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45 - The Internet Is for Porn

Evolutionary Perspectives on Online Pornography

from Part X - Evolution and the Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

By
Catherine Salmon ,
Maryanne L. Fisher  and
Rebecca L. Burch
Edited by
Lance Workman ,
Will Reader  and
Jerome H. Barkow
Lance Workman
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Will Reader
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Jerome H. Barkow
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
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Summary

When people talk about sex in today’s digital environment, some of the most prominent topics are the prevalence, ease of accessibility, and variety of online pornography. Our focus in the current chapter is on the identity of online pornography consumers and the actual content that is being consumed. We specifically explore sex differences in online pornography consumption using the lens of evolutionary psychology. This perspective allows us to examine how sex-specific challenges over human evolutionary history have shaped general tendencies in mate preferences. Here, we discuss pornography consumption not only with regards to common sexual interests within and across men and women, but also with regards to individual differences in terms of the diversity of explicit images, video, and literature that is available online.

Keywords

evolutionary psychologyInternetpornographysex differences
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior , pp. 548 - 557
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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