Traces of Pornography: Shame, Scripted Action, and Agency in Narratives of Young Swedish Women

The purpose of this study was to explore young women’s experiences of pornography and how they believe pornography has affected both themselves and other adolescents in terms of sexuality and sexual experiences. Seven young women aged 17–18 years were interviewed and their narratives were analyzed through thematic analysis. The results show that the participants’ pornography consumption has at times evoked feelings of shame in relation to their official feminist stance. Moreover, they all report experiences of being pressured to adopt a “supporting role” in sex and to perform in line with a narrow pornographic script, thus compromising their wish to enjoy sex and enact sexual agency. It is also evident how the participants have struggled to navigate through the conflicting positions that are available within a postfeminist culture, for instance in relation to feminism, heterosexual gender norms, and the strong ideal of being an “agent” in sex. In the pursuit of young women’s healthy sexual development, the results highlight the need for safe female venues, a relational understanding of agency, cultural change rather than individualized responsibility, porn literacy training, and the advancement of broader sexual scripts.


Introduction
For the great majority of adolescents today, having watched pornographic material is a very common experience. The internet is available for most people, across the world, through different kinds of technical devices, providing 24-h access to uncensored images of sexual acts. In addition, there is evidence of spillover effects of pornographic content in diverse media channels, such as video games, further normalizing sexually explicit material in adolescents' everyday lives (Massey et al., 2021). It is in this environment that the teenage girls of this study, who were interviewed about their experiences of pornography, come of age. No more than a few clicks away, pornographic imagery has simply become a natural feature of their lifeworlds.
Although Sweden has often been positioned as one of the most sexually liberated countries in the world (Glover & Marklund, 2009), pornography has at the same time been the target of recurring feminist critique, once stamping it as a misogynous "opium for the male population" (Arnberg, 2021: 15). This skeptical stance is also highly visible in contemporary society, for instance in a newly adopted school curriculum which stipulates that all students, as part of their education, should develop a critical stance towards pornography (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2021). In a country where the majority of the political parties identify themselves as "feminist," and where gender equality remains "a pillar in the 'Progressive Sweden' brand" (Jezierska & Towns, 2018: 56), there is simply not much leeway for a rival position in the public debate.
At the same time, Sweden is just as affected by a postfeminist media culture as any other western country. As Gill (2007) points out, this culture is characterized by a complex entanglement of feminist and anti-feminist elements. Hence, an emphasis on the importance of females acting as empowered, autonomous, and rationally choosing subjects, who seek sexual pleasure on their own terms, often mixes with quite traditional ideas about the naturalness of gender differences, the value of a sexy female body, and the merit of attracting the male gaze. As pointed out by Burkett and Hamilton (2012: 816), this "raunch culture" may also explain why young women often assume sexual empowerment and yet simultaneously consent to unwanted or unpleasant sex.
Against the background of these contradictory forces, we believe it is essential to focus on how young women experience their encounter with pornography. More specifically, we interviewed seven teenage girls, who all had experience of both heterosexual sex and pornography consumption, with the aim to shed light on how they believe pornography has affected themselves, their sexual partners, and young people in general. In line with Spišák's (2020) argument that there is a need for qualitative research that offers insights into the personal experiences of pornography use among adolescents, we performed a "thematic analysis" (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of the collected narratives.
As we will show, all the participants exhibit the same conflicting ideals of pornography, feminism, and postfeminism in their narratives. Thus, it is our argument that what might look like a series of highly individual reflections on 1 3 Traces of Pornography: Shame, Scripted Action, and Agency… pornographic experiences are in fact better understood as culturally colored remembrances of shared actions, thoughts, and emotions. In light of this, we view the participants' narratives as "cultural testimonies" (Illouz, 2012: 22) rather than as transparent windows into their interior psychological worlds.

Previous Research on Adolescents and Pornography
The exact number of adolescents who have consumed pornography at least once varies greatly across different studies. However, two trends are clear: both young males and young females watch pornography, although young males tend to do it more than young females (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016). In Sweden, consumption experience ranges from 91 to 98% in the former group and from 50 to 76% in the latter (Donevan et al., 2022). For many, the first encounter with pornography occurs in the early teens. There are therefore reasons to believe that adolescents' first contact with pornography often happens before their first sexual encounter.
The fact that pornography is widely consumed by adolescents today raises the question of whether such involvement is harmful or not, a persistent concern in both quantitative and qualitative inquiries. This stock of research shows that reported negative experiences, consequences, and interpretations clearly dominate (Ashton et al., 2018;Carrotte et al., 2020;Massey et al., 2021), but Peter and Valkenburg (2016) caution us to consider that various methodological and theoretical limitations, for instance a common negativistic or even moralistic bias, might contribute to this general pattern.
One of the most commonly reported negative consequences of pornography is that it contributes to a culture of highly sexualized images of women (Massey et al., 2021). In line with this, Peter and Valkenburg (2009a) found that exposure to pornography affects adolescents' view of women as sex objects and that this perception does not differ between males and females. However, it is important to emphasize that this relationship is not unidirectional. Those who watch pornography more frequently tend to develop stronger beliefs about women as sexual objects, while those who beforehand had stronger beliefs about women as sexual objects tend to watch pornography more frequently.
