Race and Trends in Pornography Viewership, 1973–2016: Examining the Moderating Roles of Gender and Religion

Abstract

While some research has uncovered racial differences in patterns of pornography viewership, no studies to date have considered how these patterns may be changing over time or how these trends may be moderated by other key predictors of pornography viewership, specifically, gender and religion. Using nationally representative data from the 1973-2016 General Social Surveys (N = 20,620), and taking into account different ethno-religious histories with pornography as a moral issue, we examine how race, gender, and religion intersect to influence trends in pornography viewership over 43 years. Analyses reveal that black Americans in general are more likely to view pornography than whites, and they are increasing in their pornography viewership at a higher rate than whites. Moreover, black men are more likely to consume pornography than all other race-gender combinations, but only differ from white women in their increasing rate of pornography viewership. Lastly, frequent worship attendance only moderates trends in pornography viewership for white men. By contrast, regardless of attendance frequency, black men and women show increasing rates of pornography use while white women show flat rates. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for research on the intersections of race, gender, religion, and sexuality.

Withdrawal and tolerance as related to compulsive sexual behavior disorder and problematic pornography use – Preregistered study based on a nationally representative sample in Poland

“…Our analysis was based only on Polish participants. As differences in sexual behavior may relate to culture, race, ethnicity, religion and other factors ( Agocha, Asencio, & Decena, 2013 ; Grubbs & Perry, 2019 ; Perry & Schleifer, 2019 ), generalizability of the current results should be investigated in other cultural environments and geographic locations, particularly further work should examine possible differences attributed to gender, racial/ethnic, religious, and sexual identities. Lastly, additional, important factors potentially influencing the relations of CSBD/PPU to withdrawal symptoms and tolerance which are not a part of the current analysis (including sexual drive, sexual health and dysfunctions) should be investigated in future work.…”

Are the Sanctified Becoming the Pornified? Religious Conservatism, Commitment, and Pornography Use, 1984–2016*

“…We acknowledge at the outset that this measure has its limitations, most notably its dated language and the fact that it does not measure viewing frequency, but only whether respondents viewed pornography at all. Nevertheless, the GSS represents the only representative data set with a pornography use measure over an extended period, and this outcome has also been profitably used in numerous studies of pornography consumption over time (e.g., Patterson and Price, ; Perry and Schleifer, ; Price et al., ; Regnerus, Gordon, and Price, ; Wright, ; Wright, Bae, and Funk, ). Because our measure of pornography viewership is binary, we use a series of logistic regression models to capture trend differences across our groups of interest.…”

“…Pornography use in the United States has grown considerably in the past four decades (Perry and Schleifer, ; Price et al., ). Most agree that this is due to a combination of pornography becoming more culturally mainstream (Lykke and Cohen, ; McNair, ) and, most particularly, the greater accessibility, anonymity, and affordability provided by the Internet and smartphone technology (Grubbs and Perry, ; Regnerus, Gordon, and Price, ).…”

Pornography Use and Sexting Trends Among American Adolescents: Data to Inform School Counseling Programming and Practice

“…Along with gender differences, some racial or ethnic differences in pornography use may exist. For example, researchers found that Black American adults were more likely to use pornography than White American adults (Perry & Schleifer, 2019). Research related to racial/ethnic differences in pornography use among adolescents, however, is scarce.…”