portrayals. These studies have generally taken the fol-
lowing form: Male subjects were either exposed to
depictions of mutually consenting sex, a rape in which
the female victim eventually becomes aroused (posi-
tive outcome), or rape that is abhorred (negative out-
come) by the victim. Afterward, the subjects were
shown a rape depiction and asked about their percep-
tions of the act and the victim. The males exposed to
the positive rape portrayal perceive the second rape as
less negative and more normal than those first exposed
to other depictions. The researchers have also con-
ducted studies that have asked male subjects how they
think women in general would react to being victim-
ized by sexual violence. Those first exposed to a pos-
itive rape portrayal believed that a higher percentage
of women would derive pleasure from being sexually
assaulted. The effect of the portrayal was particularly
apparent in men with self-reported inclinations to
aggress against women.
Edward Donnerstein and his colleagues have con-
ducted research on the effects of exposure to pornog-
raphy on aggressive behavior. Meta-analytic reviews
have been undertaken of the effect of exposure to
pornography on aggressive behavior under laboratory
conditions, considering a variety of possible moderat-
ing variables, such as level of sexual arousal, level of
prior anger, type of pornography, gender of subject,
gender of target of aggression, and medium used to
convey the sexually explicit message. The results
demonstrated that nudity actually reduces subsequent
aggressive behavior, that consumption of pornography
depicting nonviolent sexual activity increases aggres-
sive behavior slightly, but that media depictions of
violent sexual activity generate more aggression than
depictions of nonviolent sexual activity. No other
moderator variable produced homogeneous findings
in the meta-analysis.
The data collected from women participating in a
battered women’s program have also been examined to
determine whether pornography use increases the prob-
ability that battered women will be sexually abused by
their partners. This research shows that certain disin-
hibitory factors, such as alcohol use, mediate or exacer-
bate the effects of pornography on sexual violence.
Compared with batterers who do not use pornography
and alcohol, the combination of alcohol and pornogra-
phy does increase the odds of sexual abuse.
This theoretical perspective has also fueled research
on discriminatory and sexually aggressive behavior. The
research shows that short-term exposure to nonviolent
sexual media stimuli can produce cognitive changes inmen that, in turn, can affect attitudes toward women.
Daniel Linz and colleagues tested whether viewing
these materials affects their judgment of women in
subsequent face-to-face interactions. Sex-typed men
and non-sex-typed men viewed one of three equally
stimulating films: sexually explicit and degrading, sex-
ually explicit and nondegrading, and nonsex. After the
viewing, the men interacted with women and then
evaluated their partners’ intellectual competence and
sexual interest. The results indicated that men’s sex
role orientation moderated the film effects for men’s
evaluations of their female partners’ intellectual com-
petence and sexual interest.
High pornography use is not necessarily indicative
of high risk of sexual aggression unless other variables
come into play. The combination of sexually explicit
media with personality variables has also been exam-
ined within this theoretical perspective. Research by
Neil Malamuth and his colleagues suggests that
pornography is most likely to affect behavior when
two streams of dispositional variables, one labeled
“sexual promiscuity” (measured by the number of
times an individual has had sexual intercourse and age
at the time of the first intercourse) and the other “hos-
tile masculinity” (a general sense of hostility as well as
more specific hostility toward women), coalesce.
Among men classified as being relatively low risk for
sexual aggression on the basis of their levels of hostile
masculinity and sexual promiscuity, there is only a
minor difference between those who report sexual
aggression and differing levels of pornography use.
For men who were previously determined to be at high
risk for sexual aggression based on hostile masculinity
and sexual promiscuity, research has shown that those
who are additionally very frequent users of pornogra-
phy were much more likely to have engaged in sexual
aggression than their counterparts who consume
pornography less frequently.
This perspective has also generated research on the
more general culture of violence against women culti-
vated by the media. Daniel Linz and his colleagues
have conducted research on the effects of “slasher”
films, films that often juxtapose sex and violence for
male and female victims and that pair sexiness with the
torture and death of female victims. Men who repeat-
edly viewed movies depicting violence against women
came to have fewer negative emotional reactions to the
films, to consider them as significantly less violent,
and to consider them less degrading to women. It has
also been found that there is a tendency for the desen-
sitization to filmed violence against women to spill604 ———Pornography, Effects of Exposure toP-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 604