U.S. Adults’ Attitudes toward Gay Individuals’ Civil Liberties, Moral Judgments of Homosexuality, Support for Same-sex Marriage, and Pornography Consumption

U.S. Adults’ Attitudes toward Gay Individuals’ Civil Liberties, Moral Judgments of Homosexuality, Support for Same-sex Marriage, and Pornography Consumption, Revisited. Paul J. Wright &Robert S. Tokunaga. The Journal of Sex Research, Nov 17 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2021.1999893

Abstract: Approximately a decade ago, Wright and colleagues published three studies probing the nature of the relationship between heterosexual U.S. adults’ attitudes toward homosexuality and pornography consumption. Adopting an “effects” perspective (while acknowledging the nonexperimental nature of their data), they reasoned that pornography use could either lead to more antagonistic attitudes (by consumers viewing homosexuality through pornography’s lens of traditional masculinity) or accepting attitudes (by consumers viewing homosexuality through pornography’s lens of sexual liberalism). Results of all three studies aligned with the latter explanation. The present study evaluated whether the findings from these studies were replicable in the current U.S. sociocultural climate. No evidence of attitudinal reversal was found. Pornography use still directly predicted moral acceptance of homosexuality and support for same-sex marriage and indirectly predicted these outcomes via a more nontraditional attitude toward sex. Pornography use was neither directly nor indirectly related to attitudes toward civil liberties for gay persons in the more recent data, however. Additionally, contrary to the earlier findings, associations were unmoderated by education, sex, and ethnicity. Possible reasons for these discrepant results are discussed and the limitations to causal inference posed by correlational data are emphasized.