Page 329 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

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a story about a prostitute may be much less gratuitous than similar scenes
in a story about a female corporate executive. Few argued that the graphic
pool table gang rape scene in The Accused was gratuitous in that story
about the effects of rape on the victim. Sex, of course, is not the only com-
mon gratuitous factor; contemporary movies frequently contain car chases
and rock music video segments at best marginally related to the plot.
The prevailing tone can be culturally specific, as noted in the earlier
discussion of Japanese media. Some cultures do not consider female
breasts to be particularly erotic or inappropriate for public display. Thus,
most readers, at least over about age 13, do not consider topless women
from some distant culture in National Geographic photos to be erotic, sex-
ual, or pornographic. However, when National Geographic first began to
publish such photographs in the early 20th century, it was a carefully rea-
soned, but risky, editorial decision (Lutz & Collins, 1993). Even within
Western culture, standards have changed. In much of the 19th century,
knees and calves were thought to be erotic, and the sight of a bare-kneed
woman would be considered as scandalous as a topless woman would
today. As societies go, North America overall is moderate in what is
allowable sexual expression in dress, media, and behavior. Many Western
European and Latin American cultures are far more permissive, whereas
many Islamic and East Asian cultures are far more restrictive.
We now turn to examine in more detail that potent combination of sex
and violence in the media—sexual violence.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE: WORSE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS

Although neither sexual nor violent media are new, the integral combina-
tion has become far more prevalent and available in recent years. Many
people unwilling or forbidden to visit theaters that show pornographic
films now have the chance to view sexual material on cable, video, or the
Internet safely and privately at home. Beyond the explicit sexuality of
videos and pornographic Internet sites, there is increasing sexual violence
in sex magazines, both in some particularly violent publications but also
in more “established” publications like Penthouse and Playboy. Even the
old genre of horror films has recently evolved into showing increasingly
graphically violent scenes in a sexual context (Weaver & Tamborini, 1996).
Not generally considered pornographic, these films are heavily marketed
to teenagers, in spite of their R ratings. With all of these materials, the
major concern is not with the sex or violence in and of itself, but with the
way the two appear together. For an extensive review of the effects of sex-
ual violence, see Pollard (1995). We turn now to examining some of the
arousal, attitudinal, and behavioral effects of viewing sexual violence.