Porn - Philosophy for Everyone: How to Think With Kink (9 page)

Participants provided their informed consent and answered a 31-item survey about their attitudes toward pornography, perceptions of female porngasm, and female porn star sexual pleasure. A sample item is included to represent each category of question: “I think that the pornography industry promotes violence toward women; I believe that most orgasms depicted by women in pornographic movies are fake; and, I think that women who star in pornographic movies enjoy their jobs.” Response options were as follows: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree.

We also asked participants to estimate the percentage of orgasms depicted by women in pornographic movies that represent genuine orgasm and how much time they had spent viewing pornography, on average, per week, during the past six months. Response options were as follows: had never watched porn, 1–29 minutes, 30–59 mins., 60–89 mins., 90–119 mins., 120–149 mins., 150–179 mins., 180 + mins.

TABLE 3.1
Sex differences in time spent viewing porn

Note
:The categories 60–89 mins., 90–119 mins., 120–149 mins., 150–179 mins., and 180 + mins. have been combined.

TABLE 3.2
Sex differences in attitudes and beliefs about pornography

Note
: The wording used to describe survey items within the tables is not the wording used in the actual survey. For convenience, we have shortened the survey items and relied occasionally on slang terms. Asterisks in
tables 3.2
and
3.3
refer to statistically significant differences between the means for male and female participants, as determined by independent-samples t-tests

Results

Unsurprisingly, the results indicated marked sex differences in porn viewing habits (see
table 3.1
). More females than males had never watched porn or checked the lowest porn-viewing-frequency category. More males than females indicated watching between a half and a full hour of porn during a typical week; and more males than females reported watching over an hour of porn per week. (Three participants indicated watching three or more hours of porn in a typical week. We did not meet these participants, but if we did we would not be enthusiastic about shaking hands.)

Men reported enjoying watching porn more than women (see
table 3.2
). This sex difference has been documented many times and should surprise no one.
¹⁶
As noted, porn is more appealing to men than women because it caters to aspects of sexuality that are more characteristic of males’ rather than females’ evolved sexual psychology. Additionally, women may find porn distasteful because, as our results show, women believe, more so than men, that porn is demeaning toward women (and, to a lesser degree, toward men) and promotes violence toward women (and, to a lesser degree, toward men). Women are also more upset than men that so many people watch porn, perhaps because they are more likely to consider their romantic partner’s watching of porn to be a form of betrayal. (To the extent that watching porn makes men believe that there are lots of women interested in having sex
with them
, and, thereby, lowers their commitment to their partner, women’s concerns of betrayal may not be baseless.) Men, on the other hand, have more relaxed attitudes about porn. They are more likely than women to think that society’s views toward porn are too negative. Importantly, both male and female participants believe that many people watch porn to learn new sexual techniques.

TABLE 3.3
Sex differences in perceptions of female porngasm and sexual pleasure

Results depicted in
table 3.3
are central to our primary hypothesis. Male and female participants alike disagree with the notion that most female porngasms are real and agree with the notion that most female porngasms are fake.This is good news. Minimally, we know that participants were not snoozing while they completed our survey. Moreover, imagine the gravity of the situation had there been widespread belief that most female porngasms are real!

Although we expected males to provide a significantly higher estimate than females, males estimated that, on average, 38 percent of female porngasms are real, and females estimated that, on average, 40 percent of female porngasms are real. However, as expected, men were more likely than women to believe that at least some female porngasms are real. Moreover, males were more likely than females to believe that female porn stars enjoy having intercourse and other sexual interactions within the context of a porn movie. Highlighting this point further, males were more likely than females to believe that female porn stars enjoy a
high degree
of sexual pleasure via their participation in making porn movies. Males were also more likely than women to believe that female porn stars enjoy their jobs!

Importantly, the
more time
people spend watching porn the
more likely
they were to believe that at least some female porngasms are real, female porn stars enjoy the sex they have within the making of porn movies, female porn stars enjoy a high degree of sexual pleasure from making porn movies, and female porn stars enjoy their job (see
table 3.4
).Thus, here, as is the case regarding porn watching and other attitudinal and behavioral consequences,
dosage matters
.