For both females and males, frequent consumption of pornography may also lead to increased dissatisfaction with one's own sexual life due to upward comparisons with sexual competencies displayed in pornography (Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010;Peter & Valkenburg, 2009b). However, Häggström-Nordin et al. (2006) found that adolescents of both sexes agree that young men push more in the direction of the pornographic imagery, thereby creating unwanted demands on young women, who appear less willing to act as copycats. As Elmerstig et al., (2012: 131) point out, this pressure of "doing whatever men want" risks intruding on teenage girls' opportunities to experience sexual pleasure. Moreover, young women tend to describe pornography in terms of a framework for body ideals and express concerns regarding, for instance, the apparent necessity of pubic hair removal (Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010).
Research also links more frequent viewing of pornography with less progressive stances on gender roles, more permissive sexual norms, and more high-risk sexual behavior, such as not using contraceptives, having multiple partners, and using alcohol or other substances during sex (Braun-Courville & Rojas, 2009;Brown & L'Engle, 2009). Moreover, studies have repeatedly shown a correlation between pornography viewing and young men supporting or engaging in dominant, coercive, or aggressive sexual practices (Hald et al., 2010). By contrast, the association between pornography use and sexual victimization has been demonstrated notably among teenage girls (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016).
In comparison to men, women generally hold more negative attitudes towards pornography. For instance, studies show that young women find viewing pornography "dirty," "disgusting," "hideous," "repugnant," "unnatural," and "vulgar" (Gurevich et al., 2017;Scarcelli, 2015;Spišák, 2020). This may in turn explain why they tend to keep quiet about their supposedly shameful private consumption (Scarcelli, 2015). However, research also shows that pornography often gives rise to highly ambivalent feelings among young women. Feelings of disgust and repulsion may thus be experienced at the same time as feelings of sexual arousal and sexual inspiration (Attwood, 2005;Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010;Spišák, 2020).
In general, qualitative research that relies on phenomenological or discursive perspectives has offered more hopeful accounts of pornography consumption (e.g., Attwood et al., 2018;Gurevich et al., 2017;Spišák, 2020). In contrast to more traditional, quantitative research, which often portrays adolescents as passive victims of pornography, this research emphasizes how young people exhibit both agency and critical skills in relation to their experiences. Most notably, adolescents often defend the idea that pornography, apart from offering sexual arousal, is an important means to explore and develop their own sexuality (Attwood et al., 2018;Spišák, 2017), sometimes as a compensation for poor sex education in school (Smith, 2013). However, at the same time, adolescents do not portray themselves as naïve, but often disapprove of pornography's "arranged," "fake," or "exaggerated" elements, arguing that "real life sex" looks very different (Gurevich et al., 2017;Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010;Spišák, 2020). Thus, in this research, the potential developmental value of pornographic experiences is recognized, whereas quantitative research tends to point merely to harmful consequences, such as increased sexual uncertainty (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016).
Qualitative research has also shown that adolescents of both sexes tend to deemphasize traditional, moralistic objections to pornography use, claiming that it is simply a light form of homosocial entertainment, a "safe outlet" in the absence of a partner, or a readily available means to relieve boredom or stress (Attwood, 2018;Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010). Yet, young females still worry that pornography may ruin their future sex life or their reputation as "good girls" (Spišák, 2017). It is simply not considered normal for a teenage girl to use pornography as a source of sexual arousal and information, once again pointing to the highly gendered experience of engaging in this allegedly shameful practice (Scarcelli, 2015).
In sum, whether the research presented above has relied on quantitative or qualitative methods, we believe it serves as an important background to our own study in that it points to the various consequences of and responses to pornography consumption.

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Traces of Pornography: Shame, Scripted Action, and Agency… Although we share Peter and Valkenburg's (2016) concern about a common negativistic bias in much of the pornographic research, this will not prevent us from exposing both the participants' and our own critical viewpoints in this study.

Participants, Data Collection, and Ethics
A total of seven females, aged 17-18 years old, were interviewed for the study. All of them were recruited through high schools in Sweden after advertising on the schools' physical bulletin boards as well as on their digital platforms. All participants were Swedish-speaking and lived in a large city. They identified themselves as either heterosexual, bisexual, or undefined, and all had experience of heterosexual sex to varying extents. They also all had experience of watching pornography to varying degrees. Some of the participants were consumers of pornography at the time of the interviews, while others had actively chosen to stop. None of the participants had traumatic sexual experiences that they considered to be an obstacle to discussing the topic. Within qualitative research, this type of homogeneous sample is desirable in order to perform indepth analyses of a few population perspectives (Braun & Clarke, 2013).
The data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews. Each interview was held by either the second or the third author with the intention to create a personal and safe atmosphere for the participant. The interviews were conducted through Zoom video calls and lasted between 45 and 75 min. The interviews were based on an interview guide with specific questions and themes to fit the aim of the study. The questions, however, were formulated in an open way to let participants reflect broadly. In semi-structured interviews there is also room for questions beyond the interview guide, giving participants the opportunity to expand their narratives on specific topics. The interview guide was tested and revised in several pilot interviews before conducting the study interviews.
As the main aim of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of young women's experiences of pornography, participating in the study involved sharing potentially sensitive information. For this reason, ethical approval was sought from, and given by, the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (ref. no. 2020-06405). In addition, the study was conducted in accordance with ethical research principles in Sweden, including informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, rules of use, and safe storage (Swedish Research Council, 2017). Although we focused on a potentially sensitive topic, none of the participants stated that the interview caused them any discomfort when a question about this was asked at the end of the interview.

