Violence

Open Access: Yes.

Abstract

The role of aggression in pornographic videos has been at the heart of many theoretical debates and empirical studies over the last four decades, with rates of reported aggression ranging widely. However, the interaction between gender and race in the production of aggressive pornographic contents remains understudied and undertheorized. We conducted a study of 172 popular free Internet pornographic videos, exploring gender and racial interactions and the depictions of men and women from various ethnic and racial groups in online pornography. Contrary to our theoretical expectations and to the findings of previous research, we found that videos featuring Black women were less likely to depict aggression than those featuring White women, while videos featuring Asian and Latina women were more likely to depict aggression. Our findings call for a reconceptualization of the role of race and ethnicity in pornography.

Relevance

The study “found that men were much more likely to perform aggressive or degrading acts than were women. A total of 43% of the videos in our sample included visible physical aggression.”

The most common forms of degradation were forced gagging, forceful vaginal penetration, spanking, rough handling, and ejaculation on the face.

Black men were most likely to appear in videos with titles that suggest aggression.

More than half of the videos with Black men and half of the videos featuring Latino men portrayed visible aggression, compared with about one-third of the videos for White men.

Asian men were the most likely to appear in videos depicting aggression.

White and Black women were less likely to appear in videos showing visible aggression compared to Latina and Asian women.

More than half of the videos containing Latina women depicted visible aggression.

Aggression was present in three quarters of the videos containing Asian women, a much higher rate than for any other group of women.

Videos including an interaction between a Black man and a White woman were considerably more likely to receive a title that suggests aggression. and much more likely to present visual aggression.

Citation

Shor, E., & Golriz, G. (2019). Gender, Race, and Aggression in Mainstream Pornography. Archives of sexual behavior, 48(3), 739–751. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1304-6