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Volume 115 Number 1

Pornography 143

tracked at some crucial developmental period and have been unable to obtain and/or assimilate information about heterosexuality at this crucial period. In consequence, their development dictates that their sex object will be a substitute, usually a nonthreatening one, for the normal heterosexual partner in a love relationship.

When the substitute partner is coopted unwillingly or is sadistically harmed, then it is society's good fortune if explicit erotic material is available and capable of providing an alternative outlet. The full extent to which such alternative outlets can be exploited needs still to be ascertained.

Berkowitz (1971) has recently obfuscated the issue by comparing sexually explicit material with the depiction of violence in the media. Berkowitz was not aware of the true character of Kutchinsky's data when he suggested that an increase in the availability of sex literature might lead to an increase in socially undesirable sexual behavior.

Berkowitz's warning rests on the hidden assumption that people, especially young people, are hapless sponges who absorb everything they encounter and then replicate it in their own behavior. Not so! If they respond to television violence with violent play of their own, then it is because the contingency of reward for violence permeates our society at every turn, from toddlers' toys to enlistment commercials (see Mosher and Katz, 1971). Because we really need our children to become fighters and killers and some of them to die fighting, we give potent signals about the positive value of violence.

Even so, there are also constraints promulgated on violence. A primary example is in religious teaching about crucifixion, which does not issue in games of crucifying dolls or playmates. The explanation lies, of course, in the moral principle that is taught simultaneously with the pragmatics and history of the Crucifixion.

Herein lies the key to understanding the influence of erotic publications. Their influence will depend on the moral context that is set early in the sex education of children and against which erotic illustrations will be

seen and read. In our society, the moral context is one that favors loud, clear signals on the value of heterosexual love, taboos notwithstanding. Since there is no foreseeable chance of change in this moral value of heterosexual love, there is no chance that erotic publications will bring about increased degeneracy or psychosexual pathology in the coming generation. In fact, the reverse might be true, insofar as pathology tends to incubate in secrecy as when, in a child's early development, sex and heterosexual reproduction are unmentionable, tabooed, and punishable. Well timed in its use and supported by good moral principles, visual erotica can become a positive and constructive aid in the service of developing sexual normalcy.

Annotated bibliography and references* Abelson, H., Cohen, R., Heaton, E., Sudor, C., LoSciuto, L., Spector, A., Michels, E., and Jenne, C.: National survey of public attitudes toward and experience with erotic materials, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 6, Government Printing Office.

This study presents data from a large probability sample of the United States population. The appropriate statistical controls and analysis procedures utilized make this one of the most valuable Commission documents. The data are readily generalizable to the nation as a whole whereas other studies may have less universal application. Amoroso, D. M., Brown, M., Pruesse, M., Ware, E. E., and Pilkey, D. W.: An investigation of behavioral, psychological, and physiological reactions to pornographic stimuli, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, 1971, vol. 8, United States Government Printing Office.

Two separate studies are described in the report. Sixty male subjects rated pictures on the dimensions pornographic-nonpornographic, stimulating-non-stimulating, and pleasant-unpleasant. "A tentative meaning of pornography. emerged from the data, i.e., that the label 'pornography' tends to be given to sexual stimuli that are both stimulating and unpleasant."

In the second study, the amount of time males spent looking at erotic material was found to be significantly lower when they were viewing as part of an audience than alone. Viewing the pictures had little effect on behavior.

References cited from the Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography may be obtained in the Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Por nography, vols. 1-9, Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 20402 (Stock Nos. 5256-0001 through 5256-0010).

144 Money and Athanasiou

January 1, 1973 Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol.

Athanasiou, R.: A review of public attitudes on sexual issues, in Zubin, J., and Money, J., editors: Critical Issues in Contemporary Sexual Behavior, Baltimore, 1973, Johns Hopkins University Press.

The author reviews public attitudes toward the topics of premarital sex, sex education, and pornography. Data from several studies are compared, and their points of convergence are noted. Athanasiou, R., and Shaver, P.: Correlates of responses to pornography: A comparison of male heterosexuals and homosexuals, Proceedings of the Seventy-eighth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1970, pp. 349-350.

Homosexuals (No. = 581) were more sexually liberal and less romantic than other men (No. = 918). Self-reported reaction to pornography was not as good a predictor of behavior or attitudes for homosexuals as it was for heterosexuals. Athanasiou, R., and Shaver, P.: Correlates of heterosexuals' reactions to pornography, J. Sex Res. 7: 298, 1971.