Thematic Analysis
The analysis of the data within this study followed Braun and Clarke's (2013) guidelines for thematic analysis. After collecting the data, each recorded interview was transcribed. A word-by-word transcription was used, focusing on what was said 1 3 more than how it was said. However, significant laughs and filler words ("um") were included. In total, the transcription contains about 45,000 words.
During the initial analytical phase, the advice offered by Braun and Clarke (2013) was followed. A brief description of the process includes the following steps: close reading of the transcripts, note writing, identification of possible themes, comparisons between the interviews, and selection of interview quotations. The second and the third authors did all the initial coding and identified all the themes, whereas the first and the fourth authors made their contributions before and after these stages.
After choosing interview extracts that could illustrate the themes, the study continued with a deeper exploration of the material. This meant that we tried to interpret all the extracts and explore various ways of understanding them. In doing so, we tried to go beyond a pure description of the extracts and asked questions such as: What is being said between the lines? What is the underlying message? What hidden ideals and moralities can be identified? In addition, we also tried to interpret the extracts against the backdrop of previous research and theory, and by making comparisons between the extracts.

Results
In this section, we present three main themes that were constructed from the collected data: The porn-shame of feminists, Confined by the pornographic script, and Agents in a postfeminist era. The second theme includes two subthemes: The supporting actress and The grey area of consent. All the themes will be introduced with a short description followed by extracts and accompanying analyses.

The porn-shame of feminists
Although there are conflicting thoughts about whether feminism and pornography are ideologically congruent (Hänel & Mikkola, 2017), there seems to be a shared understanding among many feminists that mainstream pornography (i.e., frequently watched material) contributes to the objectification and victimization of women (Massey et al., 2021). Pornographic videos often include subtle forms of aggression, such as spanking, directed towards women (Carrotte et al., 2020;Klaassen & Peter, 2015), and many opponents of the pornography industry argue that it involves exploitation of women (Taylor, 2018). Thus, consumers of this industry's products could be seen to contribute to this unjust treatment of women. The first theme of this study aims to describe how the participants' feminist concerns come into conflict with their consumption of pornography and how this, in turn, provokes feelings of hidden shame.
Being a young Swedish woman is today often considered equivalent to being a feminist. However, despite the fact that 46% of teenage girls in Sweden identify as feminists (The Youth Barometer, 2020), they are also known to be rather frequent consumers of pornography (Donevan et al., 2022). As illustrated by Maja, below, this can create highly ambiguous feelings: I think most girls today […] have like understood that much of the porn industry is misogynistic um, that there's a lot of like violent elements […] and because many, or the majority of girls in today's society also in some way identify as feminists, or that you're like fighting for women, um because they're the ones who are at risk, I think you feel even more ashamed about taking part in and contributing to a culture that can be like so oppressive to women (Maja) A "true feminist" is often understood as someone who fights for gender equality (McLaughlin & Aikman, 2020). Hence, as Maja points out above, being a consumer of mainstream pornography could be considered a flagrant violation of feminist principles. It is typically in these kinds of situations that shame arises, that is, when there is a gap between people's own behavior and the shared ideals they proclaim to defend (Scheff & Retzinger, 2000). However, what makes Maja "even more ashamed" in this case is that she, like "most girls today," is fully informed about the severe criticism that has been directed at the pornography industry. In that sense, she is quite deliberately causing harm to other women, thereby committing a grosser offence.
While all the participants agree that pornography is unethical and shameful, they have all been consumers of it and have also, at least at some point in their lives, gained pleasure from it. Jenny explains the mixed feelings this causes: as I said, it feels so unethical […] there are two individuals, what do I know about their background, um as I said, it's that industry […] it can be very like brutal and it's very much like, women are sold now and then, and there are lots of rapes and stuff, um and then you can think like (.) "how can I even feel like-get excited by something I don't really know the background to?" (Jenny) According to Eaton (2017), pornography shapes its consumers' "erotic taste" in the direction of gender inequality. In this quotation, it is clear how Jenny battles the ambivalent feelings of knowing that she is doing something that contradicts her own feminist morals, yet feeling sexually aroused by it. The use of the words "unethical," "brutal," and "rapes" next to "excited," suggests that she, like many women, is struggling to make sense of these ambivalent feelings (Ciclitira, 2004;Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010). However, as disclosed elsewhere in the interview, Jenny has now made a compromise with herself to be more selective and only consume videos that she thinks are more consensual. In the same vein, Lovisa claims to have stopped watching pornography altogether, as she considers it "too shameful" and "too much of a taboo." Lovisa also continually returns to the experience that teenage girls, perhaps due to shame (cf. Scarcelli, 2015), do not openly talk about their pornography consumption. Hence, the reported feeling of being alone in one's experience of consuming pornography, expressed by several participants, is only to be expected. Although all the participants, like Emilia below, think there are more young women who watch pornography than who say they do, few of them have ever talked candidly with someone about their experiences of it: when I got older, as I said, I could probably get a little disgusted afterwards um because I understood more that, yeah partly that no one else talked about watching porn um and it made me feel that, that I was the only one, and that I was a bit odd for doing it, um (.) and I just, I don't know why, felt disgusting (laughs) (.) I guess that I understood more that what I watched simply wasn't ethically right (Emilia) Emilia shares the experience of Lovisa that few teenage girls openly acknowledge that they consume pornography. As for Lovisa, the resulting feeling of being alone in the experience exacerbates Emilia's sense of being "a bit odd." Moreover, Emilia describes how this feeling, combined with watching pornography, resulted in self-disgust. Similar feelings are frequently reported after viewing pornography, both in previous research (Häggström-Nordin et al., 2006;Scarcelli, 2015;Spišák, 2020) as well as in the data set of this study. For instance, Ida explains that she feels "disgusted by herself" after viewing pornography as it is considered to be "politically incorrect." However, as Emilia explains elsewhere in the interview, she has not always had this feeling after viewing pornography. When she was younger, her main concern with pornography was the fear of having done something "really illegal." The self-disgust appeared later in Emilia's life as a consequence of having learned the social codes of feminism.
