Attitudes About Nudity

Previous research regarding attitudes toward pornography has investigated a myriad of cultural-based variables such as openness to other cultures, different religious backgrounds, and sexual orientation (Negy & Winton). In one specific case (Beggan, Vencill, & Garos, 2014) examined eye gaze in a pornographic photo (i.e., whether the model was looking at the camera) and found that the models were objectified more when their eyes met the camera, and this was exacerbated for females. Overwhelmingly, studies show that there are ways that cultures and attitudes can influence the valence of one’s perceptions of pornography. However, few past studies have examined nudity, generally. Is it the nudity that is offensive, or is it the sexuality that is offensive? Very few studies have specifically contrasted opinions regarding pornography vs. nudity in art vs. sexualized (but clothed) images. The current research is important because it evaluates the correlation between attitudes towards nudity and political beliefs, sexism, gender, religiosity, satisfaction with one’s body, and sexism to gain a better understanding of whether there is a difference between pornographic nudity versus artistic nudity versus lascivious clothed images. SUBJECTS: Participants were both male and female PSY 180 students at Murray State University. MATERIALS: Body esteem was measured using Physical Appearance State and Traits Anxiety Scale (PASTAS) which evaluated how participants currently and generally feel about their body (or body parts) by how anxious, tense, or nervous they currently and generally feel (Reed et. al., 1991). Participants received two photos (one male/one female) randomly, from one of three conditions: Pornography, Art, and Lascivious (i.e., clothed but sexualized). A revised version of the PANAS scale was used from our pilot study of 15 participants. Participants rated each emotion by how they felt while viewing the images. Honesty was controlled for by using a socially desirable scale (Marlowe & Crown, 1960). Ambivalent Sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1995) measured participant’s levels of benevolent and hostile sexism. High scores in both indicated high measures of ambivalent sexism. Guilt from sex was measure by The Revised Mosher-Sexual Guilt scale (Janda & Bazemore, 2011) has been used extensively in recent research showing that high sexual guilt predicts negative attitudes toward sexual behavior in general (Hackathorn, et al., 2014). Sociosexuality was measured by The Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SO; Penke & Aspendorf, 2008) in order to measure the participants’ comfort with casual sex. Finally, there was a measure for demographics that was used after PANAS in order to collect data on the participant’s background in order to decrease the chances of preconceived beliefs and background would become extraneous variables that could affect attitudes brought on by the images. The study is still in the progress. Keywords: nudity, attitudes, pornography, sexism, politics, casual sex, body estee