What Do We Know About the Effects of Pornography After Fifty Years of Academic Research? (Focus on Global Gender and Sexuality)

we found that only seven articles provided original data about the relationships between pornography and its audience in relation to porn literacy

When we examined what academic research describes as ‘unrealistic’ sex in pornography we found that researchers commonly described or implied conservative sexual practices as realistic; while progressive sexual attitudes or minority sexual practices were described as unrealistic.

healthy sexual development isn’t the same for everybody. There are many different ways in which you can have a happy, healthy sex life. You can be married in the suburbs with two kids having sex once a week with the lights off. Or you can be single, going out dancing, picking up strangers and having enthusiastic, sweaty fun in the toilets of a nigh

Historians Reay, Attwood and Gooder, describe sex addiction as ‘a response to cultural anxiety’ (Reay et al., 2015, p. np), while Ley, Prause and Finn (as clinical psychologists and neuroscientists) reject the concept of pornography addiction (Ley et al., 2014, p. 96). The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Ment

Sexual performance included learning about position and sexual roles in certain positions; how adolescents should act during sexual activity with sexual partners; and how sex should feel.

Authenticity is a key aspect of DIY/amateur porn being read as intimate and representing ordinary people. On this basis, it can be argued that ‘perceived realism’ – to re-signify this term – is necessary to incite particular kinds of affect and erotic pleasure for young people.

Legislators in 16 states have passed resolutions declaring that pornography, in its ubiquity, constitutes a public-health crisis. The wave of bills started five years ago, with Utah, which went a step further this spring by passing a law mandating that all cellphones and tablets sold in the state block access to pornography by default.

However, it is not clear that behaviours that are currently described as sex addiction (or pornography addiction) are actual health issues. Humanities researchers insist that these are moral issues; and some data from the social sciences support this contention.

However, much research on young people and pornography tends to isolate pornography from broader media ecologies (Goldstein, 2020). Further to this, a media studies approach to porn literacy can also (but rarely does) address the cinematic, technological and economic aspects of porn and its production and industries (Jenkins, 2004). However, most a