From Psychology Today:
And after all, women don't really like porn! Do they? In fact, studies by Meredith Chivers show that women react as strongly to porn as men do. In some cases, it seems that women actually react more strongly to porn than do men, as women respond with physiological arousal to visual depictions of almost any sexual activity, whereas men seem to be much more rigid and limited in what they respond to. But, whereas men respond with both physical and psychological arousal, women more frequently show physical arousal, at the same time they deny being turned on. So, women react to porn, they may just be unwilling or unable to acknowledge it - after all, they are taught from childhood that "good girls don't do that!"
Okay you say, alright, so maybe women react to porn, but they don't like the hardcore stuff. They want the nice stuff, romance, flowers and chocolate, then sex. They're not like men, who just want the money shot. Actually, in contrast to the belief that men watching pornography is just about the “gynecological shot,” and that all men care about is genitalia, recent research at the Atlanta Center for Behavioral Neuroscience has shown that when men watch pornography, the thing they attend to most, is a woman’s face. In fact, compared to women watching pornography, men looked at the faces of porn actors sooner and more, than women did!
So, women get turned on by pornography, but find it hard to admit. And men actually care about women's faces in pornos. How do you feel about watching pornography? If your partner watches pornography, is it violation of monogamy? Is is different if a women watches porn versus a man? Let me know what you think!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/07/women-addicted-internet-pornography
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-who-stray/201010/women-watching-porn-not-in-my-town
"We all watch it" is a rather broad and untrue generalization; there are plenty of people who choose not to watch pornography, and for a myriad of reasons. Religion, the socially-inflicted uncomfortableness you mentioned, the monogamy you mentioned... given the wide variety of taste in the world, I'm sure there are people who honestly don't react to it.
ReplyDeleteAs to the end-question... I don't watch it, and neither does my current partner. I wouldn't consider it a violation of monogamy, but I think he would. I didn't care that my previous partner did, and I'm sure he would have loved it if I did.
There's also still quite a stigma associated with it, and in several (otherwise quite open-minded) communities or social groups, the admission of porn-interest will be punished with shaming.
ReplyDeleteAt Anonymous #1
ReplyDeleteYou're right. That is an untrue, unfair generalization. It would be more accurate me to say "we all have watchED it at least once". Which is actually what I meant to say. But that's beyond the point.
I'm skeptical about opinion that there are some people who don't react to it. I assume you're not talking a specific and special minority such as asexuals. Is that a valid assumption? If so ... I think Kinsey's research has a lot to say on the subject.
Does this mean that women are unresponsive to porn? Not exactly. Or, better, it depends. In his landmark interview studies in the 1940s and '50s, conducted with nearly 17,000 men and women, Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues found that 54 percent of men and only 12 percent of women reported being erotically aroused by seeing photographs, drawings, or paintings of nude people. Kinsey also found that during masturbation, men tend to fantasize visually while women generally don't do so. This does not mean, however, that porn does not elicit sexual arousal in women. Laboratory studies have shown that women almost invariantly show physical signs of sexual excitement to porn movies, as indicated by increased vaginal blood flow. Interestingly, this can happen even when women don't like the movies or when they experience negative emotions such as disgust or anger. And studies have also shown that women show stronger physical sexual responses to porn than to more romantic erotic stimuli.
Read more:
(Scroll down to "Who Uses Porn?")
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/special/why.html#ixzz1Luhuwakv
I wish I knew, Anoymous #1, whether you were male or female. I could tailor my response better to your response to the end-question.