Disclaimer: all images and original texts belong to their rightful owners. Notes on Chapter 15 of the book "Media effects. Advances in Theory and Research", edited by Bryant and Oliver.

1. Effects of sex in the media
Richard Jackson Harris & Christopher P. Barlett
Presented by: Xanat V. Meza

2. Introduction
• Where do we learn about sex?
• What is the impact of those influences?
– 29% of US teens identified TV as their most
important source of information about sex
(Time/CNN poll, 1998)
– Although the most-mentioned source (45%) was
friends, only 7% cited parents and 3% cited sex
education.
– 29% of boys rated pornography as their most
significant source of sex education (Check, 1995).

3. The nature of sex in the media:
Types of sexual content.
• Pornography generated $13 billion just in the
US in 2006 (IT Facts, 2007).
• Sex magazines have declined but video sales
and rentals, cable and pay-per-view TV have
grown.
• Internet pornography produced over 20% of
the total revenue in 2006.

4. The nature of sex in the media:
Types of sexual content.
• Most scholars distinguish between:
– Violent sexual material: portrays rape, bondage,
torture, sadomasochism, hitting, spanking, hair
pulling and genital mutilation.
– Non violent sexual material:
• Mutually consenting and affectionate (erotica).
• Some of this material is sexually dehumanizing,
depicting degradation, domination, subordination, or
humiliation.

5. The nature of sex in the media:
Types of sexual content.
• Portraits the woman focusing on body parts and sexual appetite.
• Portraits the man as dominant.
• The woman is far more likely to be exposed or nude.
• Sex in media might include any representation
that portrays or implies sexual behavior, interest
or motivation. E.g. sex crimes, celebrity gossip…
• Also, sex is rampant in advertising, particularly in
products like perfume, automobiles and kitchen
sinks.

6. The nature of sex in the media:
Electronic media
• Standards have been usually more
conservative in open Television and Radio
than for print media, because it is easier to
shield children from it.
• With the advent of widespread cable and
video technology, a sort of double standard
has arisen.
• Internet has virtually no effective restrictions.

7. The nature of sex in the media:
Electronic media
• There is disagreement about what kinds of
restrictions or blocking software would be
both legal and effective without blocking
useful non-sexual sites like breast cancer
information or art sites.
• Who watches porn? Mainly males from 18 to
45 years (Buzzell, 2005).
• On TV, sexual talk and innuendoes are
rampant, most often in a humorous context.

8. The nature of sex in the media:
Electronic media
• Most R-rated movies show unmarried
partners, premarital and extra-marital sexual
encounters.
• On TV, only 3% of the portrayals conveyed
risks or responsibilities.
• In 2007, a longitudinal meta analysis of 25
content analyses on US primetime network
programing was conducted (pg. 306).

9. Effects of consuming sexual media
• Sex sells…
• and other 3 main effects: Arousal, attitudinal
changes and behavioral effects.
• The theories behind this effects include
cultivation theory, social cognitive theory,
elaboration likelihood model, priming, and
uses and gratifications.

10. Arousal
• It is the heightened
physiological state that
energizes sexual behavior.
• It is measured in two ways:
– Self-ratings.
– Electronic sensors measuring
penile tumescence, vaginal
lubrication, or temperature.

11. Arousal
• Men are typically more aroused by sexual
media than women, especially in response
to sexually violent or dehumanizing
materials (Malamuth, 1996; Murnen &
Stockton, 1997).
• Sexual arousal in response to stimuli that
would not normally be arousing may be
learned through classical conditioning. It can
include smell, clothing, or specific behavior.

12. Arousal
• Censoring may make the material more
arousing because viewers can fill in their
own scripts.
• Carnes (2001) argues that since Internet has
an unlimited number of websites that
feature any sexual desire that the user
wants, this leads to sexual arousal because
the stimuli are new.

13. Individual differences in viewers
• Men scoring high in narcissism found a rape
scene preceded by affection between the
parties as more entertaining and arousing than
low narcissists did (Bushman, Bonacci, van Dijk
and Baumeister, 2003)
• Dominance, machiavellianism, psychoticism
and hypermasculinity were correlated with the
likelhood ofviewing erotica containing violence,
child pornography, or women with insatiable
sexual appetites (Bogaert, 2001).

