Research: What Causes Sexual Aggressiveness in Teen Boys?
Research Review: Is Male Adolescents’ Sexual Aggressiveness Better Explained by Prior Pornography Use or Callousness? A Brief Report by Aleksandor Stulhofer
I assumed the answer would be straightforward. But determining the cause of sexual aggressiveness isn’t as simple as blaming callousness or pornography use.
Trigger Warning: This post may contain descriptions or depictions of any or all of the following: self-harm, domestic violence, alcohol use, drug use, sexual abuse, addiction, pornography, or racism.
Aggressive sexual behavior would be the logical outcome of a developing, callous, adolescent brain exposed to pornography.
Some former and current clients would claim that porn contributed to their sexual aggression to a degree. But anecdotal claims do not necessarily mean that it applies to the general populace.
The Study
Stulholfer (2021) had two hypotheses:
- Callousness has an association with pornography usage and sexual aggressiveness
- Callousness and not pornography use would predict sexual aggressiveness
Simply stating that callous adolescents that frequently use pornography would have higher risk of sexual aggression than callous adolescents that view pornography less often. The hypotheses are sound and make an interesting inquiry.
The Results
Callousness and pornography had a small significance. Callousness and sexual aggressiveness had the most significance.
Pornography does not predict sexual aggressiveness as much as callousness.
It makes sense that callousness, being more of an intrinsic trait versus an extrinsic influence, would produce more sexual aggressiveness. However, it is recognized that pornography has an influence on the adolescent brain.
An ancillary finding shows that callousness may influence pornography use. For investigative purposes, further studies should be conducted on the kind of pornography callous adolescents frequent.
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Further Findings on Sexual Aggressiveness
There is a citation in the article I found very interesting:
“It is possible that for those high in callousness with frequent pornography use, served as an outlet for fantasies about impersonal sex, resulting in lower levels of real-life (sexual) aggressiveness. Alternatively, it may be that more frequent pornography use made the male adolescents less likely to interpret some of their behavior as unwanted or nonconsensual. In other words, we cannot rule out the possibility that frequent pornography consumption may have influenced adolescents’ perception of sexual consent (or a lack of it), effectively desensitizing them to exploitative and/or coercive sex.”
Hald et al., 2014
This quotation speaks volumes. Adolescents may have difficulties understanding when their actions are inappropriate or nonconsensual. This could lead some teens to their first run-in with the legal system.
Further Thoughts on Pornography’s Influence
Sometimes adolescents would see pornography and assume the observed sexual behavior is the norm. When, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
The adolescent brain is not developed to understand the context of the material being consumed.
Consent is rarely ever shown in pornography. It makes sense then, that an adolescent may assume a potential partner would simply want to engage the way the actors do.
Being rejected can lead to them becoming confused or even aggressive when a real sexual interaction does not play out the way it did in the pornography.
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