Digital Commons Network^™

The Pornography Debate: Religiosity And Support For Censorship, Brian A. Droubay, Robert P. Butters, Kevin Shafer

Faculty Publications

Pornography has become an increasingly salient topic in public discourse. We sought to better understand the role of religiosity in shaping people’s support of policy stances against pornography, in the form of censorship, using nationally representative data from the 2014 General Social Survey (n = 1676). Results from logistic regression indicate that high religiosity significantly increases odds of supporting censorship. Holding control variables at their sample means, the least religious persons had a predicted probability of 0.09 of supporting censorship, compared to 0.57 for the most religious respondents. We discuss these findings within the context of the current public …

Collective Shout's Victory Against Sexpo: A Win For Children's Rights, Caitlin Roper

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This report is an account of the legal battle between Australian grassroots campaigning movement Collective Shout and Sexpo, the annual sex industry exhibition. Sexpo brought a lawsuit against Collective Shout after their campaign against Sexpo’s promotion of live-streamed porn shows on public buses servicing school routes. In April 2018, Sexpo’s application was dismissed, with Sexpo ordered to pay Collective Shout’s legal costs.

"I Imagine The Male Isn't In The Video And It Is Me:" A Mixed Methods Study Of Internet Pornography, Masculinity, And Sexual Aggression In Emerging Adulthood, Christina Richardson

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Research on Internet pornography has consistently found that men are more likely to view mainstream porn than women and that most men view pornography. Additionally, mainstream porn content has been found to portray highly stereotyped views of gender with men in positions of dominance over women and men engaging in aggression toward women. Despite the consistent finding that pornography is a gendered phenomenon, there is little research exploring the connection between masculinity and pornography use. Furthermore, research on the effects of pornography use on sexual aggression has been mixed, with some findings indicating that men who view porn are more …

Pornography As A Public Health Issue: Promoting Violence And Exploitation Of Children, Youth, And Adults, Elisabeth Taylor

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The pornography industry is expanding exponentially as a result of ongoing technological advances. The ability to stream videos over the internet and the ubiquity of the smart phone have meant that pornography producers are able to use algorithms to target potential consumers, to cultivate new sexual tastes and to deliver content to a more diverse audience over mobile devices. The advent of virtual reality pornography with interactive sex toys and sex robots imbued with artificial intelligence promises to unleash a further step-change in the extent to which pornography influences ‘real-world’ sexual culture. The critical analysis of pornography undertaken over decades …

Consumer Involvement In Japanese Pornography Production, Yukino Yamamoto, Caroline Norma, Ruwan Dep Weerasinghe

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The authors examined two pornographic film series produced in Japan in the first decade of the twenty-first century, as well as their DVD box cover advertising copy. Additionally, and crucially, these data were examined in light of online forum posts made by the producers and consumers of the two film series before, during and after their production. These posts indicate consumer-producer cooperation and collaboration in all aspects of the series’ planning and execution, in addition to consumer involvement in the perpetration of the filmed sex acts and abuses themselves. The discussion of the article emphasizes the accelerating effect of online …

Behind Closed Doors: Unpacking College Students’ Complex Relationships With Pornography Consumption, Samantha K. Saucier

Honors College

This thesis is a quantitative and qualitative study of University of Maine students attitudes and consumption habits of pornography. It contains a literature review of anti-pornography feminism from the Second Wave, as well as an overview of sex-positive and sex-critical theories of pornography from more recent years. The goal of the thesis is to understand how sex-negative and/or sex-positive ideas have or have not permeated college student’s understanding of pornography. Over 800 students were surveyed about pornography consumption through the Psychology Department’s Fall prescreen. 4 students from the survey, who all happened to be women, were interviewed about their relationships …

Why The Christian Right Opposes Porngraphy But Still Supports Trump, Kelsy Burke

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Many commentators have pointed out the hypocrisy of Christian leaders who claim a moral high ground while supporting President Donald Trump. The latest scandal involving an alleged extramarital affair with pornographic film star Stormy Daniels proves no exception.

The Christian right that supports Trump has found ways to justify their support of the president, for example, with analogies of how God used King David, a man with personal flaws, for the greater good of the country.

All the while, however, evangelical leaders remain definitively opposed to pornography. In the words of an evangelical celebrity and outspoken opponent of pornography, Josh …

“This Incredible Monster Was Always In The Way”: The Moral Career Of A Sexual Sinner In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints, Jason E. Sumerau, Ryan T. Cragun, Harry Barbee

The Qualitative Report

This article elaborates a symbolic interactionist approach to the scientific study of sexual sin. We draw on archival materials from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), and explore recurring themes within the archival materials that signify and outline stages of a sexual sinners’ moral career. Our findings demonstrate how LDS leaders constructed a sinner’s moral career as characterized by (1) seeking out sinful temptation; (2) causing social and spiritual destruction; and (3) seeking and finding redemption. Further, we draw out implications for understanding the ways religious leaders conceptualize sexual sins for their followers, and the usefulness of …

College Males' Attitudes Toward Sexually-Explicit Material: An Experimental Study, Cody Schulte

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Sexually explicit materials (SEM) are an ever-growing presence in our society. The ramifications of these types of images and videos have been studied in depth, and the field is still researching whether these materials have harmful effects to individuals who view them or not. Regardless of these findings, sexually explicit videos are used in educational and therapeutic settings with an educational intent behind the usage. While these materials are being used there is little, to no, data on the attitudes that the clients or participants viewing these videos hold. This study will examine the attitudes that collegiate males hold towards …

And Then They Boned: An Analysis Of Fanfiction And Its Influence On Sexual Development, Lindsay M. Mixer

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate how young adults come to understand their sexuality (from sexual and gender identities to sexual likes and dislikes) through reading and writing fanfiction. Previous studies show that fanfiction promotes non-heterosexual orientations, but little research has been done on how it contributes to overall sexual development. In conducting an online survey of fanfiction readers, I explore how fans use these works to generate an understanding of themselves as sexual beings. Explicit stories make up a sizable portion of the fanfiction available, and there is a wide range of sexual acts depicted in those …

"The Way To Become A Man": The Influence Of Commercial Sex On Male Psychosocial Development, Adrian Deluna Garcia

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Hegemonic masculinity and the negative consequences that it has on men and women continues to gain increasing attention in research and in popular culture. Particular attention is paid to the sexual violence that is perpetrated by men towards women, however, the research on men’s sexual development and its relationship to this sexual violence focuses largely on biological explanations. The feminist literature, however, on sexual violence offers a differing perspective, which includes the socialization processes that men undergo in their sexual development that lead them towards normalizing sexual violence. One of these processes is the existence and normalization of the commercial …