The Influence of Internet Pornography on College Students: An Empirical Analysis of Attitudes, Affect and Sexual Behavior

Pornography use today is becoming more mainstream and normalized, especially since the advent of high-speed Internet (Freeman-Longo 2000). This study was designed to examine the relation between Internet pornography use, attitudes and affect by taking a survey of college students. MANOVA and correlational procedures were used to test the hypotheses that greater pornography use would result in more negative attitudes toward women, more positive attitudes toward sexual assault, more sexual partners and less distress by a partner’s use of pornography. Every hypothesis was supported with a significance level of .05. The results replicated past research despite the sample being 80% female with an average age of 21. The influence of Internet pornography has been debated and researched by numerous disciplines as the Internet is expanding throughout the world (Allen, Emmers-Sommer, D’Alessio, Timmerman, Hanzal, and Korus 2007). The Internet has become the central vehicle for the distribution of pornography, which has altered the way in which individuals use pornography. The Internet makes pornography available, because nearly everyone has Internet access; the use of pornography has become anonymous, because one can access pornography without anyone else knowing about it; the Internet makes pornography affordable, because one no longer has to spend upwards of 60 dollars on a VHS tape or DVD because the majority of Internet pornography is free; and finally, the Internet makes pornography increasingly addictive, because it removes all barriers to access, and because of the sheer quantity of content, both of which have contributed to heightened levels of arousal that were not prevalent in pornography users before the Internet. In discussing the influence of pornography use, it is important to define pornography and its distinction from erotica. In one study, Senn and Radtke (1990) differentiated between violent pornography, non-violent pornography and erotica: