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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Influence of unrestrained access to erotica on adolescents' and young adults' dispositions toward sexuality.

Because consensually accepted programs of sexual education are lacking, erotica have come to serve as the primary agent of sexual socialization. The new media technology gives prepubertal children and postpubertal adolescents ready access to erotica in all their manifestations. However, next to nothing is known about the consequences of the steadily increasing amount of such exposure. A brief overview of what is known and what remains unknown about the effects of pornography on young adults is presented. Thereafter, the focus is on the development of sexual callousness across the pubertal threshold, and on how this callousness might be influenced by extensive exposure to erotica. The erotica under consideration are not so much those explicitly depicting coital behaviors as those that are less explicit and present a fuller social context of sexual engagements. A program of research is outlined that would help provide an understanding of erotica's effects on adolescents' sexual callousness, an understanding that is sorely needed for the construction of effective educational efforts aiming at the removal of callousness and coercion from sexual relations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

What mediates the effect of mild erotica on annoyance and hostile behavior in males?

Male subjects were provoked or not provoked, exposed to photographs of (a) nonerotica, (b) nude females, or (c) couples engaged in sexual activities, and provided with an opportunity to express annoyance and to retaliate against their annoyer. Both annoyance and retaliatory behavior were measured. The excitatory potential, the involvement potential, and the hedonic valence of the nonerotic and erotic stimuli were also assessed. Provocation produced strong effects on all measures of annoyance and retaliatory behavior. In unprovoked subjects, erotica had no effect whatsoever on such behavior. Under conditions of provocation, reported annoyance in both erotica conditions was significantly less than in nonerotic condition. There was no corresponding differentiation in retaliatory behavior, however. The excitatory potential of the erotica employed, as measured in heart-rate and blood-pressure changes, proved to be minimal. No stimulus differences in involvement potential were found. The erotica were similarly pleasing. The nonerotica, in contrast, were conisdered boring. The findings are discussed in terms of various theoretical proposals concerning the relationship between erotica and aggression.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Women's evaluations of and affective reactions to mainstream violent pornography, nonviolent pornography, and erotica.

Women's reactions to three types of sexually explicit materials were examined. Ninety-six female undergraduates completed questionnaires measuring previous exposure to pornography, past history of coercive sexual experiences, attitudes toward feminism, hostility toward men, adversarial sexual beliefs, and rape myth acceptance. They were then randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (a) erotica, (b) nonviolent pornography, (c) violent pornography, and (d) control. They viewed 50 slides during each of two 30-minute sessions, completed a measure of mood disturbance, and evaluated each slide. The erotica was evaluated positively, while the pornography was evaluated negatively, and the violent pornography was evaluated more negatively than the other three conditions. Mood disturbance increased significantly from pre- to postexposure in the violent and nonviolent pornography conditions only. In addition, women with past coercive sexual experiences evaluated pornography more negatively and erotica more positively than women who had no such experience.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

Age and perceived effects of erotica-pornography: a national sample study.

In the spring of 1970, a national sample survey of 2486 adults (aged 20-80) was studied to ascertain U.S. public attitudes toward and experience with erotic materials. Twelve items measured whether or not those interviewed believed that looking at or reading sexual materials had certain effects on themselves or others. Initial description of the results revealed a considerable diversity of opinion. This report provides a multistage typology of those item responses, beginning with characterization of items as positive, neutral, or negative in effect. Striking age gradients were observed at each stage in the typology formation. At first glance, these results are hardly surprising, yet introduction of controls for level of education, gender, and reported previous levels of actual exposure to erotica did not appreciably change the age-graded response pattern. The last stage in the typology contained four levels and showed an attribute solely desirable and/or neutral effects to erotica. Those who expressed neutral and mixed (strongly positive and negative) views were somewhat older. The next age norms about explicit sexual materials took on a perception of no effects or a position of uncertainty. Finally, those who believed that pornography has largely or solely undesirable effects on its consumers were oldest. The replicability of the pattern suggests a specific order in the underlying process of change in values (historical and/or intraindividual).

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Sexual and emotional variables influencing sexual response to erotica.

This study was designed to evaluate the relative contribution of attention and emotional responses to the sexual response to erotica. Self reported levels of sexual arousal, attention, and emotional responses were measured after 20 men and 20 women viewed a series of erotic film segments. Men and women reported greater sexual arousal to erotica when they became absorbed in the activities portrayed in the film and when they experienced the erotic encounters as appetitive, than when they were distracted and perceived the encounters as aversive. Subjective sexual arousal also correlated positively with the degree to which subjects experienced entertainment and curiousity to the erotic film segments, but negatively with boredom. The level of sexual arousal reported by subjects did not correlate significantly with trait measures of absorption (as indexed by the Tellegen Absorption Scale) and vividness of imagery (as assessed by the Betts Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery). The multidimensional nature of the sexual response was demonstrated by the fact that the magnitude of subjective sexual arousal was predicted by the separate groupings of state assessed attentional and emotional variables, trait indexed absorption and appetitive feelings, and demographic information. These findings applied to both men and women, with the exception that men experienced greater sexual arousal than women, and women reported more disgust to the stimulus materials. Future directions for studying the basis for differences in sexual arousal between men and women are outlined, with an emphasis on a psychophysiological exploration of these phenomena.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Expectancy set, self-reported expectancies and predispositional traits: predicting interest in violence and erotica.

