Question

Now that you have completed your readings, your task is to assess the impact of sexually explicit materials on human sexual behavior. You will need to analyze the following questions, presenting a 2-4 paragraph response for each question:

1. There is generally less violence in sexually oriented material than in mainstream movies and TV crime shows. Why are censorship efforts directed more toward sexually explicit nonviolent material than toward nonsexual violent material?

2. Research has found 82% of students viewing sexually explicit material online were sexually aroused, yet 57% of them also said that viewing the material was disturbing. How do you reconcile something that feels good and is also disturbing?

3. Do you believe that pornography incites sexual violence? Explain.

Answer 1

1) The psychology has proved through researches that observation learning takes place . Watching violence on television or internet certainly desensitize the person watching and he is more prone to show violent behavior .

It is true that Sexual material generally have less violence than TV Crimes shows .But our society has an inherent bias against sex and sexual material. Parents generally donot talk to child regarding sex and they donot wish their child to encounter sexual material. It is a kind of fear and common sense belief in society that exposure to porn can have life altering effect on child .

TV crime shows generally depicts more violence but violence is not considered a taboo like sex in many society . Infact many culture and society considers violence as positive and encourage su h behaviour .

This is the reason why despite having more violence depiction TV crime shows are less targeted than sexual oriented material.

2) Researches in psychology have proved that watching sexually explicit material increases the dopamine concentration that lead to pleasure . Fantasizing about sex is a pleasurable thing as it activates biological system of hormones . But people also report of content being disturbing because of following reasons .

a) Some sexual oriented material depicts extreme form of violence like raping etc . When person has high level of dopmine his reasoning abilities goes down due to a phenomenon called cognitive narrowing . Once harmone level come back to normal and person reasons then he finds that material/action was disturbing as per his belief and thinking.

b) Many a time people report such material to be disturbing because of morality , culture and societal beliefs. Most of even modern society do hesitate in talking sex openly .They consider it morally wrong thus report in negative way.

3) Observation learning Researches such as Bo-Bo doll experiment does prove that there is certain correlation between watching violence and doing violence in real life .

Some researches in pornography have indicated that watching porn increases the stimulation threshold thus causing person to seek more violent/intense sexual sensational that usually leads to sexual violence.

At the same time there are researches that say porn watching generally help people relax and calm by fantasizing and masturbating . These researches argue that it is common sense belief and fear of people that leads to such negative reporting of harmful effects.

Eventhough there is no conclusive research finding on pornography leading to sexual violence but certainly addiction to pornography can be detrimental for personality of any person ,especially children .