Preliminary Insights from a U.S. Probability Sample on Adolescents’ Pornography Exposure, Media Psychology, and Sexual Aggression

Abstract

Sexual aggression is now widely recognized as a public health crisis. Using the sexual script acquisition, activation, application model (₃AM) as a guide, this paper reports findings on U.S. teenagers’ exposure to pornography, motivation for viewing pornography, perceptions of pornography’s realism, identification with pornographic actors, and sexual aggression risk from the National Survey of Porn Use, Relationships, and Sexual Socialization (NSPRSS), a U.S. population-based probability study. Sexual aggression was operationalized as pressuring another person into having sex despite their explicit declaration of nonconsent. Having been exposed to pornography and perceiving pornography as realistic were associated with increased sexual aggression risk. A stronger level of identification with pornographic actors was associated with an increased probability of sexual aggression for males, but not females. A motivation to learn about others’ sexual expectations from pornography was unrelated to sexual aggression. Results interpretation and discussion focus on the need for additional theoretical nuance and measurement specificity in the media psychology literature on pornography and sexual aggression.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the following for their generous support of our research: Julie Parker Benello, Abigail E. Disney, Natasha and David Dolby, Embrey Family Foundation, The Fledgling Fund, Ruth Ann Harnisch and The Harnisch Foundation, Chandra Jessee, Suzanne Lerner, Cristina Ljungberg, Ann Lovell, Nion McEvoy, Regina K. Scully, Artemis Rising Foundation, Lindsey Taylor Wood and Jacki Zehner. We are also grateful to Jill Bauer, Ronna Gradus, and Rashida Jones for their participation in survey development, including their review and feedback on survey drafts.

Notes

¹ It is noted that the point estimates for H1-H4 after adjusting for age, ethnic, and sexual orientation differences were similar to the bivariate point estimates: H1 partial r(129) = .19; H2 partial r(87) = −.12; H3 partial r(86) = .21; H4 partial r(128) =.11. For a critique of the use of control variables in pornography effects research, see Wright (2021).