Undergraduate students Charlotte Bacon (Sociology and Social Policy BA) and Anastasia Demitriou (Applied Psychology and Sociology BA), presented their dissertation research exploring the relationship between consuming pornography and sexuality and the representation of orgasm in Cosmopolitan magazine to the annual conference of the Psychology of Women Section of the British Psychological Society held in Windsor on 11-13 July 2012.
Anastasia Demitriou, Hannah Frith and Charlotte Bacon
As part of a symposium on 'Mediatising Sexuality', organised by Dr Hannah Frith who teaches psychology of the University of Brighton, the students presented their work to academics, practitioners and other students and confidently answered questions from the floor. Dr Frith was delighted with the symposium and added that she "felt proud to be able to showcase the very high quality research produced by undergraduate students at the university".
Charlotte described how the male participants in her study looking at the consumption of pornography, felt threatened by the unrealistic expectations set by pornography. For some, the "freakishly large penises" depicted in the films made them "question if your own is adequate", or feel that women expect them to "perform for longer". Both male and female participants thought that pornography depicted anal sex as a typical, relatively easy and desired sexual act which was often at odds with their own experience. Despite these unrealistic ideas about sex, participants did see pornography as enabling sexual exploration and educating them about sex.
Anastasia's research demonstrated how women's orgasms are depicted in Cosmopolitan magazine as an essential part of a healthy relationship and as good for women's individual health. Women are encouraged to "work upon their orgasms in order to gain perfection", said Anastasia, "the magazine schools women in how to achieve orgasm quickly, effectively and efficiently". She also noted that there was a tendency to emphasise the differences in the experiences of men and women, and to naturalise these differences by comparing human experiences to those of animals.
Both students welcome the opportunity to present their work at an academic conference, Charlotte said that the conference was "a fantastic opportunity to be introduced to an academic setting outside of the university. Not only did I come away inspired by the speakers but with a new found confidence in my work".
