International Journalof Law and Psychiatry. Vol. 14,65-63, Printed in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.

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1991

Pornography, Erotica, and Behavior: More Questions than Answers William A. Fisher* and Azy Barak**

Across the recent past, there have been confident proclamations by social scientists (Donnerstein, Linz, & Penrod, 1987; Malamuth & Donnerstein, 1984; Zillmann & Bryant, 1986, 1988), by the U.S. Attorney General (U.S., 1986), and by the U.S. Surgeon General (Koop, 1987; Mulvey & Haugaard, 1986), concerning the prevalence and negative effects of pornography in our society. The impression is often conveyed that the social sciences case against pornography is closed, but it is our purpose to sound a strong and much needed cautionary note: the findings for the prevalence and effects of pornography are highly inconsistent, are often based on overly simplistic theory and on methodologically flawed research, and only permit the conclusion that there remain far more questions than firm answers in this area. In the present paper, we will discuss definitions of pornography and erotica, provide an overview of widely cited research on the prevalence and effects of such material, and then critically review this literature and identify significant difficulties with it. The paper will close with a call for education that directly attacks gender inequality and sexual violence, and a discussion of the requirements that future research must meet if it is to serve as a basis for the formation of public policy and legal judgments in this domain. Defining Pornography and Erotica Efforts to understand the prevalence and effects of pornography and erotica must begin with attempts to define such material. On one hand, legal definitions, generally dealing with “obscenity,” are available, and they tend to focus on somewhat arbitrary stimulus characteristics (e.g., does the work appeal to prurient interests, offend community standards, and have no artistic merit?; Miller v. California, 1973) and to be exceptionally broad (e.g., does the material unduly exploit sex?; Criminal Code of Canada, s.163, 1989). Legal definitions have not proved useful for the purposes of deterrence and prosecution of objectionable material-indeed, such difficulties have prompted in large part the *Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A X2. **Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. Work on this manuscript was supported in part by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-86-0716) and the Canada-Israel Foundation for Academic Exchanges. Correspondence should be directed to William A. Fisher. 65

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creation of governmental initiatives in the U.S., Canada, and England to revamp legal definitions in this area (Einsiedel, 1988) -and they have also provided little conceptual guidance for the scientific study of sexually explicit material. On the other hand, social scientists, and more recently governmental commissions, have opted for rather specific definitions of pornography and erotica, based on the manifest content of such materials in the not unreasonable belief that the content of sexually explicit material will be an important distinguishing characteristic and determinant of any effects on attitudes and behavior (Bandura, 1965, 1986; Check, 1985; Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981; Einsiedel, 1988; Fisher & Barak, 1989; Zillmann & Bryant, 1986, 1988). With respect to such content based definitions, violentpornography has been defined as sexually explicit material that depicts and endorses the utility and normativeness of sexual violence, usually directed by men against women (Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981; Fisher & Barak, 1989; Longino, 1980). Degrading pornography has been defined as sexually explicit material which degrades, debases, and dehumanizes people, generally women, although lacking in explicit depictions of aggression (Check, 1985; Zillmann & Bryant, 1984). Erotica has been defined as sexually explicit material that presents nonviolent, nondegrading, and consensual sexual activity (Fisher & Barak, 1989; see also Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981). These definitions are certainly not perfect: they do not take into account the arousal- and affect-inducing qualities of erotic stimuli (see, for example, Baron, 1977; Griffith, 1985; Sapolsky, 1984; White, 1979), they do not capture additional content dimensions that may prove significant (e.g., “misleading” themes which lay out unrealistic standards of sexual endurance, noncontraceptive or unsafe sex, etc., or “bizarre” or deviant themes such as fetishism or group sex; Barak & Fisher, in press), and they do not consider the possible moderating effects of the active individual who perceives and interprets a sexually explicit stimulus (see, for example, Fisher & Barak, 1989; Mosher, 1988). The content based definitions do, however, call our attention to the critical issue of possible connections between the message that is communicated by a sexually explicit stimulus and its potential effects on attitudes and behavior. Based upon these definitions, for example, it might be expected that violent pornography may influence attitudes and behavior with respect to coercive sexuality, degrading pornography might affect attitudes and behavior concerning dehumanizing sexual activity, and erotica might be most likely to have an impact on attitudes and behavior regarding nondegrading, noncoercive sexual acts. Prevalence of Pornography

and Erotica

Social scientists and policy makers have recently stated that the worst forms of pornographic material are enormously prevalent in our society and are growing more common with time. According to a recent paper in the Psychology of Women Quarter/y, X-rated material in the U.S. represents “ . . . an estimated $8 billion industry of misogyny per year” (Cowan, Lee, Levy, & Snyder, 1988, pp. 309-310), the U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography stated that violent pornographic media are “increasingly, the most prevalent forms of