TABLE 3.4
Relationships between time spent watching porn and perceptions of female porngasm and sexual pleasure

Note:
r refers to the Pearson correlation coefficient. Minutes were coded as follows: 0 = had never watched porn, 1 = 1–29 mins., 2 = 30–59 mins., 3 = 60–89 mins., 4 = 90–119 mins., 5 =120–149 mins., 6 = 150–179 mins., 7 = 180 + mins. Asterisks refer to statistically significant correlations.

But Female Porn Stars Do Love the Sex!

At this point, you (especially if you are a man) may be thinking, “Yes! I, too, believe that female porn stars love having sex during porn movies!” Anecdotally, several of the men we talked with informally about our results stammered, “But . . . but . . . I have heard female porn stars interviewed by Howard Stern, and they
always
say they love the sex!” Even the editor of this volume, Dave Monroe, proffered that
virtually all
of the porn stars he has spoken with have expressed the sentiment that they got into porn precisely because they
love the sex
. There are, however, several reasons to being wary of these porn star claims.

First, in most cases, for self-report data to be considered valid they must be collected under conditions of anonymity and/or confidentiality. Otherwise, these data may be influenced by self-presentation concerns. What people say when their identity is known often reflects the
impression
they want to make rather than what they truly believe. Second, porn stars are paid representatives of a highly lucrative industry. One should believe porn star claims regarding how much they
love
their jobs and the sex they have therein to the same extent as one should believe car salespeople who work for _____ (insert a car company here) claim they
love
the car they drive, which happens to be made by _____ (insert the same car company here). People often say what their jobs require of them.

Finally, even if the porn stars interviewed by Howard Stern or Dave Monroe
really do
love the sex they have during the making of porn movies, we still have the potential problem of biased sampling. It is possible that these women’s experiences are honest
but not representative
of the general population of female porn stars. It may be that porn stars who agree to give interviews are precisely those who really do enjoy their jobs.There are numerous reasons for which a young woman may become a porn star, only one of which is the love of sex. For these reasons, female porn star claims of on-the-job sexual bliss should be interpreted with caution.

So, why keep reading?

Most participants reported believing that
most
female porngasms are fake. This could be the end of the story, because it is our position, as well, that
most
female porngasms are fake. Fortunately, we assessed perceptions of female porngasm in a number of ways. Four of our survey items explicitly mentioned the concept of orgasm, and on only one of these four items did we obtain the expected sex difference. In three survey items we asked more generally about perceptions of female porn star sexual enjoyment, sexual pleasure, and job satisfaction. Interestingly, we obtained the predicted sex difference on all of these more subtly worded items. We suspect that respondents did not want to appear gullible. When asked about perceptions of female porngasm they likely answered so as to convey the sentiment, “Of course I don’t believe that most female porngasms are real. Only a fool would believe that!” These defenses were likely not activated by questions about general perceptions of porn star sexual enjoyment. Thus, we believe that we have sufficient basis for concluding that people, but particularly men, over-infer the degree of sexual pleasure and the frequency of orgasm that female porn stars experience.

Correspondence Bias

When viewing porn and assessing female porngasm, people appear to engage in what social psychologists call the correspondence bias. According to Dan Gilbert and Patrick Malone, “correspondence bias is the tendency to draw inferences about a person’s unique and enduring dispositions from behaviors that can be entirely explained by the situations in which they occur.”
¹⁷
Put differently, correspondence bias refers to the belief that a person’s behavior corresponds to a similar underlying state, trait, attitude, belief, emotion, or feeling, even when this belief is illogical, given the situational constraints on that person’s behavior. Applying this concept to female porngasm, it seems as though people see female porn stars moan and groan
as if
they are having an orgasm and infer that genuine sexual arousal is the primary cause of those moans and groans.Viewers seem to temporarily forget that these women are actresses paid to play a role.