Sexually Explicit Material, Scripting, Simulacra, and Sexuality - Theorizing the Changing Landscape of Learning about Sex

This paper explores the relationship between the marked increase in availability of sexually explicit material in the U.S. that accompanied widespread high-speed internet, sexuality, scripting theory, and the concept of a simulacrum. The data are from open-ended interviews with 51 young adults about their experiences as adolescents learning about sexuality in the United States. Participants reported viewing sexually explicit material online as adolescents to learn about sexual behaviors and sexual interaction, often before participating in those behaviors. The ways adolescents referenced sexually explicit material, both amateur and professionally produced, in order to learn about sexual behaviors represent a significant departure from historic means of learning about sex. This development is best understood as presenting a new level of sexual scripts, intermediate scripts, within the model developed by Gagnon and Simon (1973). Participants’ descriptions of viewing video examples of sexual behaviors revealed they provided an intermediate script that was more specific and personal to the participants than a cultural scenario, yet did not involve direct interaction as with interpersonal scripts. This learning by viewing sexually explicit material prior to engaging in sexual behaviors approximates the concept of a simulacrum. Adolescents referenced representations of sexuality and then modeled their own behaviors on those representations. These theoretical concepts of an intermediate script and simulacra, are useful for understanding of the shifting landscape of adolescent sexuality. As all aspects of our sexual world continue to be increasingly recorded, viewed, and represented, these concepts may contribute to developing theories of sexuality applicable to other populations.