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pornography” (U.S., 1986, p. 323), a best-selling introductory textbook in human sexuality speculates that $1 billion per year of the U.S. industry involves child pornography (Hyde, 1986), and the popular antipornography documentary, Not a Love Story (Sherr-Klein, 1981), informs us that the pornography industry is dominated by organized crime. Court (1984, p. 150) asserts that “The representation of porno-violence has become part of the culture,” and Page (1989) has very recently argued against any tendency to try to minimize the profusion of violent pornography in our society. With respect to specific studies of the prevalence of violent pornography, Smith (1976) reported that some 20% of the sexual episodes in “adults only” paperback fiction depicted rape; Dietz and Evans (1982) reported an increase in recent years in bondage and domination imagery on adult magazine covers; Malamuth and Spinner (1980) found a significant increase in sexual violence in Playboy and Penthouse magazines from 1973-1977; and Cowan et al. (1988) report that a staggering 5 1% of a sample of recent X-rated videotapes depicted the rape of a woman. While research evidence appears strongly to confirm the prevalence of violent pornography, what is the prevalence of degrading pornography and of erotica in our society? Because definitions of degrading pornography have only been put forward recently, and because the prevalence of erotica has generally been studied only by default (e.g., research on the incidence of violent pornography may be examined for findings regarding the portion of the material sampled that was not violent), there is only one recent study known to us that even approaches the simultaneous assessment of the incidence of degrading pornography compared to erotica. Cowan et al. (1988) studied each of the sexual scenes that were found in 45 X-rated videos that were obtained from commercial outlets in California. Four raters independently assessed the presence of content in the scenes that is reflective of degrading pornography and of erotica. Results showed that a very considerable number of the sexual scenes in these Xrated videos fall into the category of degrading pornography: for example, 39% depicted status inequalities, 28% depicted verbal dominance, 29% depicted voyeurism. In contrast, only about 37% of the sexual scenes involved reciprocal sexual activity consistent with a definition of erotica. It appears, then, that commercially available X-rated videos involve a very large amount of dehumanizing or degrading pornography and a somewhat lesser amount of material that might be considered to comprise erotica. Effects of Pornography and Erotica

Research on the effects of violent pornography, degrading pornography, and erotica has produced what appears to be a highly consistent pattern of findings, and this evidence will be reviewed in the following sections. Effects of Violent Pornography

Violent pornography by definition portrays the utility and normativeness of sexual violence against women and as such might be expected to foster antiwoman thoughts, attitudes, and acts. With respect to antiwoman thoughts and attitudes, it has been found that exposure to violent pornography increases

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men’s tendencies to have fantasies about raping a woman (Malamuth, 1981), increases men’s beliefs that some women secretly wish to be raped (Malamuth & Check, 1981a), and increases men’s acceptance of interpersonal violence against women (Malamuth & Check, 1981b; Zillmann & Bryant, 1984). With respect to aggressive behavior, it has been found repeatedly that men who are exposed to violent pornography are likely to engage in antiwoman aggressive acts in laboratory settings (see Donnerstein, 1984; Donnerstein et al., 1987, for reviews of this literature). For example, in a highly cited study by Donnerstein and Berkowitz (1981), male subjects were either angered by a female confederate or treated equitably by her. The men were then shown either brief neutral, erotic, or violent pornographic movies, and were given the opportunity to aggress against the female confederate by sending electric shocks to her as she performed an experimental task in another room. Exposure to the neutral and erotic stimuli had little apparent effect on men’s aggression towards the woman, but men who had seen violent pornography directed significantly higher levels of electric shock against her, particularly when the men had seen variants of violent pornography which suggested that women “enjoy” (versus abhor) sexual violence. Apparently, exposure to media that portray the normativeness and utility of male sexual aggression against women may foster antiwoman cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors, and this conclusion has been widely reported in the social sciences literature (Donnerstein et al., 1987; Malamuth & Donnerstein, 1984) and has been endorsed strongly by both the U.S. Attorney General (U.S., 1986) and the U.S. Surgeon General (Koop, 1987). Effects of Degrading Pornography Since the definition of degrading pornography as a separate category, research has focused on the effects of such material. Zillmann and Bryant (1984) have proposed that degrading pornography may promote calloused attitudes towards women and distorted perceptions of sexuality because degrading pornography involves: “ . . . the characteristic portrayal of women . . . as socially nondiscriminating, as hysterically euphoric in response to just about any sexual or pseudosexual stimulation, and as eager to accommodate seemingly any and every sexual request.” Results of Zillmann and Bryant’s (1984) research confirmed that long term exposure to degrading pornography (four hours and 48 minutes of exposure across six week’s time) produced distorted impressions of the commonness of some uncommon sexual acts, decreased support for the women’s liberation movement, and decreased punitiveness toward a rapist in a mock trial situation. Interestingly, massive exposure to degrading pornography also resulted in decreased aggression following exposure to additional sexually explicit stimuli, presumably because those who had been massively exposed to degrading pornography beforehand had become habituated to such stimuli and no longer responded as strongly to it. Subsequent research has suggested that prolonged exposure to degrading pornography produces an increased appetite for uncommon and violent pornography (Zillmann & Bryant, 1986), and demonstrates that prolonged exposure may also result in significant decreases in individual’s satisfaction with their intimate partners’ physical appearance and sexual performance and in increased tolerance for sex without emotional in-

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volvement (Zillmann & Bryant, 1988). Hence, research appears to indicate that the sexual and relationship ethics communicated in degrading pornography may have an impact on individuals’ personal views on such matters. Effects of Erotica

