Violence
On Men’s Problematic Pornography Use and Hostile Attitudes Toward Women.
Open Access: No.
Abstract
Social scientific studies have for decades focused on the potential effects of pornography use on social attitudes. An increasing area of social scientific pornography research focuses on dysregulated pornography use and its associated personal consequences. Rarely have these two important pornography research areas overlapped. A recent Sexuality & Culture article by Liatsou and colleagues titled “Problematic Internet Pornography Use and Sexist Attitudes” represents an innovative effort to bring these two research areas together. Using this significant work as a springboard, this commentary explores how pornography use frequency, problematic pornography use, and hostile attitudes toward women may interrelate among heterosexual men. The Dependency-Resentment Hypothesis of Men’s Problematic Pornography Use and Hostile Attitudes Toward Women is presented along with initial empirical support. We hope that many subsequent studies explore the viability of our hypothesis, and that Sexuality & Culture continues to be a leading venue for the dissemination of high-quality social scientific pornography research.
Relevance
This paper proposes the Dependency-Resentment Hypothesis of Men’s Problematic Pornography Use and Hostile Attitudes Toward Women. Men who become dependent on online pornography – who have problematic pornography use – subsequently develop a hostile attitude towards women. Drawing on studies of the love-hate relationship that characterizes addictions (e..g, to opiates, other drugs, food, television, etc.), “men’s dependence on pornography (and accompanying negative consequences) ultimately leads to misogynistic resentment via the transfer of hostility from the self (i.e., men’s self-resentment at their inability to control their pornography use) to the other (i.e., resentment toward the object of men’s dysregulated behavior– the sexually attractive and irresistible women in pornography).” That is, “those experiencing dysregulated behavior in relation to a pleasure inducing object both desire the object for the pleasure it provides and loathe the object for its (perceived) control over them.”
Citation
Wright, P.J., Tokunaga, R.S. (2025). On Men’s Problematic Pornography Use and Hostile Attitudes Toward Women. Sexuality & Culture. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-025-10424-2
