Mental Health

Home Academic Library Internet Pornography Use Among Collegiate Women: Gender Attitudes, Body Monitoring, and Sexual Behavior.

Internet Pornography Use Among Collegiate Women: Gender Attitudes, Body Monitoring, and Sexual Behavior.

Internet Pornography Use Among Collegiate Women: Gender Attitudes, Body Monitoring, and Sexual Behavior

Open Access: Yes

Abstract

Pornography use has become more commonplace since the advent of high-speed Internet, yet there is little investigation that is exclusively targeted to women’s use of pornography. Given the paradox of viewing mainstream Internet pornography, which often portrays the objectification of and violence toward women, we compared heterosexual collegiate women (n = 168) who use Internet pornography with women who do not on several different attitudes and behaviors that are central to women’s sexual development and wellbeing. Women who use Internet pornography had a higher endorsement of rape myths, a higher number of sexual partners, and engaged in more body monitoring. However, there were no differences in attitudes toward women between pornography users and nonusers. Results are interpreted through sexual scripting and objectification theories.

Relevance

“Women who do use Internet pornography are more likely to endorse rape myths, have more sex partners, and are higher in body monitoring than women who do not use pornography.”

Additionally, “exposure to sexually explicit material can cause trivialization of sexual aggression” and “consumption of sexualized material is associated with more positive attitudes toward violence against women.”

“Contrary to our hypotheses, women who used Internet pornography did not differ in their attitudes toward women than women who did not use Internet pornography. However, in the correlation procedure, more Internet pornography use was associated with more negative/traditional attitudes toward women, suggesting that frequency of use might be driving the association.”

Citation

Maas, M. K., & Dewey, S. (2018). Internet pornography use among collegiate women: Gender attitudes, body monitoring, and sexual behavior. SAGE Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018786640