Erotica, as defined herein, portrays nondegrading and nonviolent sexual activity, and as such might be expected to facilitate such sexual activity. Research beginning with the U.S. President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (U.S., 1970) and continuing thereafter has consistently found that exposure to erotica engenders small, short-term increases in the type of sexual activity that an individual or a couple is already accustomed to (see, for example, Cattell, Kawash, & DeYoung, 1972; Fisher & Byrne, 1978; Mann, Sidman & Starr, 1973; Mosher, 1973; Schmidt & Sigusch, 1973). The modest effects of exposure to erotica in terms of activating preexisting patterns of nonviolent sexual behavior has been observed across cultures, across single individuals and married couples, and across student and nonstudent samples (Fisher, 1986). In view of the fact that erotica portrays nonviolent and noncoercive sexual activity, it would not be expected that erotica would influence aggressive behavior, and research findings have been consistent with this proposition (see Donnerstein, 1984; Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981). For example, in the Donnerstein and Berkowitz (1981) research described above, angered males were exposed to neutral fare or to erotica or violent pornography. Compared to males who viewed neutral material, exposure to erotica produced no increases in antiwoman aggression, while exposure to violent pornography did produce such increases in aggression. According to Donnerstein (1984, p. 79), “When [stimulus] materials were chosen to reflect . . . truly erotic content, no negative effects were observed” (material in brackets added). In summary, then, research has rather consistently suggested that the effects of violent pornography, degrading pornography, and erotica are a function of the content of these media. Violent pornography endorses sexual violence and seems to produce such effects, degrading pornography endorses dehumanized sex and seems to result in dehumanized views of sexuality, and erotica portrays nonviolent sexuality and seems to foster modest increases in nonviolent sexual expression. The Prevalence and Effects of Pornography:

A Heretical Closer Look

Although science and policy making would be vastly simpler if findings regarding the prevalence and effects of pornography were uncontested, such is not at all the case. During the past five years or so, a truly staggering but as yet uncollected body of literature has emerged that is either highly inconsistent with, or directly critical of, the notion that pornography is prevalent or is causally related to antiwoman attitudes and antiwoman aggression. With respect to the prevalence of violent pornography, research by the Canadian Badgley Committee on Sexual Offenses Against Children (Badgley, 1984), by Palys (1986), by Winick (1985), and by Scott and Cuvelier (1987), as well as reviews by Donnerstein et al. (1987) and by Malamuth (1986), directly conflict

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with prevailing wisdom about the degree to which our society is saturated with violent pornography. With respect to the presumed link between exposure to pornography and antiwoman attitudes and antiwoman aggression, a similar, large body of research and critique exists to question the notion of causal relationships (for critiques of the pornography-attitude change literature, see, for example, Brannigan, 1987; Christensen, 1986; Donnerstein et al., 1987; Linz, 1989; for critiques of the pornography-aggression literature, see, for example, Brannigan & Goldenberg, 1987; Brannigan & Kapardis, 1986; Fisher & Barak, 1989; Freedman, 1988; Mould, 1988 a, b; O’Grady, 1988). Similarly, the use of imperfect social science data in legal proceedings has been criticized (Brannigan & Goldenberg, 1986), the conclusions of the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Surgeon General, based in part on social science data, have been criticized (Malamuth, 1989a; Linz et al., 1987), and even critics of this research have themselves been recently criticized (Page, 1989)! In the next section of our paper, we will review some of the more important criticisms of research with respect to the prevalence and negative effects of pornography. The Prevalence of Violent and Degrading Pornography:

A Closer Look

It will be recalled that various investigators have reported that the amount of violent pornography is at a high level and is increasing across time (Cowan et al., 1988; Deitz & Evans, 1982; Malamuth & Spinner, 1980; Smith, 1976), and that the U.S. Attorney General’s Commission (U.S., 1986) reported that violent pornography was among the most prevalent forms of sexually explicit media. As so often proves to be the case in this research domain, however, there is also a body of starkly inconsistent data that is rarely referred to in the headlong rush for consensus about this issue. With respect to sexual violence in mass circulation sex magazines, for example, Malamuth and Spinner (1980) found a steady increase in sexual violence in Playboy and Penthouse from a low of about 1% in 1973 to a high of about 5% in 1977. In complete contrast, Scott and Cuvelier (1987) also studied Playboy and found that, across the past 30 years of this magazine’s existence, an extremely low level of sexual violence was evident in cartoons (.58 sexually violent cartoons per issue) and in pictorials (. 16 sexually violent pictorials per issue), that the level of sexual violence had never exceeded l%, and that even this minuscule level is decreasing in recent years. Similarly, Winick (1985), in a content analysis of 430 sexually explicit magazines, found that only 1.4% In still further research, the Canadian depicted violence or domination. Badgley Committee on Sex Offences Against Children and Youth found that in the top selling 11 Canadian sex magazines, only 1.2% of the photographs and 3.7% of the text depicted force or violence against any victim (Canada, 1984). Still another approach to understanding the prevalence of pornography was taken by Tjaden (1988), who surveyed the impact of pornography as a source of adolescent sexual information, and found that both male and female adolescents listed pornography as their least important source of sexual information. With respect to sexual violence in videotapes, it will be recalled that Cowan et al. (1988) reported that some 51% of X-rated videotapes sampled depicted the rape of a woman. However, in another study of X-rated videos, Palys (1986)

