95% of men and 75% of women in Spain have declared having seen pornography voluntarily, these are high figures that reflect that this type of erotic videos are no longer a taboo. However, the study that has released these figures has warned that it also carries serious risks, especially for women who consume it.
And it is that, as explained in this paper presented at the XL Annual Meeting of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology (SEE), women who consume porn are at greater risk of suffering sexual violence, something that does not occur in the same way in men. All these data have been collected in a cross-sectional study that has had the participation of 2,515 people between 18 and 35 years of age residing in Spain.
The prevalence of sexual violence in adults and youth is high and affects women more than men, 49.9% versus 25.9% respectively. If the consumption of porn is taken into account, it is revealed that 59% of the women who consume it or who have consumed it would have suffered some type of sexual violence, compared to 28% of the women who declared that they did not watch this type of video .
Watching porn increases the risk of sexual violence
The results of the study, which has been financed by the Center for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health Network (CIBERESP), are alarming, and it is that women who watched porn declared having been forced to have sexual relations against their will when they were incapacitated due to the use of alcohol and other drugs or having been forced by restraining or under threat up to four times more than those who did not consume porn.
People who view porn are up to 2.4 times more likely to sexually assault non-viewers
Four of the behaviors that have been analyzed in the study included penetration, something that against the will of the person can be considered rape. These types of attitudes were mentioned by 27.3% of the women who watched porn, three times more (9.7%) than those who did not.
But what could be the cause of this association between viewing porn and increased risk of sexual violence? According to Belén Sanz-Barbero, main researcher of the study, “it is possible that women who consume pornography are exposed to certain behaviors that they see and then see the sexual violence that may be behind them; It is also possible that they have sexual encounters with partners who consume pornography and therefore there is greater exercise of it”.
Another risk is that consuming porn increases the probability of committing sexual violence, regardless of gender, as explained by Sanz. Specifically, they observed that those who consume this type of sexual content were up to 2.4 times more likely to sexually assault those who did not see it.
The authors plan to start a project that analyzes in more depth the different types of pornography that are consumed and if it has any kind of relationship with different behaviors of sexual violence. The most common assaults reported by participants, regardless of whether or not they watched porn, were touching their genitals or chest against their will. Although this study is an approximation, it emphasizes the need to create affective-sexual education programs for young people.
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