Linking Pornography Consumption to Support for Adolescents' Access to Birth Control: Cumulative Results from Multiple Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal National Surveys

ABSTRACT

This article reports the results of three meta-samples investigating U.S. adults' pornography consumption, attitudes toward teen sex, and support for teen access to birth control. Findings were based on multiple independent samples totaling more than 11,000 people. Pragmatic motivations included examining what public health advocacy groups would consider a positive public opinion effect of pornography at a potentially pivotal time for U.S. policy makers. Theoretical motivations included probing key tenets from the sexual script acquisition, activation, application model (₃AM) of sexual media socialization and the reinforcing spirals model (RSM) of media uses and effects. Consistent with the ₃AM, path and mediation analyses of both cross-sectional and longitudinal data suggested that pornography consumption may increase support for teens' birth control access through a shift in perspective on teen sex. In alignment with the RSM, participants' prior beliefs and attitudes were prospectively predictive of their likelihood of future pornography consumption.

KEYWORDS:

• Pornography
• public opinion
• public health
• ₃AM
• reinforcing spirals model

Notes

¹ We also tested whether support for teen access to birth control may mediate the relationship between pornography consumption and attitudes toward teen sex. The fit of the model, which included both lagged and demographic covariates, was good, χ²(53) = 343.76, p < .001, CFI = .98, RMSEA = .076, 90% CI: .069, .084, SRMR = .03. The path from pornography consumption at T1 to support for birth control at T2 was significant (β = .06, SE = .03, p = .04), and the path from support for birth control at T2 to attitudes toward teen sex at T3 was also significant (β = .11, SE = .03, p < .001). This hypothetical alternative model comports with the observed data. This does not mean, however, that we should accept the alternative model as true. The most important constituent of model support is whether the proposed pathways among the constructs in the model are consistent with theory. In this case, the temporal sequencing of the models we propose follow directly from established theories. We cannot rationalize theoretically the reversal of teen sex attitudes and birth control support.

² Direct paths from the predictor to the criterion were added to the mediation models that tested the main hypotheses of this project, which also included the control variables. The addition of these paths did not affect the intermediary linkages between pornography consumption and attitudes toward teen sex or between attitudes toward teen sex and support for teen access to birth control. In Study 1, pornographic movie consumption was directly associated with support for teen access to birth control (β = .06, SE = 0.01, p < .001). In Study 2, pornographic website consumption was not directly associated with support for teen access to birth control (β = .03, SE = 0.03, p = .45). In Study 3, W1 pornographic movie consumption did not directly predict W3 support for teen access to birth control (β = .02, SE = 0.03, p = .43). The direct effect was also nonsignificant for the reversal causal path. Support for teen access to birth control at W1was not associated with pornographic movie consumption at W3 (β = -.01, SE = 0.03, p = .74).