What themes in pornography lead to perceptions of the degradation of women?

Fraternity Membership, the Display of Degrading Sexual Images of Women, and Rape Myth Acceptance

“…In addition, a more precise measure of degradation could be developed rather than relying on the time-consuming method of ratings made by another sample. Cowan and Dunn (1994) determined themes in pornography that people found degrading, and others have looked at themes of subjugation of women in advertising (e.g., Rudman & Hagawara, 1992), so their methods might prove helpful in developing a rating system for degrading pictures. Finally, it is important to link the use of degrading images with behavior that is more likely to approximate rape than a rape supportive attitude scale such as a measure of self-report of past SA (e.g., Koss & Gidycz, 1985) or self-report of future likelihood to rape (e.g., Malamuth, 1981).…”

“…Participants were asked to rate each picture in terms of how sexual and how degrading they perceived it to be using a scale that ranged from 0 (not at all sexual, not at all degrading) to 4 (very sexual, very degrading). This method of having individuals rate material for degradation is consistent with Cowan and Dunn (1994), who asked participants to rate the amount of degradation in pornography.…”

Free Adult Internet Web Sites: How Prevalent Are Degrading Acts?

“…Likewise, Zillmann and Brosius [38] argued that those who view pornography may exemplify the actions of those participating in such acts. When certain acts are portrayed as pleasing, viewers often then associate the behavior as sexual [12] and may even develop beliefs about how commonly the act is performed by other members of society [39].…”

Women’s Porno: The heterosexual female gaze in porn sites “for women”

“…Perhaps the most popular reading of the cum-shot suggests that it symbolically debases women (Cowan & Dunn, 1994). Perhaps this is because ejaculate can be read as a visual metaphor for other excreta.…”

“…Irrespective of the varying readings of its significance, the cumshot is a staple of the hardcore, hetero-male pornography (Beggan & Allison, 2003;Cowan & Dunn, 1994;Williams, 1989). The hardcore sites examined in this study confirm existing research on the matter.…”