When Words Are Not Enough: The Search For The Effect of Pornography On Abused Women

http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/10/1/56.abstract

This article started out talking about what the definition of sexual abuse is and how it affects the women who experience it.  After talking a little about its affects, the author went straight into talking about how pornography might be influencing men’s behaviors when they are abusing women.  Men who view pornography are more likely to become aggressive, especially if they are angry by nature.  Pornography produces greater harm in women who are battered compared to women who aren’t.  This was proven by Bergen who found that in wife rape, men who used pornography were committing more sadistic rapes.  Pornography in general makes men think that women want to be taken, violated, and subdued.  This compounds when sexually abusive men view it because they are convinced that women really do want those things; that the woman’s resistance is in preparation for what women want.  The porn doesn’t even have to be violent!  Both nonviolent and violent porn increases sexual aggression and behavioral aggression. 

While these are all true about how pornography affects a man, individual and situational factors have to be considered because not all men respond in the same way.  Personality traits and emotional state are factors that can affect how porn makes a man respond.  Disinhibitors like alcohol also exacerbate sexually violent behavior.  Because there is a variation, a study was done and they found that there was no significant difference between having alcohol and looking at porn and looking at porn or drinking on their own.  The results suggested that porn creates more means of abusing a women who is already abused.  If there is a long-lasting physically abusive relationship, it is more likely that there has been some sexual violence as well.  A woman who experiences abuse growing up is more likely to be sexually abused in the future.

I was shocked at one side effect of being abused—the greater risk of being murdered or murdering their abusers.  I didn’t realize that sexual abuse could distress a woman so much that she might consider murder as an option to release the pain.  Because it talked about the side effects, my mind immediately wondered why we don’t ask abused women if their partner looks at porn and if they are being sexually abused.  It seems to me that these are two important questions that can more fully explain an abusive situation.  I might not be working all the time with abused women but I can remember this article and ask more questions if I need to.