Internet pornography: a social psychological perspective on internet sexuality

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 2001 by William A. Fisher, Azy Barak

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Sexual Stimuli--Sexual Arousal--Sexual Behavior

According to the Sexual Behavior Sequence, individuals respond to unconditioned sexual stimuli with physiological sexual arousal. Unconditioned erotic stimuli can include tactile stimulation of the genitals, exposure to pheromones, and possibly, visual sexual cues such as exposure to the genitals or breasts or observation of copulatory behavior (Byrne, 1977; Fisher, 1986; Gallup, 1986). The Sexual Behavior Sequence also asserts that any other discriminable stimulus which is associated with an unconditioned erotic stimulus can become a conditioned erotic stimulus with the capacity to elicit physiological sexual arousal itself.

According to the Sexual Behavior Sequence, individuals who come into contact with erotic stimuli and who are sufficiently sexually aroused for a sufficient period of time are motivated to engage in preparatory sexual behavior that will increase the likelihood of overt sexual behavior. Preparatory sexual behaviors which increase the likelihood of overt sexual behavior can involve actions such as locking one's bedroom door and plugging in a vibrator, making sexual overtures to an opposite-sex or same-sex partner, or seeking sexual companionship in a singles bar or in an Internet chat room. If preparatory sexual behaviors are successful, sexual behavior will result, and sexual behaviors have outcomes that may be experienced as subjectively positive or negative events. Outcomes are assumed to feed back into the system to condition the future greater or lesser likelihood of the chain of events that led to the sexual behavior and outcome in question.

Considering only the erotic stimulus--physiological arousal--preparatory behavior--sexual behavior--outcome level of the Sexual Behavior Sequence, let us turn to the example of a neophyte male Internet user. Having discovered JJJ's Thumbnail Post (http://www.pornno.com .gallerypost.shtml) in the course of idle surfing, our Internet user has viewed text, images, and video clips depicting a variety of stimulus themes--including consensual heterosexual intercourse, bondage and discipline, interracial anal intercourse, urination, and cumshots, all depicted as discriminable stimulus accompaniments of unconditioned erotic stimuli such as copulatory behavior and breast and genital imagery. Our Internet explorer settles on a stimulus theme that he finds idiosyncratically to be arousing--cumshot still and moving images of a male ejaculating onto the face, hair, breasts, and vulva of a female. Over time, the Internet user finds that cumshot themes in general have become a conditioned erotic stimulus with the capacity to elicit high levels of physiological sexual arousal and with the ability to motivate preparatory sexual behaviors, sexual behaviors, and outcomes. Whether or not the acquisition of the cumshot theme as a conditioned erotic stimulus will ever be translated into covert fantasy or overt behavior involving ejaculation onto a woman's face or body will be a function of affective and cognitive responses which are simultaneously evoked by the sexually explicit Internet stimulus category in question and whose roles are also specified by the Sexual Behavior Sequence.