Decades of studies from respected academic institutions, have demonstrated significant impacts of porn consumption for individuals, relationships, and society. "What’s the Research" aims to shed light on the expanding field of academic resources that showcase porn’s harms in a variety of ways. Below are selected excerpts from published studies on this issue.
The full study can be accessed here.
German Heterosexual Women’s Pornography Consumption and Sexual Behavior
Authors: Chyng Feng Sun, Paul Wright, and Nicola Steffen
Published: March 2017
Peer-Reviewed Journal: Sexualization, Media, & Society
Abstract
This study found that German heterosexual women’s personal and partnered consumption of pornography were positively correlated with their desire to engage in or having previously engaged in submissive (but not dominant) sexual behaviors such as having their hair pulled, having their face ejaculated on, being spanked, choked, called names, slapped, and gagged.
The association between women’s partnered pornography consumption and submissive sexual behavior was strongest for women whose first exposure to pornography was at a young age.
The findings also indicated that women’s personal and partnered pornography consumption were uniquely related to their engagement in submissive sexual behavior.
Methods
Three hundred and ninety-two heterosexual women participated in the survey. A slight majority were college students (53.80% were college students; 46.20% were not college students).
Women reported an age of 27.49 years, on average (SD = 6.72). Of the women, 70% reported being in a romantic relationship; 30% of women said that they were not in a romantic relationship.
Results
Women’s personal and partnered pornography consumption were uniquely related to their engagement in submissive sexual behavior.
The results also showed that while women who had higher pornography consumption, either on their own or with partners, were more likely to have engaged in or to want to try sexually submissive behaviors, their consumption of pornography was not related to their dominant behaviors. In other words, pornography use was related to women’s submissive behavior but was unrelated to their dominant behavior.
This pattern of correlations aligns with sexual script theory and content analyses of dominance and submission and gender in pornography. It does not align with the perspective that measures of pornography consumption are simply proxies for factors such as a high sex drive or an adventurous approach to sex.
If this were the case, pornography consumption should have correlated with women’s dominant sexual behavior in addition to their submissive sexual behavior… This study is one of the first to demonstrate a clear link between pornography consumption and women’s submissive sexual behaviors by identifying acts prevalent in pornography and by using an examination of different uses of pornography and their interactions with women’s early exposure…
Based on this and previous research (Wright, Sun, Steffen, & Tokunaga, 2014), many heterosexual men and women appear to largely accept pornography’s script of male dominance and female submission and to behave accordingly. This power imbalance provides much to ponder in terms of sexual relations and gender inequality.
The full study can be accessed here.
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
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