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found vastly less sexual violence, determined that the amount of sexual violence in X-rated videos has actually been decreasing across recent years, and found that there was less sexual violence in X-rated videos than in less explicit “adult” videotapes. Based on a review of such highly inconsistent findings, Donnerstein et al. (1987, p. al) reached what may be the only possible conclusion: “At least for now, we cannot legitimately conclude that pornography has become more violent since the time of the 1970 Obscenity and Pornography Commission.” (see also Linz et al., 1987). Although these authors took pains to note that the sheer volume of sexually explicit material has increased over the years, and with it the chance of encountering sexually violent material, they were roundly criticized by Page (1989) for attempting to qualify conclusions about the presumed saturation of our society with violent pornography. What accounts for the dramatic inconsistency that is observed in findings for the prevalence of violent pornography? To some extent, differing criteria for the measurement of violent images and differing sampling strategies and locations may account for some of the discrepancies in some of the research (e.g., Cowan et al.‘s versus Palys’ findings for X-rated videos), and, to some extent, the discrepancies are simply daunting and difficult or impossible to explain (e.g., Malamuth and Spinner’s versus Scott and Cuvelier’s very different findings for the prevalence of sexual violence in the same magazine over some of the same years of publication). Whatever else may be said, it is clear that there remain more questions than answers about the commonness of depictions of sexual violence in our media. An additional caveat ought to be raised with respect to Cowan et al.% (1988) findings for the prevalence of degrading pornography in X-rated videotapes. It is true that Cowan et al. (1988) identified a fairly large number of sexual scenes within X-rated videotapes that were expressive of the themes of degrading pornography (e.g., status inequalities, verbal dominance). However, it is critical to emphasize that this research was an uncontrolled investigation, in the sense that the content categories under study were not applied to nonsexual media as well as sexual media in an effort to map out the relative incidence of degrading and dehumanizing themes in sexual versus nonsexual fare. Based on Cowan et al.‘s (1988) research, we do not know the comparative frequency of expressions of degrading and dehumanizing themes in sexually explicit media versus, for example, daytime television commercials, soap operas, general release movies, childrens’ picture books, or fundamentalist religious sermons. While the Cowan et al. (1988) results suggest that degradation and dehumanization are common themes in sexually explicit media-a finding that should be troubling in its own right-we have no way of knowing whether such themes are more common or in fact less common in sexually explicit media compared to nonsexual media in our decidedly dehumanizing society, and conclusions about the degree to which sexually explicit media are or are not distinctive in this regard remain among many as yet unanswered questions in this area. The Effects of Pornography

on Attitudes and Behavior: A Closer Look

The confident pronouncements of certain social scientists and governmental commissions notwithstanding, the conclusion that exposure to pornography

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produces negative effects on attitudes and behavior is by no means universally supported (see, for example, Brannigan & Goldenberg, 1987b; Canada, 1985; Fisher, 1986; Fisher & Barak, 1989; Freedman, 1988; McGuire, 1985; Mosher, 1985, 1986; Palys & Lowman, 1984; U.K., 1979). Criticisms of research concerning the negative effects of pornography include assertions that this work is based on overly naive theory, that there is much evidence that is inconsistent with supposed negative effects of pornography, that there have been failures to replicate “classic” effects in this area, and that the research is of such profoundly limited ecological validity as to have little to contribute to the understanding of the effects of pornography in natural settings. Representative of these criticisms is the conclusion of the Canadian government’s Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution (Canada, 1985, p. 99) which reviewed the research evidence in this area: Although the Committee was frequently told that studies clearly demonstrate that harms to society and to individuals were associated with the availability and use of pornography, we have to conclude, very reluctantly, that the available research is of very limited use in addressing these questions . . . the research is so inadequate and chaotic that no consistent body of information has been established. In the next section, we will consider a number of criticisms of the research and conclusions with respect to the effects of exposure to pornography. Theoretical

NaiketC

It seems obvious to us that exposure to media models is not the sole nor even the most important determinant of human behavior, but this point is often lost in research and debate with respect to pornography. Human behavior is undoubtedly heavily affected by a lifelong learning history concerning which behaviors are “wrong” and which behaviors are “right,” and concerning which behaviors are likely to be punished and which are likely to be rewarded (Rotter, Chance, & Phares, 1972; Skinner, 1953, 1974). Underlying discussion of effects of pornography, however, there seems to be an implicit “monkey see-monkey do” theory of media effects, but human beings are not monkeys, and human behavior is not equivalent to the last model, nor even all of the models, that an individual has observed. There is a cognitively active organism involved in perceiving and interpreting pornographic stimuli, an organism with a very long reinforcement history and with very clear expectations regarding the consequences of extreme and unacceptable actions (Bandura, 1986). Human behavior is governed by multiple, ongoing, and cumulative forces and is remarkably stable over time and resistant to change (Epstein, 1979), and we think that the assumption that individuals are easily moved by pornography to attitudes and actions that are at profound variance with the rest of their learning history is a naive and oversimplified view. (For exceptions that discuss the perceiver of pornography, see Malamuth, 1989b; Mosher, 1988). It has often been argued that exposure to pornographic models accumulates across time and hence gains increasing power to determine behavior. However, it

