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Using twelve measures of objectification, I measured the degree to which women are objectified in mainstream pornographic videos in Australia. Seven of the measures allowed for direct comparison of female and male objectification. Of these, one shows women being more objectified than men (presence of orgasms, where women have fewer orgasms). Three show men being more objectified than women (in time spent looking at camera, where men return the gaze significantly less; in time spent talking to the camera, where they are also less engaged; and in initiating sex, where men are more sexual objects than active sexual subjects in seeking their sexual pleasure in the sample). Three measures showed no difference in objectification between men and women (naming, central characters, and time spent talking to other characters).
In Australia and many other Western countries, there is continuing political, public, and academic concern about the role of pornography in society. The accessibility of the internet and the kinds of material it makes available available have renewed public focus on the question of pornographic content: what kinds of pornography are people consuming? Many writers make the distinction between good and bad pornographic content. Hamilton (2004), for example, noted,
We are not talking about Playboy centrefolds, which are so tame by today's standards that Hugh Hefner is seen as an old prude. We're talking about a whole new world of extreme and violent images, including internet sites specializing in rape, incest, coprophilia, and bestiality. . . .Good, healthy erotica is one thing .. .but the sex depicted in standard porn is wholly devoid of intimacy and affection. Women are uniformly portrayed as the passive objects of men's sexual urges (p. 11 ).
Of particular concern to many commentators is the degree of objectification seen in pornography (e.g., Rantzen, 2004). Some worry that porn causes its viewers to act violently toward women (Krome, 2003) or that it turns them into sexual abusers (Hamilton, 2004) or even murderers (Coffman, 2004).
Literature about objectifying content in pornography exists, but we have little information about the degree to which the mainstream pornography being consumed in Australia objectifies its participants. In response to ongoing public concern about this issue, I decided to gather and analyze data about the content of mainstream...