Introduction

Over the last few decades, concerns about pornography’s psychological, relational, and sociocultural ramifications have entered mainstream debates. A cursory overview of both public and academic discussions of and writings on pornography reveals that they have mostly focused on pornography’s effects, especially on adolescents and youth. Such a review also highlights concerns about both an assumed increase in violent and degrading content over time and an increased demand among (often male) viewers for aggressive and degrading content. Much of the work from both sides remains theoretical or anecdotal, without sound empirical evidence based on research. All too often, the ideological positions of researchers, journalists, or others writing about the pornography industry, and specifically about aggression therein, greatly influence the theories and facts that they choose to cite, as well as their methodological choices in studying this breeding ground.