Discrimination

Open Access: Yes.

Abstract

Previously in Sexuality & Culture (S&C), we published an article titled “On men’s problematic pornography use and hostile attitudes toward women” (Wright and Tokunaga in Sex Cult, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-025-10424-2). This article presented our first articulation of the Dependency-Resentment Hypothesis (DRH) of men’s problematic pornography use and hostile attitudes toward women. It also presented analyses of data collected in Greece (Liatsou et al. in Sex Cult 29(1):1034–1050, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-024-10311-2) that led to the articulation of the DRH. Analyses using data collected in the United States (Wright et al. in The dependency-resentment hypothesis of men’s problematic pornography use and hostile attitudes toward women, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03269-1) and China (Wright et al. in J Sex Marital Ther 51(7):791–797, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2025.2556454) were subsequently conducted. Findings from all three datasets yielded results consistent with the DRH. We now return to the pages of S&C to report results from a fourth dataset, collected in Italy. Once again, findings were consistent with the DRH. We encourage S&C contributors to evaluate the scope and contingencies of the DRH in their own data and to develop novel hypotheses about the interrelationships between frequent pornography use, problematic pornography use, and sexual beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

Relevance

“First with data collected by a research team in Greece, then with data collected by a different research team in the United States, then with data collected by a different research team in China, and now with data collected by yet another research team in Italy, results to date are consistent with the hypothesis that pornography consumption frequency increases heterosexual men’s hostility toward women due (in part at least) to a dependency-resentment dynamic.”

This hypothesis is a sequence. More frequent use of pornography by men can lead to problematic pornography use. In turn, “men’s dependence on pornography (and accompanying undesirable consequences) increases the likelihood of misogynistic resentment via the redirection of hostility away from themselves (i.e., men’s self-resentment at their failure to control their pornography use) and toward women (i.e., resentment toward the object of their dysregulated behavior—the sexually attractive and what they perceive as overpoweringly alluring women in pornography).”

(They also offer an admonition: “the discovery of a probable dependency-resentment dynamic in the psychology of heterosexual men’s pornography use and hostile attitudes toward women does not mean that sexual socialization processes are not also at work.”)

Citation

Wright, P.J., Tokunaga, R.S., Nappa, M.R., Chirumbolo, A., Cattelino, E., Ragona, A., Sciabica, G. M., & Morelli, M.. More Support for the Dependency-Resentment Hypothesis. Sexuality & Culture (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-025-10492-4