{"id":164240,"date":"2024-02-15T14:27:21","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T13:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=164240"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:10","slug":"stereotypes-in-porn-many-come-from-long-history-of-inequality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/02\/15\/stereotypes-in-porn-many-come-from-long-history-of-inequality\/","title":{"rendered":"Stereotypes in porn: ‘Many come from long history of inequality’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where do stereotypes in pornography come from and how are they intertwined with sexual arousal? These are the questions cultural sociologist Samira van Bohemen aims to answer in her research.<\/p>\n

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Samira Van Bohemen in EM TV.<\/span><\/p>

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Samira van Bohemen is a cultural sociologist. She researches sexuality, especially among young people. For example, she has researched what young people consider good sex<\/a>. Van Bohemen is part of the Erasmus Love Lab<\/a>, a research lab that conducts research on love, sexuality and intimate relationships.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Why did you choose to research online pornography?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt started with the idea of exploring the social side of sex and sexual desire. I believe we can do this by studying pornography, because porn makes the social side of sex very explicit. It has clear categories, both in its characters and genres.<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides, pornography is a popular medium. If we look at the three most popular porn sites in the world, we know that more than half a million people watch it every minute. So we\u2019re talking about millions of viewers a day and billions a year. It\u2019s very popular, but we still don\u2019t know much about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you mean that pornography makes the social side of sex explicit? Is that because it is not real sex, it\u2019s staged?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s because it\u2019s very explicit in everything: the titles, the ideas about gender relations, ethnicity and race. Things that people are much more implicit about in their daily lives are made explicit in pornography.\u201d<\/p>\n

So pornography acts as a microscope on society?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt can indeed be a bit of a microscope for what is happening more broadly in society, because people also find things attractive based on what they\u2019ve learned in their social circle. On the other hand, what you see in pornography is not necessarily what people want in their daily lives. We still see it as a different sphere, but then again, it can help us learn more about the social side of sex and desire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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