Davis, Angela C., Elise R. Carrotte, Margaret E. Hellard, and Megan SC Lim.
The Journal of Sex Research (2018): 1-10.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1417350
Abstract
This study investigated how frequently a group of young heterosexual Australians (ages 15 to 29) saw a range of behaviors represented in pornography over the previous 12 months. Participants were recruited to an anonymous online survey. Those who reported having viewed pornography in the past 12 months (n = 517) indicated how frequently they saw each of a list of 17 behaviors when they watched pornography in the past 12 months. Men’s pleasure (83%) was seen frequently by the highest proportion of young people surveyed, followed by a man being portrayed as dominant (70%). Women were more likely to report frequently seeing violence toward a woman (p < 0.01). Men were more likely to report frequently seeing heterosexual anal sex (p < 0.01), ejaculation onto a woman’s face (p < 0.01), women portrayed as dominant (p < 0.01), a man being called names or slurs (p < 0.01), and violence toward a man that appears consensual (p < 0.01). Younger age was significantly associated with frequently seeing women’s pleasure (p < 0.05), violence toward women which appeared consensual, and all types of violence (p < 0.01). Older age was associated with frequently seeing men’s pleasure (p < 0.01) and heterosexual anal sex (p < 0.05). Our findings draw attention to the gendered ways that behaviors in pornography are seen and identified by young heterosexual audiences.
DISCUSSION SECTION
Contrary to findings from previous studies (Romito & Beltramini, 2015; Vandenbosch, 2015) and to our first hypothesis, a significantly higher proportion of respondents reported frequently seeing violence than those who reported frequently seeing romance/affection when they watched pornography during the previous 12 months. This may be because online pornography contains more violence than romance/affection or because young people perceive violence more often than romance/affection. It may also indicate differences in seeing violence between heterosexual young people in Australia ages 15 to 29 and other groups of young people previously studied; for example, in one study Dutch adolescents were twice as likely to have seen affection-themed pornography as violence-themed pornography (Vandenbosch, 2015). It could also indicate changes in pornographic content between 2013 when the Dutch study was conducted and the current study.
The results of this study were consistent with our second hypothesis—that more participants would report frequently seeing violence and slurs aimed toward women than toward men. These findings extend claims made about representations of violence (Gorman et al., 2010; Vannier et al., 2014) and gender inequality (Klaassen & Peter, 2015; Gorman et al., 2010) in online pornography by demonstrating that when young people did see violence, they saw it directed toward women significantly more than toward men.
Results also supported our third hypothesis that more participants would report frequently seeing men’s pleasure and men’s dominance than women’s pleasure and women’s dominance. These findings also suggest that perceptions of the behaviors seen by young people surveyed here are broadly consistent with findings from content analysis studies that gender inequality relating to pleasure and dominance are commonly present in online pornography (Klaassen & Peter, 2015; Gorman et al., 2010). These findings generate important insights to complement research that has demonstrated the potential implications of repeatedly viewing gender inequality in pornography on men’s expectations and behaviors during sexual encounters with women (Sun et al., 2014).
Contrary to our fourth and final hypothesis, female participants were significantly more likely than male participants to report frequently seeing consensual and nonconsensual violence toward women. These unanticipated findings are in contrast to previous research with young people (Romito & Beltramini, 2015; Vandenbosch, 2015) and anecdotes about the types of pornography that young women view. However, they are consistent with findings from a previous study with adults that investigated differences in the perceptions of behaviors in pornography and found that men perceived less aggression and degradation toward women in pornography than women perceived(Glascock, 2005). While it is possible that female respondents objectively saw more violent pornography, an alternate explanation is that female respondents are more able and willing to interpret the behaviors that they see in pornography as violent. Young male respondents, in contrast, may not identify the same behaviors they see in pornography as violent toward women.
Further, being younger in age actually increased the likelihood that a participant would report frequently seeing women’s pleasure and any type of violence. One explanation might be that older people are better at identifying subtleties in women’s pleasure (or displeasure) due to more real-world sexual experience and therefore are less likely to think what they see in pornography represents women’s pleasure. Itcould also be suggested that younger age participants may have normalized verbal and physical violence as part their understanding of women’s pleasure because of their earlier age of exposure to pornography compared to older participants (Lim et al., 2017). However, more research with young people to explore these differences and perceptions is needed to unpack possible explanations.
Overall results support the literature that suggests pornography seen by young people commonly preferences male sexual dominance and pleasure over women’s and that gender inequality is embedded in the scenes (Gorman et al., 2010; Klaassen & Peter, 2015). We extend this work by showing that this content is reflected in what this group of young people actually perceive they are seeing.
Implications and Directions for Future Research
To date, there has been limited research into how frequently young people perceive seeing behaviors like violence and gender inequality when they watch pornography. The heterosexual young people surveyed here reported frequently seeing sexualized depictions of gender inequality, and though less frequent, a concerning proportion also reported frequently seeing violence toward women in the pornography they had watched. While our study did not investigate links between seeing behaviors in pornography and attitudes or behaviors among young people, it provides a critical first step in understanding how young people interpret what they see when they watch pornography.
These findings have important implications when understood in the context of a range of literature (e.g., Bandura, 2001; Albury, 2014; Lim et al., 2015; Rothman et al., 2015; Sun et al., 2014; Wright, 2013) which identifies the potential for pornography to glamorize violent, demeaning, or painful behaviors as desirable, by sanitizing them as occurring without implications such as pain and other consequences (Kunkel, 2009, p. 16). The study findings suggest a range of future directions for research, including more detailed qualitative work to draw out how young people perceive the impact of frequently seeing such behaviors as women being verbally abused, gagged, or participating in anal sex on their own sexual scripts and sexual subjectivity. Specifically, they raise interesting questions for future studies with young people about the way that they perceive both violence and pleasure in pornography and how seeing these behaviors in pornography influences their own understanding of sex and sexuality. For example, while just over half of respondents did report seeing women’s pleasure frequently, a similar proportion of respondents, when they viewed pornography, frequently saw behaviors that could be considered demeaning to women (e.g., ejaculation onto the face of a woman, violence against women that appears consensual, slurs directed at women, heterosexual anal sex, woman gagging during oral sex). The fact that respondents more frequently saw these behaviors than they saw women portrayed as dominant deserves further exploration in research with young people.
This study is an important contribution to the field of knowledge about pornography exposure, because rather than attempting to provide an objective measure of how frequently these behaviors occur in pornography, our findings draw attention to the gendered ways that behaviors are identified and reported on by young heterosexual audiences. Perhaps most important, they provide some evidence to suggest that interventions like formal school-based education targeting young people with information about potential harms of pornography could be expanded beyond a focus on the potential risks of watching the content toward a broader approach which recognizes the social and cultural contexts in which young people see and make sense of behaviors represented in pornography.
The data presented here support the need for more discussion with both young men and women about how they interpret behaviors (in pornography and in reality) and the potential effects of frequent exposure to sexualized gender inequality and violence toward women. While this study focused on heterosexual young people, further work is required to understand how gender- or sexuality- diverse young people, perceive the images they see in pornography and their specific experiences of its effects.
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