Pornography

87 Pages·1993·4.049 MB·English

by  Daniel Linz, Neil M. Malamuth

PORNOGRAPHY
COMMUNICATION CONCEPTS
This series reviews enduring concepts that have guided scholarly in­
quiry in communication, including their intellectual evolution and their
uses in current research. Each book is designed as organized back­
ground reading for those who intend further study of the subject.
EDITOR
Steven H. Chaffee, Stanford University
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Charles R. Berger, University of California, Davis

Joseph N. Cappella, University of Pennsylvania

Robert P. Hawkins, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Mark R. Levy, University of Maryland, College Park

Neil M. Malamuth, University of California, Los Angeles

Jack McLeod, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Peter Monge, University of Southern California

Clifford Nass, Stanford University

Byron Reeves, Stanford University

Michael Schudson, University of California, San Diego

Ellen Wartella, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Caroline Schooler, Stanford University
Pornography
Daniel Linz
Neil Malamuth
SAGE PUBLICATIONS
International Educational and Professional Publisher
Newbury Park Londor\ New Delhi
Copyright © 1993 by Sage Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo­
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Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Linz, Daniel.
Pornography / Daniel Linz, Neil Malamuth.
p. cm. —(Communication concepts ; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8039-4480-2. —ISBN 0-8039-4481-0 (pbk.)
I. Pornography—Social aspects. I. Malamuth, Neil Π. Title.
III. Series.
HQ47I.L56 1993
363.4'7—dc20 92-46159
CIP
98 99 00 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
Sage Production Editor: Megan M. McCue
Contents
Foreword vii

Steven H. Chaffee and Robert P. Hawkins
1. Pornography/s What It Does 1

How Do We Know Pornography When We See It? 1

Pornography, Obscenity, and Erotica 2

Sex and Violence 3

Three Normative Theories 4

Assumptions About Human Nature, Society, and Truth 6

Theories of the Press in Society 6

Authoritarian/Conservative-Moral Theory 6

The Libertarian/Liberal Theory 9

The Social Responsibility/Feminist Theory 11

Pornography Research

and the Three Normative Theories 15

2. Obscenity, Sexual Arousal, and Societal Decay:

The Conservative-Moralist Theory and Empirical Research 16

Arousal, Disgust, Habituation, and Promiscuity 17

Exposure to Pornography and Excitatory Habituation 20

Beneficial Effects of Limitations on Public Displays of Sex 23

A Moral Climate of Laxness and the Breakdown of Society 25

Prolonged Exposure to Pornography, Acceptance of

Nontraditional Sex, and Leniency for Rapists 26

Pornography Exposure and the Decay of Marriage and the Family 27

3. Erotica and Harmlessness:

The Liberal Theory and Empirical Research 28

Evidence of Demonstrable Harms

of Pornography 29

Contemporary Research With Social Statistics and Rapists 32

Research Measuring Harm in the Laboratory 35

Pornography May Be Socially Beneficial 37
Individual Differences in Tolerance for Restrictions 39

Research on More or Corrective Speech 42

4. Pornography and Harms to Women:

The Feminist Theory and Empirical Research 44

The Sexualization of Subordination and Violence 46

Sexual Arousal to Rape 46

Changes in Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Rape Victims
48
Latxjratory Studies on Aggressive Behavior

Against Women 48

Pornography and Discrimination Against Women 50

A Cultural Climate of Aggression Against Women 51

The Combiruition of Sexually Explicit Media

With Other Variables 53

The Effects of Pornography on Female Viewers 54

5. The Contributions of Each Approach

to Scientific Research and Social Policy 56

Unique Contributions of Each Approach 57

Overlap Among the Approaches 59

Returning the Concepts to Their Origins 59

References 63

Index 71

About the Authors 75
Foreword

Each volume in the Communication Concepts series deals at length with
an idea of enduring importance to the study of human communication.
Through analysis and interpretation of the scholarly literature, special­
ists in each area explore the uses to which a major concept has been applied
and also to point to promising directions for future work.
Pornography, that is, sexually explicit conimunications, has fascinated
and divided researchers, policymakers, and the public for years. Does
it have harmful effects on individuals? What effects in particular? Does
it affect everyone or just certain people? If harmful effects exist, what
should society do about them? More than in almost any other area of social
science, researchers have come to diametrically opposing answers to such
questions.
Knowing that such disagreement often results from using the same
term to mean very different things, we asked Daniel Linz and Neil
Malamuth to help the reader sort out the different meanings and their
implications. Our hope was that readers made sensitive to these mean­
ings would be better able to understand existing research, to carry out
their own studies, and then to communicate their results to others.
In this small book, Linz and Malamuth have gone far beyond our
expectations, revealing a systematic interweaving of social science, moral­
ity, and the law. They describe three different perspectives on pornog­
raphy—conservative/moralistic, liberal, and feminist. Each perspective
has its own definition of pornography, each has a distinct research agenda
with its own questions and methods, and each leads to different impli­
cations for law and public policy. That is, each of these perspectives
integrates science, law, morality, and policy in particular ways that often
pass unnoticed. While representatives of these positions have generally
attacked one another, Linz and Malamuth are able to show the worth of
each, deepening our understanding and appreciation of theory and
research on pornography. Their success in revealing how science is
vu
VIU
integrated with the rest of social life should encourage communication
scholars to reexamine the assumptions made about all research concepts.
Steven H. Chaffee, Series Editor
Robert P. Hawkins, Associate Editor
P O R N O G R A P HY
DANIEL LINZ
NEIL M A L A M U TH
1. Pornography Is What It Does
Communication science research on pornography in the United States
is one area of the broader study of media effects. Investigators have
focused primarily on how the thoughts, attihides, and behaviors of in-
dividuals are influenced by exposure to sexually explicit messages. To
understand pornography research, however, we must consider it in
the broader context of the debate about pornography effects in society,
especially in the United States. The terms of this debate have often framed
the research agenda.
How Do We Know Pornography When We See It?
The question of definition always lies beneath public discussion,
academic inquiry, legal decisions, and policy-making about pornogra-
phy. Pronouncements by government officials about what is "porno-
graphic" or "obscene" often appear to be highly subjective. For example,
in an admission that has become a clich6. Supreme Court Justice Potter
Stewart had to concede in one opinion that he could not define pornog-
raphy, but he knew it when he saw it (Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964). To say
that the defiiution of pornography is subjective, however, does not mean
that it is completely idiosyncratic or that there are as many definitions
as there are peculiarities among people. There are several commonly
shared points of view.
1