14. The gender skew
• Explicit sexual materials have traditionally been
designed by men and for men, so they have a
distinctly macho, hypermasculine orientation.
• Nevertheless, few studies have shown women
to have more positive reactions to sexual
videos written and directed by women and for
women.
• This could be explained because men tend to
seek a greater number of sexual partners, while
women are more interested in a longer-term
commitment to help raise the offspring.

15. The gender skew
• Therefore, men seek out and use sexual
media more than women and are generally
more aroused than women by them,
especially media that visually represent
many different potential partners.
• Women prefer more contextually based
sexual expressions like romance novels.

16. The catharsis legend
• Catharsis is the emotional release that follows
the expression of an impulse.
• Applied to sex, this argument predicts that
consuming sexual media relieves sexual urges,
becoming a substitute for the real behavior.
• Research support for catharsis is weak to
nonexistent (Bushman, Baumeister & Stack,
1999). See Scheele and DuBois (2006) for a
recent conceptual examination of history and
status of catharsis theory.

17. Attitudinal effects
• Sex and values. Repeated exposure to media with a
more-or-less consistent set of messages may
cultivate a worldview that increasingly reflects the
perspective of the media (Morgan, Shanahan, &
Signorelli)
• Increasing numbers of media including coercion and
sexual violence may desensitize readers to violence
toward women, especially if the characters are
identified as respectful.
• Pornography is ideologically antiwomen (Buchwald,
Fletcher & Roth, 1993; Russell, 1998).

18. Sexual Attitudes
• There is a large body of research showing the effects
on a variety of sexual attitudes and values after
exposure to nonviolent sexually explicit materials.
• Men even reported that they loved their partners
less after seeing sexually explicit videos (Kenrick,
Gutierres & Goldberg, 1989)
• Men and women who watched weekly pornographic
films reported less satisfaction with their real-life
partners, and placed less value on marriage,
monogamy and greater acceptance on female
submission (Zillmann & Bryant, 1988a, 1988b).

19. Sexual Attitudes
• Teens watching daytime talk television with
frank discussion of sexual topics later
overestimated the frequency of such behaviors
(Aubrey, 2007).
• Recent exposure to vivid media instances raises
the estimation of the frequency of such
occurrences in the real world.
• All-verbal print descriptions of sex were
actually more conducive than photos to
fantasizing about a sexual partner (Dermer &
Pyszczynski, 1978).

20. Sexual Attitudes
• Alcohol consumption may enhance insensitivity to victim
distress (Davis, Norris, George, Davis, Martell &
Leonesio, 1999), even in women (Davis, Norris, George,
Martell, & Heiman, 2006).
• Pornography may be consumed for the following
purposes:
– Sexual enhancement: creating the mood.
– Diversion.
– Sexual release: stimulates fantasies.
– Substitution: to replace a partner.
• Men are more likely to report using pornography for
sexual release and substitution (Gunter, 2002; Perse,
1994).

21. Slasher films:
Sex + Violence in mainstream movies
• A slasher film is a generative story of a
psychokiller who slashes to death a string of
mostly female victims, one by one until he is
subdued or killed, usually by the one girl
who has survived (Clover, 1992).
• Punitive attitudes toward sexuality and
traditional attitudes toward women’s
sexuality were associated with enjoyment of
previews of slasher films (Oliver, 1993)

22. Slasher films:
Sex + Violence in mainstream movies
• Linz, Donnerstein and Penrod (1984) examined
the attitudinal effects of slasher films with a
high degree of violence associated with erotic
content.
• Men generally became less depressed, annoyed
and anxious in response to the films.
• The films were increasingly rated as enjoyable,
humorous and socially meaningful, and
progressively less violent, offensive and
degrading to women.

23. Slasher films:
Sex + Violence in mainstream movies
• Linz, Donnerstein and Penrod (1984) examined
the attitudinal effects of slasher films with a
high degree of violence associated with erotic
content.
• Men generally became less depressed, annoyed
and anxious in response to the films.
• The films were increasingly rated as enjoyable,
humorous and socially meaningful, and
progressively less violent, offensive and
degrading to women.

