Mainstream Pornography Research Articles

Adolescents’ Preferences for Mainstream and Paraphilic Pornography and Sexual Health Components: Attention to Within-And Between-Person Dynamics Over Time

ABSTRACT Health communication scholars are becoming increasingly cognizant of the potential health implications of youths’ pornography consumption. However, while research on pornography viewing and adolescent health and development has become increasingly common, the possible importance of distinguishing between mainstream and paraphilic consumption and within-and-between person dynamics has been underemphasized. Accordingly, the present study explored relations between adolescents’ preferences for mainstream and paraphilic pornography and their sexual satisfaction and sexual arousability in three-wave panel data using random intercept cross-lagged panel models. At a between-person level, only mainstream pornography viewing was positively related to adolescents’ sexual arousability. No relations were found between mainstream and paraphilic pornography viewing and sexual satisfaction at a between-person level. Results further revealed that an increased exposure to mainstream pornography and paraphilic pornography was not associated with sexual arousability and sexual satisfaction at the individual level. Null findings regarding paraphilic pornography viewing may be explained by the presence of a floor effect. Further, no differences in the investigated relations were found between sexually inexperienced and experienced adolescents, and between single adolescents and adolescents in a relationship. The findings are discussed in light of recent commentary on the uses of random-intercept cross-lagged panel models in the communication discipline.

Young Women’s Attitudes and Concerns Regarding Pornography and Their Sexual Experiences: A Qualitative Approach

This study explores female university students’ attitudes toward and concerns about pornography, based on their experience watching it and on sexual encounters with men. It used a qualitative descriptive design. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 participants between March and April 2020. Thematic data analysis was performed using COREQ reporting guidelines. Three themes emerged from the data: (1) the sexual learning process, (2) the role of pornography in women’s sexuality, and (3) sexual experiences. Participants reported how they learned about sexuality and how pornography influenced sexual experiences. Self-esteem issues and societal norms regarding hair removal and difficulty saying “no” to unwanted or humiliating sexual practices were found. The young women were not comfortable with women’s representations in mainstream pornography. They blamed pornography for negative sexual experiences and claimed it influenced them and young men. Participants usually assumed submissive roles during sex and permitted aggressive sexual behaviors. The study reveals valuable information on how young women learn about sex and their difficulty in refusing unwanted sexual activities and even aggressive practices. Sexual education programs should include assertiveness training to improve sexual health, consent, and well-being.

A New Flight from Womanhood? The Importance of Working Through Experiences Related to Exposure to Pornographic Content in Girls Affected by Gender Dysphoria

Parallel to the advent of social media and the easy access to online pornographic content there is a sharp increase in adolescent females expressing gender dysphoria worldwide. This paper argues that treatment of gender dysphoria in female adolescents must include explicit exploration into their use and exchange of pornographic content, as well as possible online or offline contacts with adults. Possible avenues of how pornographic content may increase the shame and fear of becoming a woman include the acquisition of misogynistic sexual scripts based on false assumptions on sexuality including the normalization of the violation of females as pleasurable for them, peer influence among female friendship groups, the susceptibility of our medical systems to “mass hysteria” phenomena, easier access of adults with sexually abusive intentions to youth through social media, sexual abuse and victim blaming on females, as well as the influence of pornography on mentalization capacities. As the influence of pornography on gender dysphoria in girls is understudied, this paper provides questions for qualitative and quantitative research, case studies and history taking. Especially the lack of an adequate other during exposure may aggravate false assumptions on gender roles and gender inequality seen in mainstream pornography. Girls affected by autism might be at higher risk because of their reduced mentalization capacities. Working through experiences associated with pornographic content and sexually abusive experiences may correct false beliefs about gender inequality and therefore might alleviate gender dysphoria.

