Youth and Porn Resource KitPorn, coercion, and sexual aggression
Coercion and sexual aggression are considered normalised across mainstream porn, and this can provide confusing and problematic messages to young people (48).
- The large majority of aggression in porn is targeted at women, and women’s response is usually always positive or neutral. This can:
- make sexual aggression difficult for young viewers to recognise,
- suggest that women enjoy, welcome, or are neutral about sexual aggression,
- suggest that women are supposed to experience pleasure from aggression, ignore discomfort, and/or have a neutral response to it (49).
- A recent US study found 45% of mainstream porn scenes contained aggression. These included frequent depictions of physical aggression (hitting, slapping, and gagging), verbal aggression (name-calling) and non-consensual or coercive acts (49).
- A 2021 analysis of 150,000 scenes suggested sexual violence is normalised across mainstream porn (48).
- A study of the top 200 porn videos watched in Aotearoa, indicated 35% contained scenes with coercive or non-consensual behaviour. This includes performers exhibiting reluctance, but being coerced, dominated, or manipulated into sexual activity (45).
- One study showed in aggressive scenes, women were the targets of aggression the majority of the time.
45%
of scenes contained
verbal or phyical aggression
%
of aggressive scenes, showed women as targets of aggression
35%
of porn scenes viewed on Pornhub in Aotearoa in 2019 contained non-consensual behaviour.(45)
Previous
“In porn, we see a lot of just strange content, you know, that’s oversaturated with things like a lot of aggression and a lot of non-consensual stuff as well. And I think it definitely creates weird expectations for people who don’t know much about sex.”
Male, 19 years