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Soundtrack contents and depicted sexual violence

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Abstract

Male undergraduates were exposed to a videotaped depiction of heterosexual rape accompanied by one of three soundtracks: the original soundtrack (featuring dialogue and background rock music), relaxing music, or no sound. Subjective reports of sexual arousal, general enjoyment, perceived erotic content, and perceived pornographic content of the sequence were then provided by each subject. Results indicated that males exposed to the videotape accompanied by the original soundtrack found the sequence significantly more pornographic than males exposed to the sequence accompanied by either relaxing background music or no sound. Ratings of sexual arousal, general enjoyment, and the perceived erotic content, however, did not differ significantly across soundtrack conditions. These results are compatible with the assertion that the content of a video soundtrack may influence the impact of depicted sexual violence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, V6T 1Y7, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    James G. Pfaus M.A., Lonn D. S. Myronuk & W. J. Jacobs Ph.D.

Authors
  1. James G. Pfaus M.A.
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  2. Lonn D. S. Myronuk
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  3. W. J. Jacobs Ph.D.
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Additional information

The present study was partially supported by an NSERC University Research Fellowship awarded to the third author.

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Pfaus, J.G., Myronuk, L.D.S. & Jacobs, W.J. Soundtrack contents and depicted sexual violence. Arch Sex Behav 15, 231–237 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542414

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