Internet Pornography Use Among Collegiate Women: Gender Attitudes, Body Monitoring, and Sexual Behavior

Megan K Maas,Shannamar Dewey

doi:10.1177/2158244018786640

Abstract

Pornography use has become more commonplace since the advent of high-speed Internet, yet there is little investigation that is exclusively targeted to women’s use of pornography. Given the paradox ...

Highlights

Prior work on Internet pornography use among men has found that more Internet pornography use is associated with more sexual preoccupation, less realistic attitudes toward sex, less enjoyment of real-life sexual experiences, and more reliance on Internet pornography to become sexually aroused or maintain arousal with a partner (Bridges, Sun, Ezzell, & Johnson, 2016; Peter & Valkenburg, 2008; Sun, Bridges, Johnson, & Ezzell, 2016; Tsitsika et al, 2009)
The present study aims to fill the gap between market research statistics and malefocused academic research to bolster a greater understanding of Internet pornography use among women
It cannot be concluded that Internet pornography use caused these outcomes, these results suggest that women who do use Internet pornography have a different sexual attitude and behavior profile than women who do not use Internet pornography, future research that examines directional influence in this area is needed

Summary

Introduction

Prior work on Internet pornography use among men has found that more Internet pornography use is associated with more sexual preoccupation, less realistic attitudes toward sex, less enjoyment of real-life sexual experiences, and more reliance on Internet pornography to become sexually aroused or maintain arousal with a partner (Bridges, Sun, Ezzell, & Johnson, 2016; Peter & Valkenburg, 2008; Sun, Bridges, Johnson, & Ezzell, 2016; Tsitsika et al, 2009). Due to the content of popular pornography (Barron & Kimmel, 2000; Bridges et al, 2010; Gossett & Byrne, 2002; Klaassen & Peter, 2015; Makin & Morczek, 2015), consistently consuming such objectifying and sexually aggressive media could begin a process by which individuals view women as sexual objects and violence toward women as normative This process could explain why a recent meta-analysis revealed that viewing pornography was positively associated with real-life sexual aggression (Wright, Tokunaga, & Kraus, 2016). Given the aggressive and often disturbing content of popular Internet pornography, there is a need to evaluate differences in women (and not just men) who do or do not use Internet pornography

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