Anti-Women Attitudes, Pornography, and Sexual Assault: Google Search Data Clear Up ‘Blurred Lines’ in the Literature

Abstract

Across two studies, data on anti-women attitudes, pornography, and sexual assault were collected and analyzed. In Study 1, correlations between the Google search query “rape porn” and reported national data by state on indicators of hardships faced by women, such as FBI reports of rape, were examined for 2010 and 2012. It was found that “rape porn” was significantly positively correlated with four of the six dependent variables for 2010 (intimate partner violence, fear impact, post-traumatic stress disorder impact, and injury impact). For 2012, “rape porn” significantly negatively correlated with the gender pay gap, physical health, and mental health. There was a clear distinction in the pattern of results for “rape porn” and that of “porn.” For Study 2, it was predicted that the results of the correlation analyses from Study 1 would be cross-validated by two Amazon Mechanical Turk surveys that would demonstrate that individuals in different states hold varied anti-women attitudes; however, this was only partially supported. The implications of this senior thesis research are discussed. Keywords: rape porn, porn, Google Trends, anti-women attitudes, sexual assault