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Gend. Issues (2010) 27:131145 DOI 10.1007/s12147-010-9095-7
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Stacy Gorman Elizabeth Monk-Turner
Jennifer N. Fish
Published online: 10 November 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract Russell (Dangerous relationships: Pornography, misogyny, and rape, 1988) argued that essential features of pornography were the inclusion of more female than male nakedness and the portrayal of men in dominant roles. Utilizing a sample of45 Internet adult web sites, a content analysis was conducted to see if free and easily available Internet adult videos may generally be described as pornography in line with Russells (1988) work. A majority of videos in our sample portrayed more female than male nakedness as well as much higher representations of men in sexually dominant positions. The prevalence of violence in this sample of video and the presence of various acts (name calling, ejaculating on the face, submission, and eagerness to participate in any sex act) were also content analyzed and used to establish prevalent themes. We found a signicant difference in the likelihood of a video having a theme of exploitation or domination and whether or not the video portrayed one of these acts. If the video had a theme of exploitation or domination, 92% of the videos also included a minimum of one of these acts while those videos that had themes of reciprocity or autoeroticism were signicantly less likely to contain such acts. This study contributes to the literature on gender and pornography by examining issues of degradation and power relations within the context of a rapidly expanding cybersex industry.
Keywords Pornography Degradation Internet
S. Gorman
Sociology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected]
E. Monk-Turner (&)
Sociology/CJ, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected]
J. N. Fish
Womens Studies and Sociology, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Free Adult Internet Web Sites: How Prevalent Are Degrading Acts?
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Russell [34] argued that pornography inuences the attitudes and behaviors of its viewers. Internet pornography is different from other sexually explicit materials because it is widely available and it is active and interactive through the presentation of materials in multimedia formats [24]. In 2006, consumers in the United States spent $13.33 billion on the adult entertainment industry estimated, out of a worldwide take...