Democrats, the nonreligious, the sexually liberal, and the nonromantic respondents tended to report arousal more often than disgust as a typical reaction to erotica. Premarital and extramarital sexual activity as well as marital coital frequency was higher for those respondents who reported erotica to be arousing. Male and female response patterns did not diverge in a significant fashion. Barclay, A. M.: Urinary acid phosphatase secretion in sexually aroused males, J. Exp. Res. Personality 4: 233, 1970.

This is one of a series of studies in which Barclay has attempted to validate the change in urinary acid phosphatase secretion as a specific indicator of sexual arousal.

Bartell, G. D.: Group Sex, New York, 1971, Signet, The New American Library.

Bartell studied mate-swapping behavior in the Midwest as an anthropologist using the participant observer method.

Berkowitz, L.: Sex and violence: We can't have it both ways, Psychol. Today 5: 14, 1971.

The author asks whether research findings suggest .. that erotic materials may actually heighten the chances that a few persons will carry bizarre or deviant actions."

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Brady, J. P., and Levitt, E. F.: The relation of sexual preference to sexual experience, Psychol. Rec. 15: 377, 1965.

In general, previous sexual experience was positively correlated with ratings of sexual photographs according to their theme.

Byrnne, D., and Lamberth, J.: The effect of erotic stimuli on sex arousal, evaluative responses and subsequent behavior, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 8, United States Government Printing Office.

"Sexual arousal and judgements of pornography appear to be independent dimensions. Judgements concerning what is and is not pornographic appear to be based on a negative affective response to the stimuli. . . . It is possible that the emo

tional reactions to erotic stimuli are of greater interest and importance than the behavioral consequences....

Cook, R. F., and Fosen, R. H.: Pornography and the sex offender, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 7, United States Government Printing Office.

No difference in self-rated sexual arousal was found between a group of sex offenders and a group of other criminal code offenders in response to sexually explicit pictures. With regard to past exposure to pornography, ". . . sex offenders generally experienced less frequent and milder exposure than did criminal code offenders." Davis, K. E., and Braucht, G. N.: Exposure to pornography, character, and sexual deviance: A retrospective survey, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 7, United States Government Printing Office.

The authors found that "character" was a mediating variable between sexual deviance and other variables and that a causal hypothesis associating pornography and character was not warranted.

Gebhard, P., Gagnon, J., Pomeroy, W., and Christenson, C.: Sex Offenders: An Analysis of Types, New York, 1967, Bantam Books. Comprehensive and based on official records and personal interviews with 1,500 convicted sex offenders, this study gives many valuable tabulations and charts of findings.

Goldstein, M. J., Kant, H. S., Judd, L. L., Rice, C. J., and Green, R.: Exposure to pornography and sexual behavior in deviant and normal groups, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 7, United States Government Printing Office.

Pornography users (book store habitués) and sex deviates (pedophiles, rapists, transexuals, and homosexuals) reported that as teen-agers they had seen less pornography than normal control subjects. The data suggest ".. that a reasonable exposure to erotica, particularly during adolescence, reflects a high degree of sexual interest and curiosity that correlates with adult patterns of acceptable heterosexual interest and practice. Less than average adolescent exposure... reflects either avoidance of heterosexual stimuli or development in a restrictive and punitive atmosphere." Hartman, J. J.: Sex fantasies and the use of erotica by sexual deviants, Paper presented at the Seventy-ninth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D. C., September, 1971.

The author compared self-reports of sexual fantasy, pornography preferences, and actual behavior in several groups of sex deviants and normal control subjects. His data suggest that pornography may be used by some groups in a compensatory fashion.

Herbert, J.: The social modification of sexual and

other behaviour in the rhesus monkey, in Starek, D., Schneider, R., and Kuhn, H.-J., editors:

Volume 115 Number 1

Pornography 145

Progress in Primatology, Stuttgart, 1967, Gustav Fischer Verlag.

Howard, J. L., Reifler, L. B., and Liptzin, M. B.: Effects of exposure to pornography, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 8, United States Government Printing Office. "The results obtained from the physiological measures support the hypothesis that repeated exposure (90 minutes per day for 15 days) to pornography results in decreased responsiveness toward it."

Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., Martin, C. E., and Gebhard, P. H.: Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Philadelphia, 1953, W. B. Saunders Company.

Kutchinsky, B.: Towards an explanation of the decrease in registered sex crimes in Copenhagen, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 7, United States Government Printing Office.

The data indicate that changes in attitudes toward sex crimes or changes in the laws could not account for the actual decline in the number of reports of crimes against women and children. The data strongly suggest that pornography may have some social value.

