Often referred to by journalists, policy makers, and the general public as revenge porn, image-based sexual abuse is starting to garner serious legal and social scientific attention. However, theoretical developments have thus far not kept pace with the growing empirical and legal literature on this electronic variant of woman abuse. Further, this problem cannot adequately be explained by gender-blind theories, as there is a strong relationship between gender and women’s risk of being harmed by image-based sexual abuse by current and former intimate male partners. Thus, the main objective of this article is to address this concern by applying male peer support theory.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2374623816684692

Thinking Sociologically About Image-Based Sexual Abuse: The Contribution of Male Peer Support Theory

Using data collected from 1,880 heterosexual men and women residing in the United States, this study investigated the associations among gender, pornography consumption, and 20 sexual behaviors obs...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2374623816668275

Sexual Scripts and the Sexual Behavior of Men and Women Who Use Pornography

It is a common notion among many scholars and pundits that the pornography industry becomes "harder and harder" with every passing year. Some have suggested that porn viewers, who are mostly men, become desensitized to "soft" pornography, and producers are happy to generate videos that are more hard core, resulting in a growing demand for and supply of violent and degrading acts against women in mainstream pornographic videos. We examined this accepted wisdom by utilizing a sample of 269 popular videos uploaded to PornHub over the past decade. More specifically, we tested two related claims: (1) aggressive content in videos is on the rise and (2) viewers prefer such content, reflected in both the number of views and the rankings for videos containing aggression. Our results offer no support for these contentions. First, we did not find any consistent uptick in aggressive content over the past decade; in fact, the average video today contains shorter segments showing aggression. Second, videos containing aggressive acts are both less likely to receive views and less likely to be ranked favorably by viewers, who prefer videos where women clearly perform pleasure.

“Harder and Harder”? Is Mainstream Pornography Becoming Increasingly Violent and Do Viewers Prefer Violent Content?

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.

/pdf/sexual-violence-as-a-sexual-script-in-mainstream-online-4c19t8hnxp.pdf

Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography

Regardless of their contributions to some of the most important scientific advances in the field, feminist sociological analyses of various types of male-to-female violence that prioritize the concept of patriarchy have leveled off or declined in the last 12 years, especially in North America. This article describes how mainstream work came to dominate the field and suggests a few strategies for challenging the hegemony of orthodox perspectives on sexual assault, beatings, technology-facilitated abuse, and other forms of woman abuse.

Bringing Feminist Sociological Analyses of Patriarchy Back to the Forefront of the Study of Woman Abuse.

Violence against Women in Pornography illuminates the ways in which adult pornography hurts many women, both on and off screen. A growing body of social scientific knowledge shows that it is strongly associated with various types of violence against women in intimate relationships. Many women who try to leave abusive and/or patriarchal men also report that pornography plays a role in the abuse inflicted on them by their ex-partners. On top of these harms, male pornography consumption is strongly correlated with attitudes supporting violence against women. Many researchers, practitioners, and policy makers believe that adult pornography is a major problem and offer substantial evidence supporting this claim. 

Violence against Women in Pornography, unlike books written mainly for scholarly and general audiences, specifically targets students enrolled in undergraduate criminology, deviance, women’s studies, masculinities studies, human sexuality, and media studies courses. Thoughtful discussion questions are placed at the end of each chapter, and appropriate PowerPoint slides and suggestions for classroom exercises will be available to aid student understanding. The main objective of this book is to motivate readers to think critically about adult pornography and to take progressive steps individually and collectively to curb the production and consumption of hurtful sexual media, including that from the "dark side of the Internet."

Marilyn Corsianos

Papers

Violence against Women in Pornography