Authors’ Correction Letter

This article refers to:

What Types of Pornography Do People Use and Do They Cluster? Assessing Types and Categories of Pornography Consumption in a Large-Scale Online Sample

Our paper titled “What Types of Pornography Do People Use and Do They Cluster? Assessing Types and Categories of Pornography Consumption in a Large-Scale Online Sample” contains an error. In essence, what we measured and discussed in the paper was not, as stated, “frequency of use” of the 27 different types of pornography assessed but instead “sexual arousal” related to the 27 different types of pornography assessed.

The actual wording of the question was “Please indicate how arousing you find each of the following types of pornography” and not, as erroneously reported, “To what extent have you used the following types of pornography?” The response options for the question are correct as stated in the article. The error occurred early in the writing process, when the second author mistakenly took the wording of a similar indicator (the one which focused on the frequency of using different types of pornographic contents) for the wording of the target indicator. In our data set the frequency indicator immediately preceded the indicator of arousal. We apologize for the mistake.

Although there are reasons to expect, at least theoretically, substantial correlations between being sexually aroused by certain types of pornography and the frequency by which they are used (Hald, Seaman, & Linz, 2014; Kingston, Fedoroff, Firestone, Curry, & Bradford, 2008), the two represent distinct constructs. However, in light of the likely relationship between the two constructs we believe that our analyses and ideas outlined in the article are still valid and relevant. Consequently, the new scale that we proposed in the article (see Appendix A) indicates a specific pornography-related sexual arousal pattern and not a frequency of use pattern. When using the scale, the wording of the question should read: “Using the 5-point scale below, please indicate how arousing you find each of the following types of pornography.” The authors would welcome replication studies using the scale with both “sexual arousal” and “frequency of use” wordings.

The correct titles of the five tables in the paper should read: Mean Level of Sexual Arousal to Different Types of Pornography Among Heterosexual Men and Women (Table 1); Mean Level of Sexual Arousal to Different Types of Pornography Among Nonheterosexual Men and Women (Table 2); Factor Loadings for Exploratory Factor Analysis With Oblimin Rotation of Sexual Arousal to Different Types of Pornography Among Heterosexual Men (Table 3); Factor Loadings for Exploratory Factor Analysis With Oblimin Rotation of Sexual Arousal to Different Types of Pornography Among Heterosexual Women (Table 4); Factor Loadings for Exploratory Factor Analysis With Oblimin Rotation of Sexual Arousal to Different Types of Pornography Among Nonheterosexual Men (Table 5); Factor Loadings for Exploratory Factor Analysis With Oblimin Rotation of Sexual Arousal to Different Types of Pornography Among Nonheterosexual Women (Table 6); and Factors Loadings for Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Pattern of Sexual Arousal to Nonmainstream Pornography (Table 7).

Finally, the corrected title of our paper should be “What Types of Pornography Do People Find Arousing and Do They Cluster? Assessing Types and Categories of Pornography in a Large-Scale Online Sample.”