Levi, L., editor: Stress and distress in response to psychosocial stimuli, Acta Med. Scand. 191: 74, 1972. (Suppl. 528.)

Fifty-three female and 50 male students were exposed to 11⁄2 hours of sexually explicit films in a controlled experimental setting. Self-rated arousal was greater for men than for women. This difference was paralleled by corresponding differences in the urinary excretion of epinephrine and urine flow. A within-sex increase in norepinephrine and a decrease in specific gravity of urine were also reported to be correlated with sexual arousal. Females showed a slight but statistically significant decrease in creatinine secretion. Product moment correlations between self-rated arousal and catecholamine excretion were higher for females than for males (r=0.31 versus r 0.13). (See also Levi, L.: Sympatho-adrenomedullary activity, diuresis, and emotional reactions during visual sexual stimulation in human females and males, Psychosom. Med. 31: 251, 1969.)

Levitt, E. F., and Brady, J. P.: Sexual preferences in young adult males and some correlates, J. Clin. Psychol. 22: 348, 1965.

Preferences among 19 different sexual themes represented in photographs were found to be related to church attendance, size of community of residence, and age of puberty.

Mann, J., Sidman, J., and Starr, S.: Effects of erotic films on the sexual behavior of married couples, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, 1970, vol. 8, United States Government Printing Office.

Very few changes in behavior were reported in self-report surveys of married couples for 4 week periods before, during, and after viewing erotic films, except on nights when the movies were

shown. A control group saw travelogue-type films. Michael, R. P., and Keverne, E. B.: Primate sex pheromones of vaginal origin, Nature 225: 84, 1970.

Michael, R. P., Keverne, E. B., and Bonsall, R. W.: Pheromones: Isolation of male sex attractants from a female primate, Science 172: 964, 1971.

Money, J.: Use of an androgen-depleting hormone in the treatment of male sex offenders, J. Sex Res. 6: 165, 1970.

Money, J., and Ehrhardt, A. A.: Man and Woman Boy and Girl: The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity, Baltimore, 1972, The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Mosher, D. L.: Sex-guilt and reactions to pornographic films, Paper presented at the Seventyeighth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Miami Beach, September, 1970.

In this study, 32 married couples saw the same films used in other studies by Mosher and by Schmidt and associates. High and low sex-guilt married women responded to the films in a similar fashion to the high and low sex-guilt single women. In contrast to the reactions of high sex-guilt single males, however, the high sex-guilt married males responded more favorably toward the films than did the low sex-guilt married males. Mosher, D. L.: Psychological reactions to pornographic films, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 8, United States Government Printing Office.

Two erotic films portraying ventral-ventral coitus and oral-genital sex were viewed by nearly 400 male and female undergraduates. Males reported greater arousal than females to the films of oral-genital sex. Females versus males, high versus low sex-guilt subjects, and less versus more sexually experienced subjects rated the films as more pornographic, disgusting, and offensive. Neither sex reported increased frequency of masturbation, petting, oral-genital sex, or coitus. In males, sex-calloused attitudes toward women decreased. Attitudes toward premarital sex became more liberal for sexually experienced subjects 2 weeks after viewing the films.

Mosher, D. L., and Katz, H.: Pornographic films, male verbal aggression against women, and guilt, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 8, United States Government Printing Office.

"Sexual arousal did not lead to increased aggression. When aggression was instrumental to seeing a pornographic film it increased. Men with more severe conscience systems or more disposed to guilt over aggression were more aggressive... Propper, M. M.: Exposure to sexually oriented materials among young male person offenders, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1972, vol. 9, United States Government Printing Office.

146 Money and Athanasiou

January 1, 1973 Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol.

The sample for this study was composed predominantly of lower-class, urban, black, male adolescents incarcerated for robbery, larceny, possession of drugs, burglary, and similar offenses. No control or comparison group was used.

"The results support the possibility that the effects of exposure (to pornography) may be a function of multiple interacting factors within an individual life pattern which cannot be isolated from one another. . . ."

Schmidt, G., and Sigusch, V.: Sex differences in responses to psychosexual stimulation by films and slides, J. Sex Res. 6: 268, 1970.

