This paper was designed to investigate whether or not in societies where men and women are relatively equal in status versus unequal, different kinds of pornography flourishes. Three countries that differed markedly in the status of women (based on their United Nation's Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) ranking published in the 2007/2008 Human Development Report) were selected for comparison: Norway (1), the United States (15), and Japan (54). We then compared the nature of their most popular pornography.
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypothesis that - consistent with their GEM ranking - popular Norwegian pornography would depict women in more empowered positions than pornography from the United States and Japan. Results supported this hypothesis. This finding could be attributed to the wider variety in Norwegian pornography, e.g. greater variation in the women's age, weight, and body positioning. There were no significant differences in the extent models in the three countries appeared in demeaning positions.