Does Religious Attendance Moderate the Connection Between Pornography Consumption and Attitudes Toward Women?

Abstract

Feminist theory and religious doctrines alike often suggest that pornography alters the attitudes of those who consume it, particularly with respect to how consumers view women. Many would assume that pornography would universally encourage sexism and female objectification, but recent evidence has linked pornography use with more gender egalitarian views. Using data from a large-scale, nationally representative survey, we argue that cognitive dissonance among pornography consumers could alter egalitarian attitudes. We found that those who reported consuming pornography had more egalitarian attitudes than those who did not, but this difference was stronger among those who attended religious services more regularly—those who would be likely to experience dissonance when consuming pornography. This pattern was consistent across the three egalitarian attitudes we examined: attitudes toward women in power, women in the workplace, and abortion. Our results suggest that pornography might foster progressive attitudes among those most likely to hold conservative beliefs.

Notes

¹ Readers may consult Peter & Valkenburg (2016) for a review of evidence connecting pornography use and gender-stereotypical beliefs in adolescents.

² We also conducted supplementary analyses assessing whether our findings differed across survey year. Survey year significantly moderated the connections between pornography and attitudes toward abortion, with the association strengthening as time passes. No other significant two or three-way interactions were observed. The full analyses are available upon request.

³ Note that our original rationale also included a prediction that pornography consumption would be associated with less egalitarian attitudes among the less-religious, as the less-religious might be likely to espouse second-wave feminist values against pornography use (and pornography-related dissonance could thus erode those values). We ultimately decided, however, that religiosity was a poor proxy for feminist values, leading us to drop that prediction. An earlier version of this manuscript is available upon request which explores those issues in more depth.