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also seems clear that exposure to experiences which reinforce self-control and social decency also accumulate across time and at a rate and consistency that produces stronger effects than experience with misogynistic models. As a corollary, it is also asserted that pornography has particularly strong effects because it reinforces antiwoman values that are pervasive in our society. However, it is our view that pornography actually violates so many fundamental social values - with respect to violence, decency, coercion, and the treatment of women-that it may be a particularly ineffectual determinant of behavior. Finally, it is often argued that there are certain undersocialized and “degenerate” individuals in society who are so lacking in internal restraints that they are easily influenced by media models and copy the antisocial prescriptions of such models. We acknowledge that such individuals exist, but we question whether it would be possible to structure and sanitize the world as to prevent all possible antisocial models from negatively influencing these persons. For individuals who are profoundly lacking in internal restraints, or for whom fantasy and reality do not differ, or for whom the outcomes of behavior have little meaning, the evening news, the Bible, or violent pornography can and probably do trigger antisocial acts, but it would seem most appropriate to try to deal directly with such individuals rather than to censor the diversity of stimuli that may move them to antisocial behavior. Overall, then, it is our position that the individual and his or her learning history, internal restraints, values, and expectancies have been largely lost in overly naive conceptualizations of the possible effects of pornography. For a person who has been adequately socialized in our culture, pornography may in fact be a weak, discrepant, and marginal influence on behavior. For an individual who has not been adequately socialized, but not for persons in general, pornography or any other media message may indeed produce antisocial effects. Inconsistent

Evidence

A wealth of evidence exists that is wholly inconsistent with the notion that pornography typically produces antisocial effects, but such research has not figured prominently enough in the continuing debate about effects of pornographic stimuli. Minimal Real World Effects of Nonsexually

Violent Media

Research on the effects of nonsexually violent media in natural settings may be informative with respect to possible real world effects of sexually violent media. While it is routinely taught that exposure to nonsexually violent media has substantial effects on aggression in natural settings, this view has recently been strongly criticized. For example, McGuire (1985, p. 280) has noted in the Handbook of Social Psychology that: Aesthetic revulsion and moral unease leave me wishing for a reduction of the high level of violence in television and other popular entertainment media. However, the demonstrated effect is so small in magnitude that I am loathe to urge censorship that would restrict freedom of expression . . .

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By the same token, literature, Freedman

following a voluminous (1984, p. 234) concludes

review of the television that:

violence

as a whole, this research offers only the slightest encouragement for the causal hypothesis. Indeed, many readers might be inclined to interpret it as evidence against a causal effect of television on aggression. To the extent that a link between nonsexual media violence and aggressive behavior has been questioned, skepticism may also be justified with respect to the presumed link between sexually aggressive media and aggressive behavior. Minimal Real-World Effects of Violent Pornography There have been a good many failures to demonstrate a relationship between exposure to pornography and the performance of sexual violence in natural settings. Some of these studies involve research on sex criminals’ use of pornography, while other research has examined the impact of increases in the availability of pornography on aggregated sex crime statistics in various jurisdictions. With respect to the use of pornography by sex criminals and sex deviates, at least five studies known to us have failed to observe the expected link between experience with pornography and sexually deviant or violent behavior. Goldstein (1973, p. 218), for instance, studied sex deviates’ and controls’ use of what would be defined herein as erotica and pornography and found that: When we compare the reports of exposure to erotica across all groups, it appears that all groups of sex deviates report less than average exposure as compared to the controls. Similarly, Gebhard, Gagnon, Pomeroy, and Christensen (1965) studied 2721 sex offenders and matched controls, and found no correlation of sexual offense with the amount or frequency of experience with pornography, although other characteristics were found to characterize the offender (versus control) population. Likewise, Abel, Becker, and Mittleman (1985), in a study of 256 sex offenders, reported that less than 1% appear to have been influenced by sexually explicit material in the commission of sex-related offenses. In related research, Rubin (1970) surveyed 3400 clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, asking whether pornography had appeared as a significant factor in causing sexual deviance among the clients of these therapists. Eighty percent of the therapists reported seeing no evidence of pornography as an influence in the development of patients’ sexual deviance, while only 7% of the therapists were of the opinion that pornography might have been an influence in this regard. In a similar survey of therapists, Katzman (1969) found virtually the same results. Recently, Marshall (1988) has reported contrasting findings to suggest that a substantial number of sex offenders reported that pornography had influenced their behavior, while Becker (1991) has recently reported precisely the opposite result in that her sample of juvenile sex offenders almost never mentioned pornography as a cause of their deviant behavior. Conceivably, sex offenders

