Porn, 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)
“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