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The effects of pornography have been debated among the social science and conservative religious communities (Wilcox, 1987), among feminists (Russo, 1987), and also among psychologists. Within psychology itself, there have been theoretical disagreement and empirical inconsistency regarding the effects of nonviolent but degrading sexually explicit material. One problem in the research on degrading pornography is the lack of an empirical foundation on what aspects of sexually explicit materials are perceived as degrading. Although there is no objective criterion regarding the definition of degrading pornography, there may be consensus on what types of images are more or less degrading. The purpose of the current research was both theoretical and methodological: (a) to test feminist theory regarding the importance of subordination or inequality in defining degrading pornography and (b) to provide evidence suggesting useful types of material in future work assessing the effects of degrading pornography on attitudes and behavior.
Some researchers have concluded that violence exerts the harmful effects, whereas others view degradation as equally harmful. Donnerstein, Linz, and Penrod (1987) suggested that harmful attitudinal and behavioral effects result from the violence portrayed, with or without sexual explicitness. Linz (1985) and Linz, Donnerstein, and Penrod (1988) have found desensitization effects on men to female victims of violence following sexually or nonsexually explicit violence, but not to nonviolent sexually explicit material. Malamuth and Check (1981, 1985) demonstrated that exposure to portrayals of sexual violence in which the women appear to enjoy rape increased acceptance of rape myths and violence against women.
In contrast, Zillmann and Bryant (1982) proposed that degrading but nonviolent pornography has pervasive attitudinal, if not behavioral, effects. Zillmann (1989) and Zillmann and Bryant (1982) reported varied negative effects of degrading pornography in both men and women, including sexual and victim desensitization and changes in broader attitudes and values toward sex and toward women. Check and Guloien (1989) also found that exposure to degrading sexually explicit material was as likely as violent sexual material to increase male proclivity for coercive sex, and both were more likely to do so than was erotica.
The discrepancies in findings have been attributed to source of research volunteers (newspaper recruitment versus college students) and use of excerpts versus feature-length films (Linz et al., 1987); experimental procedures, such as dissociation...