After 128 men and 128 female students viewed a series of films and slides, the findings showed no differences between men and women in terms of self-reported sexual arousal, increases in masturbation, or coital activity. Women tended to report a slightly lower level of arousal to "unusual" types of activity such as cunnilingus. Women also seemed to be more strongly affected (either plus or minus) by the material than men. Both sexes were more sexually active in the 24 hours after the experiment but only to a very slight degree as compared with their own sexual routines. Schmidt, G., Sigusch, V., and Meyberg, V.: Psychosexual stimulation in men: Emotional reactions, changes of sex behavior and measures of conservative attitudes, J. Sex Res. 5: 199, 1969. This is one of the first studies of erotic response published by this team at the Institute für Sexualforschung in Hamburg and contains an extensive bibliography of 52 references covering relevant studies conducted up through the late 1960's. Respondents judged 24 slides with sexual themes. Their sexual behavior 24 hours before and 24 hours after the experiment was assessed by selfreport questionnaires.

No control group was used. Arousal induced by viewing led to a moderate increase in masturbation and total sexual outlet. "Conservatives judged the pictures less favorably and as sexually less stimulating than liberals. They also showed a lower increase in sexual activity after the experiment." Sigusch, V., Schmidt, G., Reinfeld, A., and Wiedemann-Sutor, I.: Psychosexual stimulation: Sex differences, J. Sex Res. 6: 10, 1970.

Male and female students, 50 of each, judged 24 picture themes of sexual content with respect to sexual arousal and favorableness-unfavorableness. (1) Women tended on the average to judge the slides as less arousing and more unfavorable than did men; (2) pictures with romantic content were judged by women as somewhat more arousing and significantly more favorable; (3) women showed the same degree of sexual physiologic reactions (arousal) and activism of sexual behavior as the men.

Stoller, R. J. Pornography and perversion, Arch. Gen. Psychiatr. 22: 490, 1970. Tannenbaum, P. H.: Emotional arousal as a mediator of erotic communication effects, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, 1971, vol. 8, United States Government Printing Office.

There is a suggestion in the data that censoring a film or just telling subjects that a film has been censored may raise the perceived erotic value of the film.

Wallace, D.: Visual erotica: Have we a standard for a contemporary community "problem"? Paper presented at the Seventy-ninth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, September, 1971.

This paper is an analysis based, in part, on data collected for the Commission (Wallace, Wehmer, and Podany, 1972). A pluralism of community standards exists. The question of a single standard is absurd except, perhaps, in very small homogeneous communities.

Wallace, D., Wehmer, G., and Podany, E.: Contemporary community standards of visual erotica, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1972, vol. 9, United States Government Printing Office.

This study of numerous social groups in the Detroit area yielded data which suggest that the community may be divided into several groupings in terms of their response to pornography. One group is the conservative-intolerant. Another is the liberal-tolerant. These groups can be distinguished by age, education, and religious affiliation. Wehmer, G., and Wallace, D. H.: Pornography

and attitude change, Proceedings of the Seventyeighth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1970, pp. 405-406.

Forty male undergraduates were randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition in this study which attempted to test whether or not moral values and attitudes would be changed by exposure to erotica. "The results indicate that a voluntary two hour exposure to erotic pictures... does not lead to a change in a person's attitudes toward such materials or in attitudes toward censorship. In addition, such exposure does not cause any significant disruption in a person's moral values."

Zuckerman, M.: Physiological measures of sexual arousal in the human, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 1, United States Government Printing Office.

The author presents an extensive and extraordinarily thorough review of the physiologic criteria which have been, and may be, employed to measure sexual arousal in males and females. Zurcher, L. A., and Kirkpatrick, R. G.: Collective dynamics of ad hoc antipornography organizations, in Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Washington, D. C., 1971, vol. 5, United States Government Printing Office.

This sociologic study focuses on the social motivation of the participants in antipornography crusades. The authors use as their framework for analysis theories concerning social movements in general and the Volstead Act (prohibition) in particular.

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NATIONAL PLANNING BOARD

The purpose of this letter is to alert you to the serious defects in the obscenity sections of the above bills. These deficiencies and changes in existing law may be summarized as follows:

S.1722

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Definition of "Obscene Material"
does not agree with the definitions
approved by the United States
Supreme Court.

Retains improper "Predominant Appeal"
test rejected in Miller.

Adds new words to Patently Offensive
Prong making convictions more difficult.

Legalizes "Simulated" Intercourse

contrary to Present Law.

Legalizes mailing, exhibiting, importation
and interstate transportation of
Obscenity if no profit made.

Improperly defines "Community" contrary
to cases and existing law.

Inadequate definition of "Disseminate".

8. Improperly includes minors as adults. JUL 11 1980

9. Legalizes Live Sexual Performances.

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