggression towards women. In the past, it was believed that viewing violent pornography would act as a catharsis for feelings of sexual anger and frustration, making men less likely to want to commit aggressive acts. However, research has shown that these films have just the opposite effect. In one experiment, men were shown one of three films: an adult film depicting sexual violence, a violent film with no sex, and a non-violent sexual film. The men were later instructed to teach either a male or a female subject a list of nonsense words for him/her to memorize, and were told to shock the subject for incorrect memorization. Men who had viewed the sexually violent pornography before administered significantly longer, stronger shocks to the woman (Donnerstein, 1980) than did their experimental peers. The conclusion: violent pornography does increase aggressive tendencies specifically towards women.

Both the distortion of how women actually respond to sexual coercion and an increase in men’s aggression towards women are dangerous in themselves, and combining the two factors have proven disastrous. As we’ve mentioned before on this blog, rates of sexual violence against women are unbearably high, particularly on college campuses. While pornography itself may not be all that bad, violent pornography makes women more of a target for men’s aggression. So the next time you run over to Hole in the Wall (Harrisonburg reference) or use your study break to do some more damage your hard drive, ask yourself this: “If I were to copy what I see in this film, would I end up in jail?” If the answer is ever “yes”, maybe you should reconsider your video selection.

Source: Myers, David G. “Media Influence: Pornography and Sexual Violence”. Social Psychology. 10th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010. Print.

Yeah, I totally referenced my textbook.