Aggression in pornography has tripled over 25 years, study finds

A new study suggests that visible physical aggression in popular online pornography has increased substantially over the past 25 years. This trend appears to be driven primarily by a rise in spanking, though the research also points to a smaller but significant increase in hitting and choking. The findings were published in The Journal of Sex Research.

Scientific literature has explored the connection between viewing pornography with aggressive content and holding attitudes that support aggression. A body of research indicates that exposure to aggressive pornography is associated with a greater likelihood of sexually aggressive behaviors and attitudes. Despite these connections, there has been considerable debate and variation in findings regarding how much aggression is actually present in mainstream pornography.

Previous analyses of pornographic content have produced varied results about how common aggression is, partly due to different definitions, time periods, and types of media being studied. Most of this research did not include data from the last decade, a period of significant change in online content. The researchers of the current study sought to provide a systematic, long-term analysis to understand if, and how, depictions of aggression within highly popular online pornographic videos have changed over time.

I was teaching a class on deviance and came across claims about rates of aggression in sexuality that were either not empirically substantiated or relied on problematic analyses and definitions of aggression. So I decided to conduct my own research on it, particularly on the common claim that mainstream pornography is becoming ‘harder and harder,”‘” said study author Eran Shor, a professor at McGill University and author of Aggression in Pornography: Myths and Realities. “This research is part of the larger picture that I present in my book.”

To investigate these trends, the researchers analyzed a sample of 255 videos from Pornhub, one of the most visited websites globally. They selected videos from the “most viewed” category, sampling content uploaded between the years 2000 and 2024 to create a long-term perspective. Each video had received at least two million views. This strategy was chosen to focus on the content most likely to be seen by large audiences and to maintain a consistent type of video for comparison across the years.

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The research team used two different operational measurements for aggression. The first, termed “visible aggression,” included a predefined list of physical acts like spanking, hitting, and choking, regardless of whether performers appeared to consent. The second definition, “nonconsensual aggression,” was applied only when performers showed clear verbal or nonverbal signs of resistance or distress that were ignored by their partners. Coders also noted the presence of specific aggressive acts, titles suggesting aggression, and verbal aggression.

Across the entire 25-year sample, visible physical aggression was present in 43.9% of the videos. Spanking was by far the most frequent act, appearing in 39.2% of all videos, followed by hair pulling at 10.2%. In contrast, nonconsensual aggression was found to be quite uncommon, appearing in only 1.6% of the videos analyzed. Titles that suggested aggression were also relatively uncommon, appearing in about 10% of the sample.

The study’s analysis of trends over time provides evidence of a notable shift in content. The rate of visible aggression nearly tripled, rising from approximately 20% in the videos sampled from the early 2000s to around 55-60% in videos from the last decade. This suggests that viewers of popular pornography today are substantially more likely to encounter scenes with physical aggression than they were 15 to 20 years ago.

“Previous research that covered data up to the mid-2010s did not find a significant increase in most types of aggression,” Shor told PsyPost. “So the significant increase in this study that covered data up to the mid 2020s was not necessarily expected.”

The researchers report that this increase can largely be attributed to a sharp rise in the depiction of spanking. This practice was seen in less than 20% of videos from the 2000s but appeared in more than half of the videos sampled from the late 2010s and early 2020s. The authors note that spanking is often considered a milder form of aggression and that its meaning can be subjective, with some viewers not perceiving it as aggressive at all.

While spanking accounted for most of the change, the study also identified a statistically significant increase in other forms of aggression that are often considered more severe. Depictions of hitting a partner’s body or face showed an increase, as did the practice of choking or applying pressure to the neck.

The rise in depictions of choking was particularly consistent. This practice was absent in the earliest videos sampled for the study but showed a steady climb over the years, appearing in 15% of the most popular videos from the 2020s. This finding aligns with anecdotal reports and scholarly concerns about the normalization of choking in sexual contexts. The study did not find significant changes over time for nonconsensual aggression, titles suggesting aggression, or verbal aggression, which all remained relatively low.

“While there’s a rise in overall aggression over the years, most of it can be ascribed to an increase in relatively light forms of aggression, primarily spanking,” Shor said. “Still, I also found a significant (though smaller) increase in hitting and strangulation. The latter is particulalry concerning, as it might affect young people’s sexual script and normalize a practice that could be health-risking and even life- endangering.”

The researchers propose that a bidirectional relationship may exist, where pornography both reflects and shapes sexual interests. As choking becomes more visible in pornography, it may be perceived as a normal or expected part of a sexual script. This can influence viewers to believe the practice is safe and does not require explicit consent, potentially leading them to incorporate it into their own sexual activities.

The authors acknowledge certain limitations to their study. The sample size was relatively modest, and the analysis was confined to the “most viewed” videos on a single website, which may not represent all available pornographic content. Relying on the platform’s own viewership data also presents a potential constraint, as such figures could be manipulated for commercial reasons.

For future research, the study suggests expanding analyses to include larger samples, other websites, and different genres of pornography. Researchers could also explore subscription-based services or employ more context-sensitive coding methods to better understand how viewers might interpret these acts. Such an approach could provide a more nuanced understanding of how sexual scripts in pornography are changing and how they are perceived by audiences.

The study, “The Rise of Spanking, Hitting, and Strangulation: A Longitudinal Evaluation of Aggression in Pornography,” was authored by Eran Shor and Xuanchi Liu.