24. Slasher films:
Sex + Violence in mainstream movies
• Recently, Internet pornography took the
interest of researchers (Griffin-Shelley, 2003).
• A significant correlation has been found
between the amount of Internet pornography
viewed and recreational sexual attitudes
(including poligamy approval), but the effect
was mediated by the realism of the
pornography (Peter & Valkenburg, 2006).

25. Slasher films:
Sex + Violence in mainstream movies
• A survey of college students found that viewing
sexually explicit material on the Internet was
correlated with masturbating online, sending
and receiving pornography online, and seeking
new people online (Boies, 2002).
• Men more than women use this media because
it is sexually arousing, to satisfy sexual needs,
fulfill sexual fantasies, and to satisfy curiosity
about new sexual techniques (idem).

26. Behavioral Effects:
Adolescent Socialization.
• Teenagers who watch television with sexual
content often, were twice as likely to engage
in sexual intercourse over the following year
than others who don’t (Collins et al., 2004).
• Sexual content in media can have positive
effects of increasing knowledge and
instigating information seeking. Ex: ER and
emergency contraception.

27. Behavioral Effects:
Teaching new behaviors.
• Due to ethical reasons, there has been virtually
no controlled scientific study of effects of
viewing extremely violent materials.
• Sex offenders are more aroused by
pornography and more likely to commit some
form of sexual act afterwards (Allen, D’Alessio &
Emmers-Sommer, 2000).
• The amount of pornography consumption is a
significant predictor of sexual aggression in
men (Vega & Malamuth, 2007).

28. Behavioral Effects:
Teaching new behaviors.
• Cybersex means masturbating while
communicating online or viewing sexual images
on the Internet.
• It is a contributing factor in separation and
divorce, abstinence, female isolation, lower
self-esteem and anger (Schneider, 2000).
• If the user or partner has children, 14% of them
have seen pornographic images and/or the user
masturbating, while 11% of children were
adversely affected by the images and users’
cybersex behavior (Schneider, 2003).

29. Teaching new behaviors:
Disinhibition of Known Behaviors
• The amount of violent pornography
consumed significantly predicted self-rated
likelihood to rape, although there was no
effect of nonviolent pornography (Demare,
Briere, & Lips, 1988).
• In short, violent pornography exposure is
related to more violence against a female,
but not a male.

30. Teaching new behaviors: Correlation of
Sexual Media to Rape and Other Crimes
• Western nations have experienced a large
increase in the availability of sexually explicit
media and in the rise in reported rapes since
the 1960’s.
• Results of studies sometimes show an increase
in availability of sexually explicit media
associated with an increase in rape rates
(Court, 1987; Jaffee & Straus, 1987) and other
times a decrease or no difference (Kutchinsky,
1973; 1991).

31. Teaching new behaviors: Correlation of
Sexual Media to Rape and Other Crimes
• An interesting variable due to cultural factors is
Japan’s case, where there is a high availability
of sexually explicit materials but very low rape
rates (Diamond & Uchiyama, 1999).
• Sexual themes are not associated with shame
and guilt.
• Society emphasizes order, obligation,
cooperation and virtue, and one who violates
social norms is the object of shame.

32. Teaching new behaviors:
What about the Context?
• Some artistic materials and sex manuals are
considered acceptable and even healthy.
• Artistic works can be viewed differently
according to time.
• Reactions to an erotic material depending on
who we watch it with are also different.
• The relation and integration of sex to the
overall plot is also important.
• Culture again: Western Europe and Latin
America vs. Muslim and East Asian cultures.

33. Mitigating the negative effects
of sexual media.
• Some studies have developed and evaluated
extensive pre-exposure training and/or post-
exposure debriefing procedures designed to
lessen the desensitizing effects of sexual
violence (Intons-Peterson et al., 1989; Linz et
al., 1990)
• Experimental participation may sometimes
decrease rape myth acceptance.
• Men over 50 had preexisting attitudes
reinforced and blamed women more for rape
(Wilson et al., 1992).

34. Children and Sexual Media.
• Due to ethical reasons, there is no research
systematically showing young children sexually
explicit material and measuring the reaction.
• 196 college students described a memory for
some sexual media content they saw. 92% did
so, and 39% were 12 years or younger when
they saw it. Men’s earlier memories were more
positive than women’ s (Cantor et al. 2003).