{"id":17710,"date":"2019-08-27T01:34:17","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T01:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=17710"},"modified":"2019-08-28T05:22:23","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T05:22:23","slug":"how-male-porn-superfans-really-view-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-male-porn-superfans-really-view-women\/","title":{"rendered":"How male ‘porn superfans’ really view women"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul J. Maginn<\/a>, University of Western Australia<\/a><\/em>; Aleta Baldwin<\/a>, The University of Texas at San Antonio<\/a><\/em>; Barbara Brents<\/a>, University of Nevada, Las Vegas<\/a><\/em>, and Crystal A. Jackson<\/a>, John Jay College of Criminal Justice<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In 2007, the pornography website Pornhub averaged 1 million visits per day<\/a>. By 2018 this had increased to 92 million visits per day<\/a> \u2013 or 33.5 billion views over the course of a year.<\/p>\n

As an interdisciplinary<\/a> group<\/a> of<\/a> \u201csexademics<\/a>,\u201d we\u2019re interested in porn\u2019s cultural role and impact. A common question we hear is whether this growth in porn consumption is good or bad for society.<\/p>\n

Of course, the honest-but-unsatisfying answer is: It depends. But sometimes studying various aspects of porn consumption can change the way we think about it.<\/p>\n

You might have heard, for example, that porn fuels misogynistic attitudes and sexual violence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If this were the case, you would think that people who consumed a lot of porn would hold particularly negative views towards women.<\/p>\n

So we decided to study<\/a> a group of men whom we\u2019ve dubbed \u201cporn superfans\u201d \u2013 those who are so enthusiastic about porn that they\u2019ll attend the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo<\/a> in Las Vegas. We wanted to compare their attitudes about gender equality to those of everyday Americans.<\/p>\n

Profiling the superfans<\/h2>\n

Our study was inspired, in part, by the journalists<\/a> and politicians<\/a> who have said that porn consumption is at epidemic levels \u2013 so much so that it constitutes a public health crisis.<\/p>\n

They write and speak of the perils of porn addiction and objectification, how porn encourages \u201chatred of women\u201d and \u201csexual toxicity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Would this play out in the results of our study?<\/p>\n

The 294 expo attendees we surveyed certainly differed from the general population in a number of ways.<\/p>\n

Their average age was 44 years old. Almost half \u2013 47.3% \u2013 indicated that they watched porn \u201cless than once a day, but more than once a week.\u201d Over one-third \u2013 36.1% \u2013 indicated they watch porn \u201cevery day.\u201d In other words, over 80% of the attendees in our sample watched porn multiple times a week. Only 34.1% of them were married, but they were highly educated: 60.5% had a college degree or higher.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A scene from the 2017 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.<\/span>
\nPaul Maginn<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We compared these results to the results from the General Social Survey<\/a>, a nationally representative survey conducted every couple of years that charts social trends.<\/p>\n

This survey only asks whether people have seen an X-rated movie in the last year, and 37.6% of the men indicated that they had. Just over half of the men in the General Social Survey sample were married, while just 28.7% of them had a college degree or higher.<\/p>\n

Misogyny unmasked?<\/h2>\n

But we were most interested in comparing the gender attitudes of each group. So we asked the expo attendees the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with four statements from the General Social Survey:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cA working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cMost men are better suited emotionally for politics than are most women.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cIt is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. \u201cBecause of past discrimination, employers should make special efforts to hire and promote qualified women.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    After parsing the results, we discovered that male porn superfans actually expressed more progressive attitudes towards gender equality on two of the questions. For two others, they indicated just as progressive \u2013 or, said another way, just as sexist \u2013 attitudes as the general population.<\/p>\n

    Over 90% of porn superfans \u2013 compared to just over 70% of the GSS sample \u2013 agreed that working mothers can have just as warm and secure relationships with their children than non-working mothers.<\/p>\n

    For the statement that men and women should hold traditional gender roles within a family, 80% of porn superfans disagreed. Nationally, 73% percent of respondents disagree with this statement.<\/p>\n

    A similar proportion \u2013 80% \u2013 of AVN Expo attendees and General Social Survey respondents disagreed with the statement that men, rather than women, were more emotionally suited for politics.<\/p>\n

    Although a majority of porn superfans and General Social Survey respondents \u2013 72.4% and 74.5%, respectively \u2013 agreed that women, due to past discrimination, should get special preference in the workplace, this was the least supported statement we tested. Notably, however, this level of support is higher than a recent national poll<\/a> indicating that 65% of Americans support affirmative action for women.<\/p>\n

    Porn crisis or moral panic?<\/h2>\n

    These findings challenge what porn scholars call the \u201cnegative effects paradigm<\/a>,\u201d which sees porn as an inherently bad thing that cultivates harmful attitudes.<\/p>\n

    Our survey isn\u2019t the only one that upends this way of thinking. A 2016 study based on General Social Survey data found that male porn consumers held more egalitarian views<\/a> on women in position of power, women working outside the home, and abortion than those who didn\u2019t view porn.<\/p>\n

    And while most porn is produced and consumed by men, a growing number of women \u2013 straight and LGBTQ \u2013 are producing porn<\/a> and consuming different genres of porn<\/a>, a trend that\u2019s largely been ignored.<\/p>\n

    For now, it\u2019s probably best to pump the brakes on the idea that pornography causes negative attitudes toward women. The evidence just isn\u2019t there, and much of today\u2019s rhetoric about pornography seems to be more of a moral panic than public health crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    [ Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

    Paul J. Maginn<\/a>, Associate Professor of Urban\/Regional Planning, University of Western Australia<\/a><\/em>; Aleta Baldwin<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition , The University of Texas at San Antonio<\/a><\/em>; Barbara Brents<\/a>, Professor of Sociology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas<\/a><\/em>, and Crystal A. Jackson<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

    This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Paul J. Maginn, University of Western Australia; Aleta Baldwin, The University of Texas at San Antonio; Barbara Brents, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Crystal A. Jackson, John Jay College of Criminal Justice In 2007, the pornography website Pornhub averaged 1 million visits per day. By 2018 this had increased to 92 million visits per […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":17705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[3233,365,2473,1742,162,2086,3697],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17713,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17710\/revisions\/17713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}