You Looking at Her ‘‘Hot’’ Body May Not be ‘‘Cool’’ for Me: Integrating Male Partners’ Pornography Use into Objectification Theory for Women
AUTHOR(S)
PUBLISHED
2015 in Psychology of Women Quarterly, Vol. 39(1), pp. 67-84
KEY FINDINGS
- Previous partners’ pornography use predicted body shame in women.
- Previous partners' pornography use predicted eating disorder symptomatology in women.
ABSTRACT
Within objectification theory research, sexual objectification is typically operationalized as interpersonal sexual objectification - being targets of body evaluation and unwanted sexual advances. We argue that women’s male partners’ pornography use could be integrated within objectification theory as another form of sexual objectification and negatively linked to women’s well-being. College women (N = 171) rated how often their current and previous male partners viewed pornography and whether pornography use bothered... READ FULL ABSTRACT
EXCERPTS
- "Therefore, higher perceived frequency of former male partners viewing pornography was associated with women’s greater felt interpersonal sexual objectification. This finding upholds comments made by some women regarding their partners who heavily viewed pornography; these women reported feeling that their male partner transferred the objectifying treatment of women in pornography onto them"
- "In addition, previous male partners’ pornography use was found to incrementally predict other forms of women’s distress, such as experiencing greater negative affect and relationship anxiety and lower self-esteem and body appreciation, independent of women’s reports of being bothered by pornography use and being targets of interpersonal sexual objectification."