Female Affective Perception of Mainstream and Paraphilic Pornography: Associations with Sexual and Psychological Intrapersonal Variables

Understanding affective perceptual processes can further contribute to the explanation of motivation and actions, as well as sexual risk behaviors. Pornography can be considered salient emotional content and is popular, also among females. Yet, the female perspective on pornography has often been overlooked and it remains unclear how individual variables may be associated with the affective perception of pornography and could provide a risk profile. Possible associations between several sexual and psychological intrapersonal variables and the affective perception of various forms of pornography were analyzed from the female perspective. A sample of 231 females (M = 21.87 years; SD = 3.9 years) provided ratings of affective valence, arousal, disgust, and moral and ethical acceptance for mainstream pornographic and paraphilic images of dominance, submission, or sexual violence. Paraphilic pornography was perceived as less pleasant, arousing, and moral and ethically acceptable, but more disgusting compared to mainstream pornography. This was more pronounced among females who had never consumed pornography. Results further suggest that the female affective perception of pornography was associated with the following sexual intrapersonal variables: sexual sensation seeking for physical sensations, erotophilia, lack of sexual control, problematic pornography consumption, and sexual disgust sensitivity. Of the assessed psychological intrapersonal variables, only anxiety was negatively associated with disgust for paraphilic pornography. It is important to further analyze the female affective perception of pornography and associated variables to include them in strategies for prevention and for addressing problematic consequences of the acceptance of specific sexual content and behaviors, especially related to sexualized violence.

What can philosophy contribute to ‘education to address pornography's influence’?

Abstract Responses to the pernicious influences of mainstream pornography on its viewers fall into two main sorts: regulation and education. Pornography has long been a core topic in analytic feminist philosophy, but it has largely focused on issues around regulation, in particular with trying to undermine arguments against regulation on the grounds that pornography should count as protected speech. Here I instead look at some ways that philosophy can contribute to an education-based approach, in particular to what has been called an ‘education to address pornography's influence’. I first argue that philosophical considerations can help to motivate this kind of overall approach to countering pornography's influence, but the main contribution of the paper is to contend that such considerations can also contribute to shaping the kind of content and messaging that such an education should have. I discuss two related issues, focusing on pornographic films. The first concerns the status of pornographic films as fiction; it is misleading and unhelpful to tell teenagers and young adults that pornography is ‘just fiction’, as is sometimes proposed, but it is not clear what more effective and accurate message might be offered instead. The second concerns the ways that pornographic films often present the people (and in particular the women) who perform in them as ideals or archetypes when it comes to what kinds of sexual acts people typically choose and enjoy, which I argue is a neglected form of objectification. I briefly evaluate some suggestive examples of proposed messaging, targeted at teens and young adults.

Performer Demographics (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Performer Demographics (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Conceptual Overview (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Conceptual Overview (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Sex Acts (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Sex Acts (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Violence (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Violence (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Femslash fan fiction’s expansive erotic imaginary

As a genre largely unregulated by market trends and commercial interests, fan fiction can explore forms of bodily pleasure that might not otherwise be viewed as viable in mainstream pornography or romance. Fics from three significant but understudied femslash fandoms—Once Upon a Time (2011), Supergirl (2015), and The Devil Wears Prada (2006)—serve as case studies for analyzing the queer theoretical work fic writers do in interrogating dominant sexual scripts. These authors present an expansive queer erotic imaginary that untethers pleasure, desire, and intimacy from mainstream spaces and practices. In the fan works I examine, sexual connections are often routed through external objects like ink, fabric, and water. The canonical presence of magic, futuristic technology, and nonhuman characters also allows for the imagination of bodily morphologies and sexual practices untethered from both hetero- and homosexual norms, creating polymorphous pleasures that need not be tied to genital sexuality at all.

Analyzing University Students' Perceptions Regarding Mainstream Pornography and Its Link to SDG5.

