What women want isn’t as plain as it seems.
Female fans of pornography are watching more violence against women on film than men, a recent study revealed.
Nevertheless, both women and men preferred aggressive sexual content when performed consensually, as a vast majority of pornography viewers — 95% of women and 97% of men — are only aroused when they know they’re watching willing participants, PsyPost reported on Tuesday.
“The majority of viewers, both men and women, preferred not to watch aggression in pornographic videos, especially non-consensual aggression,” researcher Eran Shor, a professor of sociology at McGill University, told PsyPost, on research published last year in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
“Still, among those who did say that they enjoyed displays of aggression, including rougher aggression, somewhat surprisingly women were a majority,” Scor continued. “Women were more likely to report being aroused by aggression, actively seeking aggression and wanting to see more aggression in mainstream pornography.”
Schor’s team recruited 122 anonymous porn users — 61 women, 60 men and one gender-diverse, who shared an average age of 25 — for in-depth audio interviews to explore their preferences and perceptions about sex and pornography.
Over half of all viewers, 53%, liked at least a little bit of aggression in porn — breaking down to 66% of women and 40% of men. Women, too, were more likely to go for “harder” expressions of aggression in porn and to seek it more than men — with themes such as bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism.
Notably, women also reported more feelings of shame and guilt regarding their more violent preferences. They also frequently shared that they had no interest in experiencing such acts personally, preferring only to watch. At the same time, many men reported feelings of discomfort while watching BDSM, according to investigators, underscoring that men are apparently no more interested in aggressive sex than women.
“One important thing is to be careful not to mix fantasy and real-life desires,” Shor explained. “Many women (and men) who found aggression arousing clearly stressed that they would not want to experience or try the acts they enjoyed on the screen in their own sex life. They emphasized that it was the visual representation of a fantasy that allowed them to feel aroused, while at the same time maintaining a sense of comfort and safety.”
Shor further asserted to PsyPost that “very little attention has been given … to female viewers, their preferences and their desires.”
“I noticed that much of the literature talked about aggression in mainstream pornography as a growing phenomenon (my findings show that this is not the case), claiming that this is driven by men’s desires for domination over women,” he explained.
The results seem counterproductive to the work of some feminist advocates, who believe that aggressive porn involving female victims leads to acceptance of domestic violence among men in the real world — which previous research has supported.
“That said, I think that the common tendency to ignore, belittle, sanction, or stigmatize women’s sexual preferences when these do not conform to some feminist expectations is problematic,” Schor said. “This tendency promotes moral judgment and stigma, resulting in feelings of guilt and shame among women who hold a preference for viewing aggression or acts of dominance in pornography.”