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are eager to make an external attribution for their criminal behavior and hence blame pornography (e.g., Marshall, 1988), but when Becker interviewed her subjects, she was careful to utilize a questioning strategy that did not provide pornography as a ready made excuse for criminal activity. Overall, there are a very large number of studies which have failed to find the use of pornography as a causal factor in the history of sexual criminals and deviates, and these findings are highly inconsistent with the notion of a direct link between pornography and sexual aggression. With respect to the impact of increasing amounts of pornography on aggregate sex crime statistics, three studies known to us have failed to establish a link between the availability of pornography and the incidence of sex-related crimes. Kutchinsky (1973) studied the impact of the legalization of most forms of sexual material in Denmark in 1965 on the occurrence of sex crime in that country. Contrary to what would be expected if there was a robust pornography-aggression link, the legalization of sexually explicit material was associated with either no change or with a decrease in various categories of sex crime, and such findings have served as the basis for discussion of a “catharsis” or “substitution” hypothesis with respect to pornography and sex crime (see Kutchinsky, 1973; Rubin, 1970). Moreover, Kutchinsky (1985; 1991) has replicated these findings in a recent paper which indicates that the legalization of sexually explicit material in West Germany was also associated with either no change or with a decrease in various categories of sex crime. In still more research on the pornography-aggression link in natural settings, Abramson and Hayashi (1984) studied the incidence of violent pornography and sex crime in Japan. According to these investigators, “the juxtaposition of sexuality and aggression is evident in almost all forms of Japanese sexual material. . . . If there is a direct connection between the prevalence of rape imagery and rape behavior, Japan should have an overwhelming occurrence of rape” (p. 181). Despite the very high prevalence of rape theme pornography in Japan, however, this nation has an extraordinary low incidence of reported rape (2.4 per 100,000, compared to 34.5 per 100,000 in the U.S.). In contrast to these findings for no association or a negative association between prevalence of pornography and occurrence of sex crime, two studies claim to have found evidence for a positive relationship between the two (Baron & Straus, 1984; Court, 1984), although Court’s research line has been severely criticized (Brannigan & Kapardis, 1986), and Baron and Straus’ (1984) findings may need to be qualified in light of inconsistent evidence reported both by Scott (1985) and by Baron and Straus (1986) who reported that the relationship became nonsignificant when controlling for macho attitudes. Overall, the number of studies which have failed to find a link between the prevalence of pornography and aggregate occurrence of sex crime is considerable and is highly inconsistent with the presumption of direct links between pornography and antisocial behavior. Failures to Replicate Negative Effects of Pornography If pornography reliably produces negative effects on attitudes and behavior, it ought to be relatively easy to replicate such effects in various laboratories with

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various experiments, subjects, pornographic stimuli, and procedures, but such does not always prove to be the case. With respect to the presumed negative effects of degrading pornography, for example, Linz (1989) has recently reviewed some 14 experiments that deal in part with the relationship between exposure to degrading pornography and the trivialization of rape. Based on the failure of these studies to produce replicable, consistent results, Linz (1989, p. 74) has reported that “we would have to conclude that the data, overall, do not support the contention that exposure to nonviolent pornography has significant adverse effects on attitudes toward rape as a crime or more general evaluations of rape victims.” Moreover, Garcia (1986) adopted a correlational approach to this issue and studied the possible relation of individuals’ level of use of pornography and their attitudes towards women and rape. Only weak and inconsistent evidence was found for a link between the two. Finally, Padgett, Brislin-Slutz, and Neal (1989) report both laboratory and field research which demonstrated no relationship between exposure to primarily degrading pornography and negative attitudes towards women. With respect to the replicability of negative effects of violent pornography, Fisher and Grenier (1991; see also Fisher & Barak, 1989) have reported a series of relevant studies. It has been widely publicized that exposure to violent pornography may lead men to fantasize about rape (Malamuth, 1981) and to alter their attitudes so as to be more tolerant of interpersonal violence against women and of rape (Linz, 1989; Malamuth, 1984; Malamuth & Check, 1981b). To study the robustness of such effects, Fisher and Grenier (1991) edited four 5 minute long stimulus films; one depicted neutral fare, one contained concentrated erotic materials as defined earlier; one contained concentrated violent pornography in which a rape occurs and the victim ends up “enjoying” her plight; and one contained concentrated violent pornography involving a rape with a victim who abhors such treatment. Under the guise of mass pretesting of stimuli and questionnaires, male subjects first saw one of the four stimuli, and were later asked to write a sexual fantasy for the experimenter. Then, the experimenter “terminated” this part of the research, and another experimenter arrived to conduct seemingly separate questionnaire research which involved completion of the Attitudes Towards Women Scale (Spence & Helmreich, 1972), the Acceptance of Women as Managers Scale (Peters, Terborg, & Taynor, 1974), the Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence Scale (Burt, 1980), and the Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Burt, 1980). Manipulation checks revealed that subjects perceived the sexual videotapes as equally arousing, and differentially perceived the themes of these videotapes as intended. Moreover, specific probing revealed that subjects were almost entirely unable to guess at the purpose of this research. Despite exposure to brief but concentrated erotic and violent pornographic stimuli- stimuli which have seemingly proven strong enough in past research to motivate rape fantasy (Malamuth, 1981) and antiwoman aggression (Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981), no subject in any experimental condition produced a fantasy about rape, and exposure to erotic or pornographic stimuli (versus neutral fare) had no effect on attitudes towards women, acceptance of women as managers, acceptance of interpersonal violence, or rape myth acceptance. These findings suggest that it may be quite difficult to replicate presum-