Background: Violence against women and girls continues to be a widespread problem, and its elimination is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 5 toward achieving gender equality. One of the main causes of this violence is the structural sexism present in societies that continues to be perpetuated through pornography, especially among young people. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to analyze the consumption of pornography among young people, studying its effects and relationship with affective-sexual education. Methods: This study was carried out with a sample of 280 students in the north of Spain. The ages of the entire sample ranged from 18 to 37 years (M = 20.3, SD = 2.6). From the sample, 78.9% (n = 221) define their gender identity as women and 21.1% (n = 59) define their gender identity as men; no person within this research self-identify as non-binary. The instrument used was the Survey on Affective-sexual Education and Pornography (Ballester et al., 2019). The sample was recruited by snowball sampling. Results: The results of the present study show that the average age at which people start watching pornography is 10.4 years. The majority of young people consume it to satisfy their curiosity. In addition, with regard to gender, boys consume more pornography, especially for masturbation. Finally, 20.5% of the participants believe that the sexual education they have received has not been adequate, and most of them solve their sexual doubts by asking friends. Conclusions: The results indicate that it is necessary to improve the affective-sexual education provided in schools, since students consume pornography at a very early age, and young people have normalized its consumption to address their curiosity and satisfy their sexual needs. Finally, the impact of pornography consumption on SDG5 was reflected on.

Feminism and Pornography: from mainstream pornography (hetero-patriarchal) to post-porn (non binary)

Along with prostitution, and more recently surrogate motherhood, pornography has been a contentious issue within the feminist movement ever since the 1970s. Perceived by abolitionists as the prelude to rape, for pro-Sex feminists it represents an ideal vehicle for expressing desire for women and minority sexual identities, and has a considerable transformative capacity. The latter school of thought proposes a paradigm shift and has aligned itself with Queer Theory, which advocates a non-binary approach to sexual identities through Post-porn. This study critically analyses the main arguments put forward by feminism in the field of pornography: women's rights and the principle of no-harm.

The influence of mainstream pornography on changing sexual practices

Mainstream heterosexual pornography is freely available on the internet via pornography tube sites such as Pornhub. The popularity of these tube sites cannot be overstated, with Pornhub reporting 42 billion site visits in 2019 alone. Mainstream pornography is often infused with themes of male dominance, aggression, and female subservience. Much mainstream content fuses sex with aggression and eroticises inequalities between men and women. In so doing, mainstream pornography has the potential to normalise certain sexual ‘scripts’, thus seeding and structuring mainstream social attitudes and norms about aggressive sex as normal, common or expected in heterosexual encounters.

Porn Sex versus Real Sex: Sexual Behaviors Reported by a U.S. Probability Survey Compared to Depictions of Sex in Mainstream Internet-Based Male-Female Pornography.

Using data from a 2014 U.S. nationally representative probability survey and a 2014 content analysis of 2562 male–female videos from two popular pornographic websites, this study aimed to: (1) compare the prevalence of survey respondents’ event-level sexual behaviors with those depicted in mainstream pornography online videos; (2) compare event-level condom use with condom use prevalence in pornographic videos; (3) compare event-level orgasm with prevalence of orgasms in pornographic videos; and (4) assess whether respondents’ partnered use of pornography was associated with the sexual behaviors in which they report engaging. We found that kissing, male orgasm, female orgasm, and condom use were significantly less prevalent in the pornographic videos than in survey respondents’ most recent sexual experiences. Conversely, penile–anal intercourse and fellatio were significantly more prevalent in the pornographic videos than in participants’ reports of their most recent sexual experience. There were no significant differences between the prevalence of cunnilingus or sex toy use represented in the videos as compared to survey respondents’ reports. Finally, we found that individuals who reported partnered pornography use during their most recent sexual experience were more likely to report having engaged in oral sex, penile–anal intercourse, and sex toy use and were also more likely to report female orgasm during their most recent sexual experience.

The Content of Contemporary, Mainstream Pornography: A Literature Review of Content Analytic Studies

This paper provides a narrative review of recent studies (2005–2020) into the content of contemporary, mainstream pornography. Sex acts, such as vaginal sex, fellatio, and external ejaculation are ubiquitous within mainstream pornography. Cunnilingus, solo masturbation, or masturbation of a partner are all also relatively common. Condom use is infrequently depicted. While extreme sexual violence (e.g., rape) is rare, acts which some would consider to be violent (e.g., spanking) are common. Women in pornography typically enthusiastically engage in all sexual requests. Findings around the degradation of women are mixed. On some measures, men in pornography are more agentic than women; on other measures, the reverse is true.

Who Seeks Aggression in Pornography? Findings from Interviews with Viewers.

