Pornography and Sexual Callousness, and the Trivialization of Rape

Abstract

Under controlled experimental conditions, massive exposure to pornography resulted in a loss of compassion toward women as rape victims and toward women in general.Research on the behavioral effects of extensive exposure to sexually explicit writings, photographs, and motion pictures has been guided, if not controlled, by prevailing attitudes about human sexuality. Sex, according to the values manifest in these attitudes, is generally wholesome and good fun; the description or depiction of such behavior, regardless of how sexually stimulating and enticing it might be, must be free from censure (e.g., 15). Eysenck and Nias (9), for instance, promoted this type of moral stance. However, they hastened to point out that the portrayal of sex is occasionally neither wholesome nor good fun, and they went on to declare matters such as pederasty, rape, sadomasochism, and bestiality as socially undesirable and to advocate censorship for the pornographic exploitation of these sexual themes.Sex that entails any form of coercion or the deliberate infliction of pain is often deemed undesirable. Feminist Gloria Steinem (24) arrived

Television Viewing and Rape Myth Acceptance among College Women

“…These experiments demonstrated positive relationships between men's exposure to these depictions and their acceptance of violence against women and between men's exposure to such depictions and their self-reported likelihood of raping. In yet another experiment, Zillmann and Bryant (1982) found a positive relationship between viewing pornography and the trivialization of rape. This finding was evident in both men and women.…”

College Men, Their Magazines, and Sex

“…In one study, reading Playboy magazine was positively related to the beliefs that specific sexual behaviors commonly depicted therein (e.g., using sex for favors, oral sex) were relatively more prevalent in the real world (Buerkel-Rothfuss & Strouse, 1997). Exposure to pornography in general has also been linked to beliefs about the frequency of a wide variety of sexual behaviors (Zillmann & Bryant, 1982). Based on these findings, coupled with the patterns of representation observed in Lad magazines, it is hypothesized that:…”

Parental Desensitization to Violence and Sex in Movies

“…However, earlier research has established that emotional reactions are less intense with repeated viewings of violence. 8,18,29 With the exception of pornography, 14 less is known about repeated viewings of sex and its effects on subsequent viewing of violence. In addition, we did not expose parents to as many clips containing sex as violence.…”