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EROTICA, AND BEHAVIOR

ably robust effects of exposure to violent and degrading pornography, again we are left with more questions than answers about this issue. Limited Ecological

77

and

Validity

It has been pointed out that laboratory paradigms for the study of pornography and aggression are not representative of the salient characteristics of natural settings. Hence, the poor analogues provided by laboratory research may tell us little or nothing about the relation of pornography and aggression in the real world (Copp, 1983; Fisher, 1986; Fisher & Barak, 1989; Palys & Lowman, 1984). Indeed, this may be the reason why research in natural settings has often failed to identify links between pornography and antiwoman aggression, in stark contrast to the laboratory studies in this area. While ecological validity may be irrelevant to the detection of theoretically interesting relationships, it is critical to the construction of research which seeks to model the naturally occurring consequences of exposure to pornography. Widely cited laboratory research on pornography and aggression suffers from a number of limitations on ecological validity that, we propose, make this research uninformative for the purpose of understanding the effects of pornography in the real world. Artificial Behavioral Constraints

In laboratory research on pornography and aggression, men are either angered or treated equitably by a female, they see neutral, erotic, or pornographic fare, and then they are told by the experimenter to send electric shock to the female confederate each time she makes a mistake in performing an experimental task (Donnerstein, 1984; Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981). Typically, angered men who have seen violent pornography send higher levels of electric shock than do men in other experimental conditions. The fact that males who have been told to aggress, and who in fact have no other response option available to them, do so, is not surprising. This research tells us almost nothing about how angered men who have seen violent pornography might react in natural settings where nonaggressive response options are available to them. While some would argue that the fact that angered men who have seen violent pornography aggress at the highest level, we would question whether they would have aggressed at all had they had any other response option available to them. What if the males in question could talk to the female confederate? What if they could just walk away? Fisher and Grenier (1991) have studied the effects of ecologically invalid behavioral constraints in the laboratory paradigm that is used for the study of pornography and aggression. These investigators replicated the critical condition in Donnerstein and Berkowitz’s (1981) laboratory research on this issue: male subjects were angered and attacked by a female confederate who delivered both a negative performance evaluation and a series of electrical shocks to them, they viewed violent pornography with a “positive” outcome for the victim, and were then seated before a shock generator. Instead of being told to send electric shock to the female confederate in the other room, however, subjects were given the choice of sending electric shock to the female who had

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previously angered them, or of talking to her over an intercom, or of simply finishing their experimental participation at that point. Of 14 angered males who participated in this critical condition, fully 12 chose to engage in nonaggressive behaviors (e.g., talking over the intercom, or finishing their participation in the study) rather than attacking the female who had tormented them earlier! Thus, the ability to obtain “classic” findings for pornography and laboratory aggression may be limited to specific, ecologically invalid, behaviorally constraining procedures that are used in laboratory research but which do not characterize natural settings. What if angered male subjects who have seen pornography could just walkaway? They do so in overwhelming numbers. Aggression

in a Punishment-

and Guilt-free Environment

Traditional laboratory experiments on pornography and aggression take place in a setting where male aggressors are protected from retaliation and from guilt. Male subjects do not fear punishment from the experimenter, who has in fact told them to aggress, they do not fear retaliation from the victim, whose experimental role prevents her from striking back, and the male is typically physically distant from the woman and cannot observe potentially guilt-inducing consequences to the victim, nor does he likely believe that he is doing rapelike harm to her (Brannigan & Goldenberg, 1987; Milgram, 1974). Thus, in the traditional laboratory paradigm, male “aggressors” have not only been told to aggress and constrained from making nonaggressive responses, but they also may aggress without fear of naturally occurring consequences (guilt, retaliation, etc.) that may ordinarily inhibit such behavior. Once again, the laboratory paradigm may so inadequately represent natural settings and the naturally occurring cognitions and feelings of individuals that extrapolation to such settings is not possible. Unrepresentative

Subjects, Unrepresentative

Stimuli

In laboratory studies of pornography and aggression, university students are typically shown extreme versions of violent pornography. Both the subjects and the stimuli in such research may not be representative of persons and sexually explicit material in general. University students are probably more behaviorally restrained than many other groups in society, and reliance on such subjects may result in serious underestimation of pornography-induced harm. On the other hand, it is entirely unclear as to whether individuals often voluntarily expose themselves to the worst forms of violent pornography that are under study. There is in fact a tantalizing bit of data which indicates that individuals may be highly unlikely to choose to see violent pornography. Zillmann and Bryant (1986) report that in a free choice situation, persons who had not been massively pre-exposed to erotica chose to watch approximately three times as much G, R, and X rated material as they did bondage, sadomasochism, and bestiality stimuli. Thus, the traditional laboratory experiment may be modeling exposure to a kind of stimulus that people like those under study rarely choose to see. It should be noted that persons who had been massively preexposed to degrading erotica in Zillmann and Bryant (1986a) were more likely to choose to see bond-

PORNOGRAPHY,

age, sadomasochism, In our view, this did stimuli, but because erotica and wished to

EROTICA, AND BEHAVIOR

79

and bestiality stimuli than the G, R, and X rated stimuli. not necessarily occur because they now preferred such they were bored with their massive exposure to other terminate this boredom by watching new stimuli.