Despite the recent proliferation of research on aggression in pornography, we still know relatively little about the preferences and perceptions of viewers themselves. In particular, very little research has examined how women who watch pornography feel when encountering aggression toward women. To explore this question, we conducted interviews with 122 regular pornography viewers (61 women, 60 men, and 1 gender-diverse). Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data show that the majority of both men and women reported that they did not enjoy aggressive content. However, in contrast to common conceptions among most scholars and pundits, it was women, not men, who were more likely to report being aroused by aggression, mainly consensual aggression toward women, which was perceived as pleasurable. Women were also more likely to report actively seeking for aggression and wanting to see more aggression in mainstream pornography. These findings challenge long-held radical feminist views regarding the preferences of both women and men and offer new insights on the relationship between gender and sexual fantasies.

Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography

Abstract This article examines the ways in which mainstream pornography positions sexual violence as a normative sexual script by analysing the video titles found on the landing pages of the three most popular pornography websites in the United Kingdom. The study draws on the largest research sample of online pornographic content to date and is unique in its focus on the content immediately advertised to a new user. We found that one in eight titles shown to first-time users on the first page of mainstream porn sites describe sexual activity that constitutes sexual violence. Our findings raise serious questions about the extent of criminal material easily and freely available on mainstream pornography websites and the efficacy of current regulatory mechanisms.

"I Don't Hate All Women, Just Those Stuck-Up Bitches": How Incels and Mainstream Pornography Speak the Same Extreme Language of Misogyny.

This article seeks to establish the connection—via shared discourse—between Incels and mainstream pornography. With an interdisciplinary approach which involves a Corpus Linguistics analysis of Reddit forum data, research into digital behaviors, and a feminist critique, this article focuses on the commonalities between the language of pornography and that of Incels. In doing so, it demonstrates how both pornography and Incels are different manifestations of the same misogyny. The findings of this study highlight the normalization of violence against women (VAW), which continues to be endemic in society, enabled and exacerbated by contemporary technologies.

A Descriptive Analysis of the Types, Targets, and Relative Frequency of Aggression in Mainstream Pornography.

For decades, scholars and public health officials have been concerned with the depictions of sexual aggression in pornography, especially when acts of aggression are depicted with no consequences. Social cognitive theory suggests behaviors that are rewarded are more likely to be learned by consumers while those punished are less likely to be learned. To date, however, there has not been a large-scale content analysis to provide researchers with the baseline knowledge of the amount of sexual aggression in online pornography nor have previous content analyses examined the reactions of the targets of sexual aggression. This study of 4009 heterosexual scenes from two major free pornographic tube sites (Pornhub and Xvideos) sought to provide this baseline. Overall, 45% of Pornhub scenes included at least one act of physical aggression, while 35% of scenes from Xvideos contained aggression. Spanking, gagging, slapping, hair pulling, and choking were the five most common forms of physical aggression. Women were the target of the aggression in 97% of the scenes, and their response to aggression was either neutral or positive and rarely negative. Men were the perpetrators of aggression against women in 76% of scenes. Finally, examining the 10 most populous categories, the Amateur and Teen categories in Xvideos and the Amateur category in Pornhub had significantly less aggression, while the Xvideos Hardcore category had significantly more physical aggression against women. This study suggests aggression is common against women in online pornography, while repercussions to this aggression are rarely portrayed.

The bitches of Boys Love comics: the pornographic response of Japan’s rotten women

ABSTRACT Boys Love (BL) manga in Japan have a 50-year history that highlights women’s fantasies of male–male romances that at times feature sexual scenes. In recent years, however, sexual depictions in BL manga have become increasingly vulgar and graphic as fans use the term ero (alluding to its ‘eroticism’) to describe BL works that feature stories with visual and narrative similarities to mainstream pornographic comics called eromanga. The popularization of these ‘ero BL’ titles indicates fans’ growing appreciation and knowledge of mainstream pornography literacies as these are worked on and transformed in this non-heteronormative media. Using approaches in New Literacy Studies, this article examines the works of ero BL artists and the discussions surrounding these titles to understand the development of fans’ affective learning and transformative engagement with pornographic literacies in BL manga that challenge normative notions of pornography in Japan.