Media Sex by Gunter Barrie

Author:Gunter, Barrie.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135653255
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Male Laboratory Aggression on Males

The main distinguishing feature of laboratory experiments has been the manipulation of the sex of the attacker and target. Some studies have investigated the impact of erotic materials on male aggression against other males; others have studied effects on male aggression directed against a female target. The latter is probably more important to the present review. Nevertheless, it is probably worth noting that in experiments in which males are invited to attack other males, aggressive retaliation against a male target (who earlier annoyed the participant) can apparently be increased by exposure to violent or nonviolent sex scenes. Thus, in a situation in which a young male was annoyed by another male, the level of retaliatory aggression displayed by the former was aroused to an equal extent by watching either pure sex scenes or violent sex scenes. Aggression can be enhanced not just by hostile material, but also by unpleasant material. In this case, a scene that depicted violent behavior (a man being whipped by a female) and one that depicted nonviolent, but degrading sexual activity (bestial sex) both invoked arousal that led to subsequent aggression (Zillmann, Bryant, & Carveth, 1981).

Elsewhere, though, rape scenes were found to produce greater laboratory aggression among men on other men than scenes of sexual intercourse with no violence (Donnerstein, 1980). One explanation for varying behavioral reactions could be that they are affected by how much male viewers enjoy the film extracts they are shown. For example, some sex scenes were found to generate greater laboratory aggression among men on other men when those scenes were disliked. Other equally arousing but liked scenes did not have such an effect. Rape scenes depicting female sexual arousal can stimulate subsequent aggression against male targets in a laboratory, provided the male viewers under observation were previously angered. Less enjoyable depictions of female distress-causing rape, sadomasochism, and bondage did not promote aggressiveness against other males to anything like the same degree (Sapolsky & Zillmann, 1981; Zillmann, Bryant, Comisky, & Medoff, 1981). The importance of enjoyment in combination with excitement to postviewing behavioral effects is examined again later in the section that deals with psychological explanations of such effects.

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