ABSTRACT
Since the 1960s, research on the effects of exposure to sexually explicit materials has been a field of inquiry within the social sciences. Social science research has become a controversial part of federal policy-advising commissions on pornography for two decades. In 1970, the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography found insufficient evidence that exposure to explicit sexual materials played a significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behavior. However, the social science literature on which these claims were based was widely criticized for a failure to include materials of a sexually violent or aggressive nature and a failure to investigate specific effects on violence against women.
