Alcohol and violent pornography: responses to permissive and nonpermissive cues

Both alcohol consumption and violent pornography have been implicated independently in the commission of sexual aggression. In addition to alcohol consumption, the presence of alcohol in the context of violent pornography may act as a permissive cue to influence judgments of such material's acceptability and self-reported likelihood of engaging in sexually violent behavior. To test this proposition, an experiment which varied beverage condition (alcohol vs no alcohol), expectancy set (expect vs do not expect alcohol) and a permissive (presence of alcohol) vs nonpermissive (absence of alcohol) cue was conducted on both male and female subjects. Secondary analyses on male subjects alone investigated the role of the personality trait hypermasculinity in affecting judgments. Results showed that (1) alcohol itself rather than expectancy set influenced judgments and willingness to engage in sexual violence; (2) the presence of alcohol interacted with alcohol consumption to affect willingness to engage in sexual violence; (3) men high in hypermasculinity judged the violent pornographic story more positively than did men low in this trait; and (4) alcohol interacted with hypermasculinity to affect acceptability judgments, but only for men low on this trait. These findings are consistent with cognitive disruption models and show promise for future investigations of the influence of permissive cues, as well as the role of hypermasculinity.