The strict social codes of one's social environment may also strengthen the feeling of being alone. Below Maja explains that her public feminist opinions have prevented her from having more personal and honest conversations about her consumption of pornography: Maja's opinions above correspond with the overarching focus of the debate about pornography in Sweden, which often mirrors contemporary research in its portrayal of the exploitative conditions for women within the industry (Taylor, 2018). By having "debated" the predominantly negative side of the subject with others, Maja has made her feminist opinions about pornography clear to her peers. However, this also restricts Maja's opportunities to discuss her own experiences of pornography as it would be inconsistent with her public identity. Although Maja is a former pornography consumer, who elsewhere in the interview even acknowledges positive feelings in relation to it, the conversations with her friends have been non-personal and about "articles." Thus, what we come to know from Lovisa, Emilia, and Maja is that more personal, feminist-approved pornography conversations can be very difficult for teenage girls to have, limiting their opportunities to learn from each other. The net result is private and silent shame.

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Traces of Pornography: Shame, Scripted Action, and Agency…

Confined by the Pornographic Script
This theme is partly inspired by sexual script theory, which describes how sex often follows predetermined rules and role distributions (Gagnon & Simon, 2005). In particular, we focus on how the participants use pornography as a frame of reference for their own and their partner's sexual actions and performances. Typically, this "pornographic script" is based on gender stereotypes and includes various elements of male domination and female subordination (Carrotte et al., 2020;Klaassen & Peter, 2015;Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010). For our participants this leads to "normative sex" based on the restrictive ideals of pornography, where female pleasure is supposed to be expressed mostly for the sake of the man's confidence and where there are limited opportunities for communication or consent. The analyses within the theme are highlighted in two subthemes: The supporting actress and The grey area of consent.

The Supporting Actress
The participants repeatedly describe how mainstream pornography shows the extremes of gender roles: the man as dominant, aggressive, and beastly, and the woman as submissive, willing, and sexualized, subordinate to the man and his pleasure. All the participants also expressed how the conveyed messages that come with consuming pornography affect their own sexual experiences negatively. Particularly, the participants describe how their own sexual pleasure is secondary to the man's pleasure; they are stuck in the role of a "supporting actress." When Hanna expands on how women are portrayed in pornography, the supporting role is clearly emphasized in the sense that the main task for the female is to confirm the male as a great lover: this whole thing about being, being fuckable but not horny, or pretending to be horny um because at the same time you have to make noises and you have to moan while the guy is almost always quiet […] um you're supposed to make a show out of it um which I also really think is reflected in real life where many girls feel like "I can never relax and not think about how I look" (Hanna) Hanna here explains that in order to be considered sexy from the point of view of men, pornography provides you with narrow directions on how you are supposed to act and look. For Hanna, these directions include, among other things, to be "fuckable," "to make noises," "to moan," and "to make a show out of it." As Hanna views it, women are expected to play out acts of pleasure as confirmation of the male as a competent lover and as the only one who can provide sexual pleasure. However, in reality, women do not enjoy this sort of "spectacle sex" (Gurevich et al., 2017: 567), which makes them focus merely on how they "look" in the show. Hence, in line with Elmerstig et al.'s (2012) thesis, desire is reduced by the focus on trying to fulfill certain scripted roles. It is simply not doable to "make a show out of it" as you simultaneously "relax" and experience sexual pleasure.
The belief that women adapt to male-oriented pleasure is also emphasized by Jenny in the following extract: I often feel like if I have sex with a guy, I want him to have as nice a time as possible […] but for me it kind of doesn't matter if I come, because I am like, "he can come, and then we can stop" like that, which is really sad because it shouldn't be that way but um, often, it has happened for me a few times, and I feel like that-and that's probably something that may have scarred me after having watched-I mean you see it in these [porn] videos that um, you kind of do it for the guy's pleasure (Jenny) Jenny here describes how important she considers it to be for her partner "to have as nice a time as possible," which is something many women evaluate as having higher importance than their own sexual satisfaction (McClelland, 2014). However, as "it shouldn't be that way," Jenny expresses a desire to have more equal sex, but feels stuck in putting her own satisfaction aside and letting her partner have his "own run" (Elmerstig et al., 2012: 131). In accordance with the pornographic script, she describes the ending of sex as "he can come, and then we can stop," clearly prioritizing the male orgasm by using it as a natural endpoint. However, although Jenny blames pornography for having "scarred" her, the almost exclusive use of a first-person perspective in the extract shows that she also blames herself. There is no sign of the male partner's potential "pornographic scar" in this inequality, positioning Jenny both as the victim and as responsible for accomplishing change.