To investigate the role of alcohol expectancies in predicting postdrinking behavior, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, an instrument assessing alcohol expectancies was devised for later use in prediction. Factor analyses with split-sample validation confirmed 3 factors (11 total items): disinhibition, aggression and sexuality. In Study 2, expectancies, Buss-Durkee hostility and Mosher sex-guilt were assessed in a preexperimental questionnaire session. In a subsequent drink administration session, an expectancy set manipulation led subjects to expect alcohol or to expect tonic. To assess postdrinking behavior, interest in violent, erotic and violent-erotic materials was measured unobtrusively using an ad lib slide-viewing task. Consistent with the hypotheses, expectancies in conjunction with trait hostility significantly predicted violence viewing and violent-erotica viewing for expect alcohol, but not expect tonic controls. Moreover, after variance due to hostility was accounted for, expectancies predicted violence viewing significantly and violent-erotica viewing marginally. These findings provide modest support for the proposition that preexisting alcohol expectancies mediate between the effects of expectancy set and postdrinking behaviors. Once activated by perceived alcohol ingestion, these expectancies can shape postdrinking behaviors. The findings also underscore the need for further experimentation aimed at clarifying the interrelationships between alcohol expectancies and expectancy set.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Gender effects of romantic themes in erotica.

The hypothesis that women would be more aroused to explicit erotica containing a romantic (rather than nonromantic) theme while men would not be affected by the thematic manipulation was tested, 164 college students (91 male and 73 female), 21 years of age and older, viewed one of four video vignettes taken from commercially available sexually explicit video tapes. The four videos represented the systematic manipulation of two independent variables: (i) high vs. low expression of love and affection (e.g, kissing, nongenital touching, and verbal expressions of caring); and (ii) high vs. moderate sexual explicitness (i.e., "hard" vs. "soft" X-rated material). The results indicated that both male and female subjects rated the high explicit/high romantic vignette as significantly more arousing than the high explicit/low romantic vignette. Thus, the finding for males was contrary to expectations. The results are, however, consistent with the recent movement to romanticize highly explicit sexual material. Theoretical implications of these findings are examined.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Impact of interaction with a partner or friend on the exposure effects of pornography and erotica.

Past studies on the effects of sexually explicit materials on women have tended to study them alone, in pairs, or in groups of strangers. By contrast, our study randomly assigned women to bring either a same-sex friend or a male partner to reflect more natural viewing conditions. Discussion between the participant and her companion followed exposure to the sexual images. Women who viewed pornography maintained their (quite high) level of negative mood, whereas women who viewed erotica experienced a substantial improvement in mood. The sex of the companion did not have a direct influence on participants' mood, with discussion improving mood across the board. However, participants' ratings of their satisfaction with the discussion were significantly influenced by the sex of their companion. We suggest that future research should focus more on the interpersonal aspects of male-female relationships when exploring the effects of sexually explicit materials on heterosexual women.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Menstrual cycle variation of women's interest in erotica.

Female respondents were given the opportunity to choose feature films for viewing. Choices were made on the basis of synopses and promotional videos. These materials projected (i) a focus on erotic, sexual events, (ii) romantic themes, (iii) action-packed violent drama, and (iv) hilarious comedy. Additionally, respondents evaluated the appeal of the projected films. Respondents' position in the menstrual cycle was then determined, with placement into one of seven 4-day phases. Measured in both choices and evaluations, a postmenstrual surge in erotic interest was evident. Erotic interest was also pronounced prior to and during menses. In contrast, it was at a minimum during the first half of the luteal phase. The choice of romantic films was not appreciably influenced by cycle position. However, in evaluating films with romantic themes, premenstrual women expressed particularly little interest in this genre.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1985

Volunteer bias in erotica research: effects of intrusiveness of measure and sexual background.

