Exploring the nuances and complexities in men’s and women’s accounts of how mainstream pornography is experienced in their everyday lives, this book demonstrates how pornography can be both a site for pleasure and pain across gendered lines.

Drawing on interviews with 24 heterosexual adults from Aotearoa New Zealand, the author provides insights into the various ways that men and women encounter, interpret, and are affected by the pornography that they, or their partners, view. It draws attention to the pleasures and pains of pornography for adult audiences, considering the impact of mainstream pornography on heterosexual relationships and sexual scripts, as well as gendered experiences of pornography “addiction”. Additionally, this volume examines the rise of “rough sex” and “choking” as a normalised sexual practice within heterosex. It interrogates what might be meant by “rough sex”, questions its normalisation, and highlights how portrayals of rough sex in online pornography may shape understandings of rough sex in offline sexual experiences. The findings affirm the need for a gendered lens that incorporates a harms-based approach to the study of mainstream pornography and its influence.

Pornography, Rough Sex and Gendered Harm will be valuable to academics, researchers, students and activists who are interested in the pleasures and harms of mainstream pornography for adult audiences.