Women's Evaluations of and Affective Reactions to Mainstream Violent Pornography, Nonviolent Pornography, and Erotica

Abstract

Women's reactions to three types of sexually explicit materials were examined. Ninety-six female undergraduates completed questionnaires measuring previous exposure to pornography, past history of coercive sexual experiences, attitudes toward feminism, hostility toward men, adversarial sexual beliefs, and rape myth acceptance. They were then randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (a) erotica, (b) nonviolent pornography, (c) violent pornography, and (d) control. They viewed 50 slides during each of two 30-minute sessions, completed a measure of mood disturbance, and evaluated each slide. The erotica was evaluated positively, while the pornography was evaluated negatively, and the violent pornography was evaluated more negatively than the other three conditions. Mood disturbance increased significantly from pre- to postexposure in the violent and nonviolent pornography conditions only. In addition, women with past coercive sexual experiences evaluated pornography more negatively and erotica more positively than women who had no such experience.