Volunteer characteristics and volunteer rates across several laboratory experiments of sexual arousal were compared. Conditions were created to assess which component of the experimental setting was responsible for low volunteer rates in experiments using genital measurement. Subjects were 324 male and 424 female undergraduate students who had volunteered for an experiment on sexuality and personality. After completing several measures of sexual experience and attitude, subjects received a written description of one of the following conditions and were asked if they wished to volunteer: sexual film, sexual film and subjective rating of arousal, sexual film and assessment through forehead temperature, sexual film and assessment with a device that was placed over the clothes and measured genital heat flow, sexual film and assessment with the heat flow device while partially undressed, or sexual film and assessment with the vaginal photoplethysmograph or penile strain gauge while partially undressed. Men were significantly more likely to volunteer than women, and volunteer rates for both men and women decreased significantly when and only when subjects were required to undress. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed that both male and female volunteers were more sexually experienced, reported more exposure to erotic materials, and worried less about their sexual performance than nonvolunteers. No differences in volunteer characteristics occurred across the increasingly intrusive conditions for women while a few differences occurred for men. The present findings suggest that researchers should be cautious about discussing the generality of findings of studies involving exposure to a sexually explicit film alone as well as of experiments that involve self-report or physiological measures of sexual arousal.

Attitude↗
PubMed1994

Women's sexual and emotional responses to male- and female-produced erotica.

Whether erotic films made by women are more arousing for women than erotic films made by men was studied. Forty-seven subjects were exposed to both a woman-made, female-initiated, and female centered, erotic film excerpt. Photoplethysmographic vaginal pulse amplitude was recorded continuously. Self-report ratings of sexual arousal and affective reactions were collected after each stimulus presentation. Contrary to expectation, genital arousal did not differ between films, although genital response to both films was substantial. Subjective experience of sexual arousal was significantly higher during the woman-made film. The man-made film evoked more feelings of shame, guilt, and aversion. Correlations between subjective experience of sexual arousal and photoplethysmographic measures of sexual arousal were nonsignificant. The largest contribution to female sexual excitement might result from the processing of stimulus-content and stimulus-meaning and not from peripheral vasocongestive feedback.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

[Paranoia erotica (de Clerambault syndrome) in affective disorder].

Erotomania is a rare delusional disorder usually associated with other psychic disorders, especially paranoid schizophrenia. The primary form without comorbidity is very rare. A case report is presented with characteristic features of the pure form of erotomania in a female patient that was nevertheless an affective disorder. A historical review is presented and the division of Clérambault's syndrome into primary and secondary categories critically discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Subjective sexual arousal in response to erotica: effects of gender, guided fantasy, erotic stimulus, and duration of exposure.

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of gender, guided fantasy, erotic stimulus (with or without audio), and exposure duration on the subjective sexual arousal of participants watching a 10-min erotic video excerpt depicting sexual activities between a heterosexual adult couple. The excerpt was shown to 105 male and 110 female undergraduates, and sexual arousal was measured four times, at intervals of 1, 4, 7, and 10,min from the onset of the excerpt. While no erotic stimulus effect was found, analysis of variance showed main effects of gender, guided fantasy, and exposure duration, and three two-way interactions of gender x guided fantasy, gender x exposure duration, and guided fantasy x exposure duration. According to the results of simple effects tests, the gender effects were found regardless of whether they had firstly experienced a guided fantasy, while the guided fantasy effect was detected only for the females. The simple main effects for gender were found at all four time intervals, while the pattern of within-subject contrasts at the four time intervals for the males was different from that for the females. The simple main effects for guided fantasy were not found at 1,min and 4,min, but at 7,min and 10,min, while the pattern of within-subject contrasts at the four time intervals for the guided fantasy present condition was different from that for the absent condition. The findings involving gender differences were discussed in the context of biological and social factors.

Arousal↗
PubMed2001

Sexual and emotional variables influencing sexual response to erotica: a psychophysiological investigation.

The relative contribution of attentional and emotional factors to the physiological and subjective sexual arousal elicited by erotic film was evaluated. Sexual arousal, attentional, and emotional responses were measured while 30 men were presented with a series of erotic film segments. Levels of physiological and subjective sexual arousal were higher when subjects became absorbed in the activities portrayed in the film and when they experienced the depicted erotic encounters as appetitive, than when they were distracted and perceived the encounters as aversive. The erotic film elicited a diminished startle response to a sudden burst of white noise presented during stimulation relative to the nature film, suggesting that at a physiological level the erotic segments of film were processed as more appetitive in valence. The level of sexual arousal elicited by the erotic segments was related to the extent to which subjects were entertained by the film, even though there was considerable anxiety generated by the portrayed sexual scenarios. Sexual response was not significantly correlated with trait measures of absorption (as indexed by the Tellegen Absorption Scale) nor with vividness of imagery (as assessed by the Betts Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery). Arousal was related to state-assessed attentional and emotional variables, and physiological measures of emotional response, demonstrating the multidimensional nature of the sexual response. Future directions for comparing male sexual response patterns with female response patterns are suggested.

Adult↗