Biased Interpretation It has been argued that the interpretation of research findings on pornography may be biased by the researcher’s values or the research community’s expectations (see Brannigan, 1987; Christensen, 1986). For example, Zillmann and Bryant (1984, p. 134) have reported that massive exposure to degrading pornography produces “a general trivialization of rape.” However, Brannigan (1987) has pointed out that the sentences meted out by Zillmann and Bryant’s (1984) massively exposed subjects were more accurate than were the sentences given by control subjects, relative to the punishment that rapists typically receive. By the same token, Zillmann and Bryant (1988) report that massive exposure to degrading pornography made subjects less satisfied with their own sexual partners. However, Christensen (1986) has pointed out that media-induced dissatisfaction may not be an entirely negative phenomena, and may indeed be a necessary condition for the decision to initiate positive changes. The point to be made here is that, even ignoring methodological difficulties, the task of interpreting research findings is a difficult one that will be colored by values and expectations. Are the lessened but more accurate rape sentences given out after exposure to pornography “good” or “bad?” Are the dissatisfactions subjects may feel following exposure to pornography “healthy yearnings” or “impossible dreams?”

Where Do We Go From Here?

It is our view that problems with theoretical naivete, inconsistent evidence, failures to replicate, and limited ecological validity leave us with far more questions than answers with respect to the prevalence and effects of pornography and erotica. While it seems premature to base public policy and legal judgments upon this uncertain set of findings, it would seem important to act to stimulate both education and further research in this area. Parenthetically, we should emphasize that our critique deals with the effects of pornography on observers, but we of course, acknowledge that there may be negative effects on individuals who are forced participants in the production of pornography, and such coercion must be combatted (see Burgess, 1984 for a discussion of coerced participation in the production of pornography). Education

We have argued elsewhere that, regardless of the results of existing research on pornography, the mere existence of media which prescribes an antihuman agenda is philosophically abhorrent and justifies efforts to educationally immunize people against such values (Fisher & Barak, 1989). Specific educational strategies have been developed to promote rejection of the message of porno-

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graphic media, including heightening individuals’ awareness of the content of such material, engaging individuals’ existing values of decency and fair play against the values of pornography, and the use of various social influence techniques to promote rejection of the message of some pornographic material. Moreover, we would like to advocate going one step further, and that involves educational and social policy interventions that deal directly with the problems that pornography is presumed to create or reinforce: gender inequality and sexual violence. As social scientists we are uncomfortable with the inconsistency and quality of research on pornography. Despite this it is obvious that gender inequality and sexual violence exist as tragic social and personal problems in our society and ought to be combatted with the most direct educational, social and legal policies. Future Research

Our review suggests that the existing research is not yet adequate, in methodology or conclusions, to serve as a basis for public policy or legal judgments with respect to pornography. It is suggested that, at a minimum, improved ecological validity is necessary if future research is usefully to inform policy and legal judgment in this area. Research on the effects of pornography must sample ecologically representative types and “dosage” levels of sexually explicit material, with ecologically more representative types of subjects, who have access to an ecologically more valid range of response options. Together with the construction of more ecologically valid experiments, much remains to be learned from sex offenders themselves, by careful interview and other methods, concerning the role pornography and other factors may play in the development of such behavior. No matter what improved laboratory constructions may tell us about the possible role of pornography, it is also critical that we learn as much as possible about the actual role of pornography in the development of sexually criminal behavior in natural settings. We are optimistic that innovations such as these will build a more replicable base for informing public wisdom and action in this area. References Abel, G. G., Becker, J. V., & Mittleman, M. S. (1985). Sex offenders. Paper presented at the 11th annual meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research, Seattle, WA. Abramson, P. R., & Hayashi, H. (1984). Pornography in Japan: Cross-cultural and theoretical considerations. In N. M. Malamuth & E. Donnerstein (Eds.), Pornography and sexual aggression (pp. 173-183). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Bandura, A. (1965). Vicarious processes: A case of no-trial learning. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimentalsociulpsychology (Vol. 2, pp. 3-35). New York: Academic Press. Bandura, A. (1986). Sociulfoundufions ofthought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Barak, A., & Fisher, W. A. (in press). Effects of pornographic material and possible means for minimizing them. Psychology and Counselling in Education. [Hebrew]. Baron, L., & Straus, M. A. (1984). Sexual stratification, pornography, and rape in the United States. In N. M. Malamuth & E. Donnerstein (Eds.), Pornography and sexual aggression (pp. 185-209). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Baron, L., & Straus, M. A. (1986, June). Rape and ifs relation to social disorganization, pornography and sexual inequality in the United Stutes. Paper presented at the International Congress on Rape, Tel Aviv, Israel, June. Baron, R. A. (1977). Human aggression. New York: Plenum.

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