Similar to Jenny, Emma discusses how she also finds it challenging to prioritize herself in sex, despite being more prone to blame the male partner: sometimes I feel like it might be easier to just like let the guy do his thing, and that it sometimes feels like you might not have the energy to put in the effort needed to be the center of attention either um so in that way it [porn] might have affected me um but I think it's mostly because it has affected the guy to take on that role (Emma) When Emma explains that it is "easier to just like let the guy do his thing," it becomes evident that the male is the only one of importance and that she has abandoned the ambition of shared pleasure. The use of the word "easier" also implies how the potential action of asking for more equal sex means interrupting the expected pornographic script. Deviating from the script, and demanding "to be the center of attention," can confuse the male partner. Instead, Emma believes she is supposed to be sexually passive, thereby enacting a long-lived gender norm that is associated with less sexual satisfaction for women (Kiefer & Sanchez, 2007).
Although Hanna, Jenny, and Emma all feel confined by the pornographic script, and that their role as a "supporting actress" deprives them of sexual pleasure, this does not mean that the script cannot be revised. Emilia is currently in a relationship and she describes how their sex has changed over time: my boyfriend and I probably have completely different ways-or "completely different" but, we had sex in a different way when we got together, um than we have today (.) and I think you can see um patterns in it from porn actu-Traces of Pornography: Shame, Scripted Action, and Agency… ally, um (.) like in the beginning it might have been harsher or ele-or there were like elements of choking and (.) not hitting but like, (laughs) what is it called, like spanking or stuff that we later talked about and like pointed out that "this is not normal" and like "we can't go on like this," um, and like today it doesn't happen (Emilia) Emilia's description of how she and her partner initially imitated pornography confirms it as a significant source of sexual information for teenagers (Spišák, 2020). Thus, in the early phase of the relationships both "choking" and "spanking" took place, which are common sexual acts in mainstream pornography (Carrotte et al., 2020;Klaassen & Peter, 2015). With time, however, Emilia and her partner reevaluate the pornographic practices as "not normal," substituting "replication" for "resistance" and loosening the grip of the script (cf. Gurevich et al., 2017). However, if we turn to the other participants, pornographic practices are also normalized. Indeed, all the participants had experienced this kind of aggressive sexual acts, but when asked about the phenomenon in the interviews, they did not find it particularly extraordinary. Obviously, such practices are often expected to be endured in sex, perhaps as a way to protect the relationship (Bay-Cheng, 2019; Holmström et al., 2020).

The Grey Area of Consent
The participants all described how their own experiences match mainstream pornography in that consent is not part of the sexual routine. This lack of explicit communication is also part of a more conventional sexual script (Burkett & Hamilton, 2012), but as the pornographic script often contains sexual dominance and spanking, the consequences might not be the same.
In the first extract of this subtheme, Lovisa tries to explain why consent might be such a delicate issue: this thing that you don't communicate very much makes it easier for the other party to believe that-that I want things that I don't actually want […] but then it's like, it's not like it's something I really don't want to do, but it might be that I would rather, rather be without it […] to a large extent I think it's for the sake of both of us [that you do not talk] um so that it won't be awkward-very awkward um, um because you might want to avoid ending up in an awkward situation yourself or feel that you're being judged by your partner um, and I think you don't want to blame your partner either as he probably had like no bad intentions (Lovisa) Here, Lovisa expresses that she does not really have a way to say no in sex, showing the power of the wordless script. She describes how this script is maintained by both parties, "for the sake of both of us," to ensure that both the sex and the relationship can continue to run smoothly. In particular, Lovisa highlights the fear of creating an awkward situation (cf. Holmström et al., 2020), and of "being judged" by her partner, as reasons to agree to acts she does not really want to do. Thus, as Bay-Cheng (2019) points out, passive consent is sometimes given to obtain other goals in life, such as maintaining a good relationship. In line with this, we can also note that Lovisa is unwilling to blame her sexual partner for not seeking explicit consent as he probably had "no bad intentions." Participating in actions she would rather "be without" is a sacrifice she is prepared to make in order to avoid hurting her partner.
A description of a sexual experience from Maja further deepens our understanding of doing things unwillingly through the influence of pornography: it simply didn't feel the way that I think it should feel, it felt like in some ways, even if it wasn't coercive, even though I had said yes to it, it felt like some kind of coercion, it felt more like a performance than something yousomething you would want to do, um, like "this is kind of like an exam, um and now I'm gonna prove that I can get a good grade" (Maja) Maja here describes the pressure experienced in sex as equivalent to the one experienced when taking "an exam," where "a good grade" is at stake. This metaphor illustrates the many demands Maja and many other women believe they must live up to, based on what they or their partners have seen in pornography (Gurevich et al., 2017). If Maja performs well in the "exam," she can expect desirable outcomes, such as getting approval from her sexual partner and feeling sexy or desired (Elmerstig et al., 2012). However, an exam also implies you could fail, and it is possible Maja believes that consenting to less wanted sexual acts actually may prevent her from failing the exam. Unlike Lovisa, who experienced a lack of opportunity to consent, Maja did indeed give her consent, but the price she had to pay was the experience of sex as "a performance," as something that she felt she must take, just like an exam.
