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We investigated how the sexuality of men and women is represented on pornographic websites aimed at women and pornographic websites aimed at men. We analyzed 200 pornographic images randomly selected from 4 websites (2 aimed at women and 2 aimed at men). The criteria for comparison were based on concepts of sexual inequality and sexual objectification that have been commonly used in the literature on analyses of pornography content. The findings showed that websites containing pornography aimed at men were more likely than the websites aimed at women to include content with elements of sexual inequality, whereas websites aimed at women were more likely than the websites aimed at men to include content with elements of sexual objectification.
Keywords: pornography, pornographic website, men's pornography, women's pornography, sexual inequality, sexual objectification, gender differences.
The main research focus of studies in which the content of pornography has been analyzed has been to understand how women's sexuality is described in the conventional pornographic media (e.g., pornographic magazines and videotapes) aimed at men (Gossett & Byrne, 2002). Researchers have explored whether or not the content of the pornographic material presented degrades women's sexuality in terms of sexual inequality and sexual objectification. For example, Cowan, Lee, Levy, and Snyder (1988) have shown that pornographic movies are saturated with images depicting gender inequality and male dominance over women.
As the Internet has become a very popular medium for pursuit of sexual interests, representation of sexuality on the Internet has started to draw research attention. However, only a few researchers have investigated the content of pornographic material on the Internet (Gossett & Byrne, 2002; Mehta, 2001; Mehta & Plaza, 1997). Analyzing pornographic still images in Usenet, Mehta found that themes portrayed vary, ranging from being mildly offensive to some people (e.g., nudity), to the extreme or abhorrent (e.g., bestiality), to illegal content (e.g., child pornography, rape). Gossett and Byrne found that women are more likely to be portrayed as sexual victims, whereas men are more likely to be portrayed as sexual perpetrators. However, these researchers have focused on the representation of women's sexuality on pornographic websites aimed at males.
McNair (1996) notes that in the 1970s "complex and sophisticated discourse about sex became a feature of women's magazines, and porn for...