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The Demand for Pornography

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Abstract

The market for pornography acquired great economic relevance in the 1970s with diffusion of the videocassette recorder, and went onto gain increasing relevance as from the 1990s, with the ICT revolution. Nonetheless, it has been totally ignored in economic investigation. The present paper focuses on the demand side of this market, with the main aim of proposing a preliminary theoretical assessment of the behaviour of pornography purchasers and its recent evolution in response to the Internet revolution. In this respect, certain contributions on hedonic adaptation have proved particularly useful, whereas addiction models have proved less useful than might have been expected.

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Notes

  1. The term pornography applies to the depiction of sexual acts, and not to sexual acts themselves. As a consequence, strictly speaking live sex shows are not included in the category of pornography.

  2. In the United States, for example, “[e]stimates of the size of the swinging population vary widely. Research provided by North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) (McGinley, 1995) found that 15% of couples in the U.S. have at some point incorporated swinging into their marriage. More conservative estimates are offered by studies which are unrelated to NASCA. Hunt (1975) and Weiss (1983) estimate that two to four percent of married couples have engaged in swinging at least on an occasional basis. Bartell (1971) found the figure to be one percent and Cole and Spaniard (1974) found, based on a small college community sample, that 1.7% had experienced swinging at least once” (Bergrstand and Williams 2000, p. 2). In Italy, according to Federsex (2007) the number of swinger couples should be around 400,000, so that 800,000 people should share this lifestyle out of a population of about 60mln. These data are confirmed by a sampling study carried out by www.morenasex.net (Morenasex.net 2007), which estimates about 370,000 swinger couples in Italy. Considering that Italy, is a somewhat conservative country in matters of non-conventional sex, the fact that more than 1% of its population engages in swinging activities is particularly significant.

  3. On this point see also Kalman (2008), pp. 609–610.

  4. “Sexual addiction is a maladaptive pattern of sexual behaviour, leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by three (or more) of the following, occurring at any time in the same 12-month period:

    1. (1)

      Tolerance, as defined by either:

      1. a.

        A need for markedly increased amount or intensity of the sexual behaviour to achieve the desired effect or

      2. b.

        markedly diminished effect with continued involvement in the sexual behaviour at the same level of intensity.

    2. (2)

      Withdrawal, as manifested by either:

      1. a.

        physiological symptoms that are manifested upon discontinuation of the sexual behaviour or

      2. b.

        the same (or a closely related) sexual behaviour is engaged into relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.

    3. (3)

      The sexual behaviour is often engaged in over a longer period, in greater quantity, or at a higher level of intensity than was intended.

    4. (4)

      There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control the sexual behaviour.

    5. (5)

      A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to prepare for the sexual behaviour, to engage in the behaviour, or to recover from its effects.

    6. (6)

      Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of the sexual behaviour.

    7. (7)

      The sexual behaviour continues despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the behaviour.” (Manning 2005, pp. 35–36).

  5. For the differences between sexual addiction and sexual compulsivity, see Manning (2005, p. 37). On Internet addiction, and in particular Internet pornography addiction, see also Kalman (2008, pp. 598–599).

  6. On this point see e.g. Bradley (1990); Miele et al. (1990); Mitchell (2000); Holden (2001); Shapira et al. (2003), in particular pp. 208–209. And for a review of the different opinions, see the on-line debate on WebMD at the URL http://men.webmd.com/guide/is-pornography-addictive?page=1.

  7. For an analysis of how exposure to pornography affects the brain of subjects, so that they come to like viewing sexual acts which they found distasteful before, i.e. how sexual tastes can be acquired, see Doidge (2007, pp. 102 ff).

  8. The initial attitude towards the externalities of pornography has seen rapid change. To begin with it was somehow assumed (see e.g. George 2001) that pornography generates negative externalities in terms of increase in sex crimes, but further studies have shown that “there is little evidence of any substantial externality effect, in terms of recorded deviant behaviour, from pornography” (Cameron 2005, p. 172; for a similar conclusion, see also Wongsurawat 2006, p. 186); moreover, there might be “social benefits of pornography” (Cameron 2005, p. 188), such as the stimulus for technological advance (camcorder, VHS, pay-per-view TV, etc. were pioneered and developed by pornography producers) and the positive effect of “soft” porn movies which could be used by couples “to revive their relationship” (Cameron 2005, p. 190). In any case, externalities are a somewhat controversial issue and attempts to prove their existence are often based on veiled moral considerations; for this reason they are not discussed in this paper.

  9. Although other models of addiction do exist (see e.g. Pollack 1970, 1975; Winston 1980; Thaler and Shefrin 1981; Gruber and Koszegi 2001), the Becker and Murphy approach, apart from being the most famous, is the most theoretically robust and the only one based on fully rational agents.

  10. Consumption skills were discussed in depth by Scitovsky (1976)—for a recent discussion of the role of consumption skills in Scitovsky’s approach see Bianchi (2003). Scitovsky’s approach has been extensively applied in theoretical analysis of happiness (see e.g. Bianchi 2007), of the Art (see e.g. Hutter and Shusterman 2006 and Chartrand 1987), of the Sport (see e.g. Gratton and Taylor 2000), of Fashion (see e.g. Corneo and Jeanne 1999), of Tourism (see e.g. Richards 2001), of Gastronomy (see e.g. Richards 2002), etc.

  11. For discussion on the theme of complete or incomplete adaptation and the setpoint hypothesis, see Easterlin (2003) and Lucas et al. (2003).

  12. In relation (1) above wellbeing is consumer’s each day overall satisfaction and the baseline level is the overall satisfaction deriving from the activities (other than consuming pornography) the consumer is already engaged in. It is to be borne in mind that wellbeing is different from the marginal utility of (a dose of) pornography.

  13. According to standard economic theory, in choosing among alternative activities (and/or goods), and also in choosing among different kinds of pornographic material, the consumer will acquire the activities (and/or the goods), and the pornographic material which maximize his/her intertemporal net wellbeing. In relation (1) the assumption is implicitly made that the pornographic material under consideration is that which furnishes the maximum net wellbeing per euro of expenditure of the many that are within the budget constraint of the consumer.

  14. The non-monetary, psychological costs of buying pornography, such as social stigmatization, are considerably reduced by purchasing pornographic material over the Internet (or, before the Internet era, using private post office boxes, as discussed in Wongsurawat 2006).

  15. Assuming that consumers are naïve does not affect the main conclusions of the model since, as we shall see, consumers who behave naively will nonetheless maximize their intertemporal wellbeing. As a result, sophisticated consumers and naïve consumers will behave in the same way.

  16. If skill accumulation did not fully compensate the initial difference in levels of wellbeing, point C would have a lower ordinate than point A (as it is, for different reasons, in Fig. 3) and point D would have a lower ordinate than point C; if skill accumulation more than fully compensated the initial difference in levels of wellbeing, point C would have a higher ordinate than point A, and point D would have a higher ordinate than point C. In both cases nothing would change in the logic of the model.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Marina Bianchi (Università di Cassino), Mimmo D’Antuono (Guide Edizioni), Daniela Federici (Università di Cassino), Alessio Liquori (Università di Cassino), Mariano (www.morenasex.net), Ornella Tarola (Sapienza Università di Roma), Maurizio Pugno (Università di Cassino), Alessandra Tonazzi (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato), various other people who prefer to remain anonymous and six anonymous referees of this journal. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at a seminar held in the University of Cassino. The usual caveat applies.

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    Fabio D’Orlando

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D’Orlando, F. The Demand for Pornography. J Happiness Stud 12, 51–75 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-009-9175-0

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