In our next example, Emma makes it clear that experiences of aggressive elements in sexual encounters, in this particular case being pulled by the hair, may be very difficult to evaluate: I guess it was alright in the moment, but then I've given it some thought and I feel like it may not be something I feel the need to do again um, but it's also easy to realize this a bit later like […] there's usually a level where you feel that it's not nice anymore and simply just hurts um but this wasn't something I experienced in this moment, but it might have been like on the verge of that, and maybe I would, I would probably have said "no" if um the person had pulled my hair like a little harder (Emma) Emma here characterizes one of her sexual experiences as being on the border between consensual and non-consensual sex. Emma suggests that she accepts unpleasant sex, but that there also exists a level when she feels that "it's not nice anymore and simply just hurts." However, although Emma evaluated the experience as alright in the moment, and retrospectively imagines herself as having "said no" if it had been a little more painful, the use of the word "probably" implies a level of uncertainty about her actual control in the situation. Later in the interview, Emma also explains the experience in terms of a "misunderstanding" and that she agreed to the act mainly in favor of her sexual partner (cf. Bay-Cheng, 2019). However, although Emma feels she consented to the act in the lived moment, later reflections still construct it as something she would not "feel the need to do again." Traces of Pornography: Shame, Scripted Action, and Agency… To consent or to not consent assumes that you know what you want. Below, Hanna emphasizes the difficulty of distinguishing between her different reasons to consent and what advantages she may gain by consenting: but it's like, I've never been forced to do anything, I've sometimes just ignored listening to myself and didn't say "no" um, and sometimes I've even suggested things that I may not have consciously wanted, initiating things that I didn't want, because like-and I think that partly comes from porn, this image of being a cool girl (laughs) um and to (.) to want to have sex often and um (.) yeah because sometimes it's like, sometimes it's also like-like this kind of affirmation and to um feel good about myself or just because I'm into the thought of having sex in my mind but, but kind of not in my body (Hanna) Muehlenhard et al. (2016) argue that sexual consent is affected by both external and internal norms and pressures. Here, Hanna confirms this picture by describing the external demand to appear as "a cool girl" and the internal demand to "feel good" about herself. Moreover, Hanna feels that the sexualization of women in pornography has pushed her to conform to certain expectations, such as initiating unwanted sexual practices or having sex often without regard to her own sexual arousal. In the same way, Impett and Peplau (2003) found that women consented to unwanted sex to a greater extent than men and discussed this in light of gender roles, requiring that women should respond to men's wishes. Above, Hanna describes this as being "into the thought of having sex in my mind but, but kind of not in my body," exhibiting the wish to live up to the picture as an always willing female.

Agents in a Postfeminist Era
This theme aims to describe how the participants navigate through the different ideals imposed on them by society. Despite the supposed sexual liberation of women, there has been an increase in the normative burden on women. On one hand, women are supposed to act as strong agents, and to be in command of their sexual behavior, all in keeping with the values of feminism (Bay-Cheng, 2019). On the other hand, in order to form and maintain sexual relationships, young women are pressured to conform to traditional gender norms (Elmerstig et al., 2012), sometimes in accordance with the pornographic script. As pointed out in the introduction, such contradictory demands are a central ingredient of a postfeminist culture, which celebrates active, desiring, and independent sexual subjects as well as traditional gender norms (Burkett & Hamilton, 2012;Gill, 2007). The resulting conflict is displayed in the interviews regarding how the participants express themselves in terms of agency, how they relate to body norms, and how they feel responsible for contributing to the development of feminism.
When being in control of one's actions, one could be considered as an "agent," which is a position associated with respect in a neoliberal society, for instance in relation to exercising sexual freedom (Bay-Cheng, 2015). One participant who fits this description is Ida: it's pretty easy for me to say "no" to stuff I don't want to do, um, but then I think that I've absolutely done stuff that possibly comes from porn, but in those cases, I've like been completely in on it and it has also been on my initiative in some way, um, or so (Ida) Here, Ida presents herself as an individual who is in control of her sexual activities, and she thus corresponds to a woman who is positioned above the socalled "Agency Line" (Bay-Cheng, 2015: 279). She acknowledges that she has been participating in acts influenced by pornography, but emphasizes that they have been enacted on her own terms. When asked what these acts might be, Ida elsewhere in the interview explains that for her, many elements, such as the different positions and noises you may enact in sex, have been adopted from pornography. But she has "been completely in on it" and has even initiated things on her own. By using the word "completely" she leaves no room for doubt about her level of agency. As pointed out by Bay-Cheng (2015), many women may reason like Ida and claim they were "in on it" to stay above the Agency Line. However, elsewhere in the interview Ida admits that she has had sexual intercourse with guys who were "very harsh" and also expresses that she thinks it is a bit "sad" that pornography has so much influence on sex.
This desire to be seen as an "agent" in control of one's actions is a recurrent theme among the participants. Below, Jenny describes a situation where she ended the sexual act due to unwanted "spanking" from the partner: I'm glad I didn't continue to like, continue with him, um but-and I think there's a lot of girls who experience the same thing but still continue […] I'm glad I did it because then he maybe reflected on it like "no, maybe that wasn't quite alright" and won't do it again to some other girl like, um, so I don't know, um but yes-I see-when I look back, I don't think it's something difficult that I look back on today […] when I look back on it, I think that I'm happier because I ended it (Jenny) Similar to Ida, Jenny would be considered as a woman positioned above the Agency Line (Bay-Cheng, 2015). She describes how she took control over the situation and steered it in the way she wanted, very much in contrast to the girls below the Agency Line, who just "continue" the activities. Again, like Ida above, Jenny's focus in the narrative is on what she thought and did, and not the aggressive behavior of her male partner. Furthermore, Jenny portrays her actions as a potential contribution to feminism as she, through influencing her partner, may have prevented other women from experiencing the same thing as her. Her own agency may thus come to have broader, non-personal implications.
