Most Sex Offenders Do Not Rely on Scripts Learned from Porn

Intuitively, people hear about sexual violence and assume that such behaviors are learned. Oftentimes, fingers are pointed toward the pornography industry, with an assumption made that depictions of objectification and, sometimes, aggression are root causes of misogynistic and offense-related attitudes and behaviors.

However, many studies have now been published that appear to refute this basic idea. Indeed, some meta-analyses (which analyze all studies colelctively to determine an overall effect) conclude that there is minimal evidence for a relationship between the use of sexually explicit media and sexual aggression, suggesting that a rethink of these ideas is needed.

With pornography's ubiquity in contemporary life, is it time to rethink our assumptions about its association with offending?

Source: charlesdeluvio // Unsplash

In a new study published in Crime & Delinquency, led by scholars from Michigan State University, the use of sexual scripts learned through pornography consumption in sexual offenses was investigated. When asked about the motivations for this study, lead author Amanda Isabel Osuna (a doctoral candidate in MSU's criminal justice program) said: "We often do not listen to persons incarcerated for sexual crimes. I think it is important to hear what their thoughts and experiences are so that we can better understand why they have offended and how to prevent these offenses from happening again."

Amanda's advisor and co-author on the paper, Dr. Karen Holt (an assistant professor of criminal justice at MSU) highlighted the potential implication of studying the effects of pornography on those with sexual convictions:

Many people often make assumptions about the role pornography may play in sexually offensive behaviors. It is important to study from an academic perspective so that we can evaluate these claims and understand what the evidence tells us. Asking individuals who sexually offend about their experiences and perceptions is one way that we can learn about the role of pornography in their sexual development.

Investigating the Presence of Porn Scripts in Sex Offenses

The researchers interviewed 101 men convicted of sexual offenses while they were incarcerated for their crimes. The interviews, which lasted up to 45 minutes, covered a range of topics, including the men's experiences of pornography, including how old they were when first seeing sexually explicit material, the types of materials they watched, how often they consumed such materials prior to their offenses, and how porn had shaped their sense of self, their sexual relationships, their fantasies, and their sexual behaviors.

The data gathered from the interviews were analyzed using a process called thematic analysis, which, according to the authors, "allows for the examination of diverse perspectives and experiences of research participants and is especially useful for organizing and summarizing key concepts in larger data sets."

There were a range of themes within the dataset, including:

• 'Living the porn', which contained ideas related to the use of pornography as a form of sex education, and the desire of some men to both attempt to act out what they had seen and make their own sexually explicit content with partners.
• 'Transforming sex', which contained ideas related to the effects of porn consumption on sexual expectations and preferences.

Only a minority of participants used pornography as a way of accessing victims, or grooming those towards whom they acted in sexually violent ways. Similarly, only around half believed that porn consumption would affect their decision making upon release, or increase their propensities for future offending.

What Are the Implications of this Work?

Although there are some caveats to consider here in relation to the self-reported nature of the participants' statements, Dr. Holt points to the widespread use of pornography and how, for many, this is now a normal aspect of their sexual expression. She said:

I think it is difficult for many people to talk about pornography, however, it has become ubiquitous, and these discussions are critical to understand healthy and “normal” sexual behavior as well as sexual criminality. Normalizing these discussions is a critical part of understanding and preventing sexual crime.

Pornography Essential Reads

Treatments for Problematic Pornography Use

Do Accessibility and Anonymity Lead to Problematic Porn Use?

Thinking about the future implications of the work, Dr. Holt was pragmatic about the need to consider the wisdom of blanket pornography bans for those with sexual offense histories. Exploring this possibility, she said: "They are not a monolithic group. They have different relationships to pornography, and for some it is not related to their sexual offending. This has clear implications for policy — pornography access post-release or post-supervision is a decision that should be informed by individual risk factors. Blanket restrictions on pornography will be difficult to enforce and may be a waste of our limited treatment and supervision resources."

Considering the findings, Osuna concluded:

... the takeaways from this are that 1) the men interviewed are aware of how pornography could impact them upon release, and 2) that from the men interviewed, most are not using pornography to lure or groom victims. The take-home message for me would be that pornography use has the potential to affect behavior, but it is not the only factor to be considered.

As with all qualitative work, our research cannot be generalized to other men incarcerated for sexual crimes. We still need to understand if pornography use is correlated to reoffending.