The Internet today offers a wide range of sexual stimuli - from chat rooms to erotic stories to pornographic videos, which are still the most common form of online sexual activity among men. Research consistently shows that frequent viewing of pornography may be related to the adoption of stereotypical and objectifying attitudes towards women. However, most research to date has focused only on the frequency of porn consumption itself, not on whether a deeper problem - addiction - may underlie sexualisation. It is this aspect that is the focus of a new study co-authored by Anna Ševčíková and Lukas Blinka of INPSY, which asks: is the objectification of women only a consequence of frequent porn viewing, or do other mechanisms related to pornography addiction play a role?
The study was led by Pavla Nováková, Anna Ševčíková and Lukas Blinka from the Faculty of Social Studies at MUNI in collaboration with Edita Chvojka from Utrecht University, Paul Wright from Indiana University and Steven Kane from the University of South Australia. The research team decided to investigate whether there is a direct relationship between pornography addiction and female sexualisation, even after controlling for the frequency of online pornography viewing itself. The study relied on data from a questionnaire survey of 1,272 Czech men with an average age of 33 years who identified themselves as heterosexual and were active users of erotic websites, particularly the most famous Czech erotic platform Amateri.com.
Objectification of women as coping with withdrawal symptoms
Results showed that men who reported higher levels of pornography addiction symptoms also tended to sexualize women more - even when they viewed pornography less frequently than others. In other words, addiction symptoms alone, such as lust, predicted more frequent objectification of women. The authors explain that in these cases, sexualisation may act as a way for men to manage withdrawal symptoms, where they try to 'satiate' their sexual fantasy by looking at women in the real world when they don't currently have access to online erotic content.
Greater sensitivity to sexual stimuli and cultural norms also play a role
The study also suggests that deeper mechanisms typical of addiction may be behind this behavior. People with this form of addictive behaviour may, according to the so-called incentive-sensitisation theory, have an increased sensitivity of the brain to sexual stimuli. In this case, the objectification of women may become an unconscious way for addicted individuals to indulge in a 'vicarious' form of sexual stimulation. Thus, sexualization may function not just as a side effect, but as an active form of coping with desire. Thus, the authors add to the traditionally reported sources of sexual objectification - both culturally shared attitudes of a given society or acquired attitudes due to frequent exposure to certain media content. In a completely new way, they point to the link with addiction symptomatology.
However, the authors note that this was a cross-sectional study from which causality cannot be inferred. Thus, it is possible that the relationship between addiction and objectification is bidirectional, or that a third factor - such as cultural norms - is behind both phenomena. Therefore, they recommend the use of longitudinal or experimental designs in the future, while also focusing on women and non-heterosexual pornography users. The authors also call for the need for media education that can help young men recognize objectifying messages in the media, and the importance of therapeutic interventions that focus on coping with preoccupation and alternative forms of sexual gratification. The results of the study thus not only contribute to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of objectification, but also have important practical implications for the prevention and treatment of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder (in which pornography addiction is the most common form), a new diagnosis in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases.
Recommended Citation:
Novakova, P., Chvojka, E., Ševčíková, A., Blinka, L., Wright, P., & Kane, S. (2025). Men's internet sex addiction predicts sexual objectification of women even after taking pornography consumption frequency into account. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1517317. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1517317