In the next extract, Hanna provides us with an example of how it is sometimes difficult to both be an "agent" and still feel like a desirable woman: personally, I've felt that I'm mainly affected by the shaving ideal, particularly um, as I've chosen not to shave in any way now, um, (laughs) which I kind of stand for (laughs) and think is important, and I don't want to shave, but I also feel bad about it […] as soon as I would sleep with a new guy 1 3 Traces of Pornography: Shame, Scripted Action, and Agency… (.) um, I somehow felt that I had to explain in advance somehow that I'm not shaved […] because I was so scared that he would like see it and get really disgusted or like not want to have sex with me then (laughs) or feel awkward (Hanna) Throughout the interview, Hanna is outspoken about her feminist values and that she prefers to act in line with those values. The choice to abstain from shaving her pubic hair is a feminist statement Hanna feels proud to have made and thinks "is important." However, when placed in a sexual context, that same decision is instead associated with the fear of being rejected as an undesirable woman. Thus, she feels the need to explain her choice for her sexual partner in advance to give him a chance to prepare mentally for the scene. Obviously, Hanna now has two ideals she needs to live up to: the ideal of a feminist and the ideal of a desirable woman. These ideals are associated with contradictory behaviors and expectations, making it impossible for Hanna to both abstain from shaving and live up to the shaving imperative imposed on her from pornography and other media (Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010).
Below, Hanna further shows how the contradictory demands not only cause inner conflict regarding her physical appearance, but also explain how the pornographic script may collide with her own pleasure-seeking: I find it harder (.) like (laughs) to prioritize myself sexually […] and I think, I really think that comes from porn, because like girls in porn are expected to enjoy it but not for their own pleasure, they enjoy it so that the man enjoys it, um and that's something I really struggle with, like "no, don't look-like don't moan just to be sexy" and like "don't do this to be sexy" um, and when I sometimes do things that are based on what I want and give me pleasure, but that at the same time may cause me to think that I'm in an ugly position or whatever, then I can feel disgusting and unsexy and then it's like, then it's ruined (Hanna) Hanna here describes how she battles the influence of having watched pornography, illustrating the struggle many young women may experience in their attempts to be sexually liberated in a supposed postfeminist era (Farvid & Braun, 2014). Hanna actively battles behaviors such as moaning "just to be sexy," as this would be a confirmation of the gender stereotype and therefore not an act towards more progressive gender roles. However, being able to enjoy sex and to appear sexy collide for her, as she experiences herself as "disgusting and unsexy" when she deviates from the expected sexual script of how to manage one's body, hence ruining her own sexual mood. When she acts in line with the progressive, pleasure-seeking self, she is neglecting her role as a "sexy" woman as she knows it. A more progressive sexual script is, however, seldom available in pornography (Klaassen & Peter, 2015), or in any other source of sexual information (Spišák, 2020), making it difficult for young women like Hanna and their sexual partners to readjust their sexual scripts to combine the interests of female sexiness and sexual enjoyment.

Discussion
In this study we focused on the narratives of seven young Swedish women, who were interviewed about their experiences of pornography and the impact they believe it has had on their sexual lives. A thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was conducted to gain a thorough understanding of their shared experiences. The analytical endeavor, which focused in depth on specifically selected narratives, resulted in three themes that together illustrate how the tripartite forces of pornography, feminism, and postfeminism intersect in the participants' lives.
In short, the themes show how the young women are trying to handle highly conflicting ideals of how to behave in sexual contexts. Their openly declared feminist values contribute to feelings of shame and fears of sanctions in relation to their pornography consumption and pornography-informed sex. Hence, they tend to keep quiet about their individual experiences, leaving them alone with their thoughts and reflections. Moreover, the narrow room for maneuver within the pornographic script, which has often been described in previous studies (e.g., Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010), is portrayed as highly restrictive of behaviors and appearances beyond stereotypical gender norms. The result is that the young women orient more towards their male partners' sexual gratification than their own, that they feel like "supporting actresses," and that sex can even be experienced like a school examination. The wordless ideal of the pornographic script, and perhaps sexual scripts in general, also leaves very little room to discuss sexual activities with their male partners, which in turn creates a grey area of consent. However, despite these rather negative consequences of pornography, the participants still portray themselves as having agency. In line with the postfeminist ideal of being an active and independent sexual subject, commonly conveyed in popular media (Gill, 2007), the young females provide many examples of how they do manage various difficult sexual situations and issues. Agency is thus not a matter of all or nothing.
In discussing these results from the perspective of potential implications, we first want to emphasize the importance of creating venues for young women to encounter and discuss sexual issues in open and candid ways. Thus, in line with Bay-Cheng (2012: 714), we call for "safe spaces" in which only females participate, and in which candid views, conflicting opinions, and sheer confusion are allowed to be expressed. Indeed, such safe spaces may be particularly crucial in relation to pornographic experiences, as shame often seems to be an integral part of them (Scarcelli, 2015). This shame may in turn prevent young women from talking to each other, as we have seen in this study. Hence, there is always a risk that they remain unaware of the magnitude of various problems, including shame itself, male domination, sexual aggression, performance anxiety, or physical concerns, and instead view them primarily as individual difficulties or shortcomings. What is needed, instead, is that women come to realize their "situational affinity" (McKinney, 2019: 88), that there is a shared experience among them, and that this, in turn, may become the beginning of change.
