Shaping Sexual Behaviors & Sexual Scripts
The Role of Sexual Scripts in the Relationship Between Pornography Use and Sexual Coercion.
Open Access: No.
Abstract
Decades of research have examined the association between pornography use and sexual coercion, with the most significant relationships found between more deviant genres of pornography use and sexual violence. However, researchers have yet to provide a comparable body of research examining the theoretical mechanism of this association. One theory that has shown promise in explaining the association between certain variables of pornography use and sexual coercion is the sexual script theory. In this theory, scripts can best be understood as a mechanism through which society defines and disseminates what is acceptable, desirable, and pleasurable sexual conduct. Studies examining the application of the sexual script theory to the association between pornography use and sexual coercion have found that pornography use has a significant indirect effect on sexual coercion and correlates of sexual coercion through sexual scripts. The current study sought to extend this line of inquiry by examining the relationship between pornography use, sexual scripts, and sexual coercion. A structural equation model examining direct and indirect effects of sexual scripts and pornography use on sexually coercive behaviors was run using a sample of 390 college-aged males. Results of the study indicated there were significant direct and indirect effects in the model. Specifically, pornography use, while not directly related to sexually coercive behaviors, had a significant indirect effect on sexual coercion through sexual scripts. These results further support the use of the sexual scripts theory to help explain the relationship between pornography use and sexual coercion.
Relevance
The analysis found that “sexual scripts developed from pornography use were significantly related to verbal coercion, violent pornography use, investment in pornography, and the frequency of pornography use.”
An “important relationship was found between age at first exposure to pornography and the development of sexual scripts. This finding indicates that individuals who were exposed to pornography at earlier ages, were more likely to develop sexual scripts related to sexual behaviors found in pornography.”
“Pornography use had an indirect effect on both physical and verbal coercion through intrapsychic and interpersonal scripts. In other words, the intrapsychic scripts developed from pornography use, or the individual’s development of fantasies and desires from pornography use, influence the playing out of those fantasies interpersonally (interpersonal scripts), which involves either physical or verbal sexual coercion. This finding provides further support… that pornography use … influence[s] sexually coercive behavior.”
Citation
Marshall, E. A., & Miller, H. A. (2023). The Role of Sexual Scripts in the Relationship Between Pornography Use and Sexual Coercion. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 38(7-8), 5519-5541. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605221123291