On a grand scale, the #Metoo movement has shown us what a focus on shared experiences can accomplish. However, similar initiatives can also be enacted in smaller groups, as for instance in schools' sex education. Indeed, when students make suggestions for how sex education could be improved, they recommend lessons that include stories about people's real-life sexual struggles (Allen, 2005). In line with this, we suggest that young women are allowed to encounter exactly the type of stories we have highlighted in this study, either through educational material or through meeting more experienced young women in real life. Whatever choice is made, it is essential that sex educators do not shy away from addressing young women's experiences of pornography at a fairly young age, as teenage girls often encounter pornography early in life (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016). A cautious, or even prudish, attitude among sex educators, perhaps in fear of planting the seeds of a precocious curiosity among the students, may not be particularly beneficial to young females. If we want to prevent new generations from having to experience the same problems as older generations, the lived sexual reality of women should not be denied or hidden.
The fact that we call for safe female spaces does not mean that we believe that young women can solve the problems associated with pornography in isolation from young men. As Bay-Cheng (2019) points out, preventive strategies have often been reduced to providing young girls with refusal skills, with the result that sexual agency has been understood merely as individual assertiveness. However, sexual agency does not have to be conceptualized as an outward performance of an internal attribute, but can also be seen as a continuous negotiation with oneself, one's sexual partners, and various imagined or real significant others. With this view, agency is always there, although outside parties may not be aware of it. Lamb (2010: 302), who shares this relational view of agency, included young men when she launched her "model of mutuality." Her argument is that young, heterosexual women above all should build their agency together with their sexual partners. It is an ethical ideal to strive for, even if it might be difficult to achieve in practice, and it leaves men with as much responsibility as women, not only in relation to consent to sex itself, but also to consent to specific sexual activities.
This type of relational agency is often visible in the participants' narratives. We can see how it is enacted through concessions, reassessments, objections, and so on, and how it is performed for a variety of social reasons, for instance to protect the relationship, to avoid creating awkward sexual situations, to rearrange the sexual scripts of the relationship, to stand up for alternative body ideals, or even to protect one's partner's future partners. Thus, the young women already exhibit broad repertoires of agency in relation to themselves, their partners, and imagined others. Progressive sex education should acknowledge this relational agency and make young women more aware of the fact that one's sexual development is an unfinished, ongoing social process, and that we all learn from personal sexual experience and not only through school, media, or friends (Tholander & Tour, 2020).
Young women also need to be supported in understanding how the neoliberal or postfeminist emphasis on individual responsibility often obscures the social conditions of sexual actions, such as those implied in the dominant pornographic script. As many sex researchers point out, it is the external structures, or the cultural context, that must be scrutinized, not the individual women's minds or actions (Baker, 2010;Bay-Cheng, 2019;Gill, 2007). Thus, if young women become increasingly aware that unwanted sexual activity is a common experience among them (Burkett & Hamilton, 2012), perhaps partly because of the dominant pornographic script, they may become more prone not only to take (collective) action, but also to demand change from the male population. As Cense (2019) points out, sexual cultures are temporary and changeable and should be considered as sites of negotiation, resistance, and challenge.
Critical projects should also include porn literacy training of the kind proposed by Dawson et al. (2020). Their findings, which are highly compatible with those of our study, show that young people want such training to focus on improving critical thinking skills regarding topics such as the shame of pornography consumption, nonconsensual sexual scripts, sexual aggression, unrealistic standards for sex, and representations of sexual pleasure and body ideals. However, we believe it is important that this type of literacy training does not preclude pornography altogether. Instead, there should be efforts to work for a broader pornographic script, for instance by introducing alternative genres of pornography, such as egalitarian (Maes, 2017), feminist (Eaton, 2017), or queer versions (van Brabandt, 2017. Mainstream pornography silences alternative expressions of sexuality, which do not fit with its narrow ideals. Hence, alternative genres can add storylines that depict a more varied set of sexual expressions (Fritz & Paul, 2017). Sex education should simply be framed and taught from the perspective of the diversity of sexual cultures in society and should be responsive to the complexity of this diversity (Cense, 2019).
Finally, a few limitations of the study should be mentioned. First, the small sample of the study cannot be considered as representative of young Swedish women in general, as it only includes a subgroup of them (e.g., those who have the experience of both heterosexual sex and pornography consumption, live in a big city, and are willing to talk about private, sexual issues with researchers). Thus, the results of the study may not be applicable to other females, in Sweden or elsewhere. Another limitation of the study is that the extracts of data presented in the results section were originally transcribed in Swedish. Hence, when the data were translated, important nuances of language were sometimes difficult to retain. However, the chosen quotations were translated as literally as possible in order to preserve analytical ideas. Moreover, by inviting readers to make their own interpretations of the quotations, we hope to enhance the credibility of our analytical claims. Finally, it should be noted that we have strived to take seriously the personal experiences of pornography in this study. Although such a phenomenological project is easy to defend, for instance by pointing to the value of understanding the insiders' perspectives, there is always a risk that the collected accounts are biased in various ways. Yet, it is still our hope that the "shared" picture that emerges from the teenage girls as a group increases the trustworthiness of their individual accounts.
Funding Open access funding provided by Linköping University. The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.