On March 19, 2025, Eduard Abashiya, a lecturer at the Department of Psychology at the Dnipro Institute of PJSC "IAPM," a legal expert and psychologist at the Amur-Nizhnodniprovskyi District Department of the State Institution "Probation Center" branch in Dnipropetrovsk region, conducted social and educational work with a person convicted of a criminal offense against public order and morality, dedicated to the topic: "The Role of Pornography in Forming Sexual Scripts and Human Sexual Behavior".

Analyzing pornography, pornographic materials and the related industry, existing contradictions, its impact on society, current legal norms, as well as reviewing various scientific sources related to this topic and terminology, the following should be noted.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, pornography refers to books, magazines, and films that describe and show naked people or sexual acts, intended to cause sexual excitement in people.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, pornography refers to magazines, DVDs, websites, etc., that describe or show naked people and sexual acts with the aim of causing sexual excitement in people, especially in a way that many other people find offensive.

The Ozhegov Explanatory Dictionary defines pornography as extreme naturalism and cynicism in the depiction of sexual relations.

In various sources, including scientific ones, one can find other interpretations of the term "pornography".

The history of pornography is a history of balance between technological development, human sexual curiosity, and a system of official prohibitions and social moral condemnation. In the 19th century, the boldest visual porn was produced predominantly in France (although it was popular beyond its borders). At the beginning of the 20th century, porn films began to spread in different countries and already offered a degree of explicitness characteristic of today's videos. One hundred and fifty-five years ago, pornographic photographs were distributed by secret traders at railway stations, then early film screenings were arranged in brothels and private clubs, and by the late 1980s, video pornography had moved into the bedrooms and rooms of individual consumers.

While erotic art depicts a person in all the richness of their experiences, pornography essentially depersonalizes sexuality, reducing it to endless sexual acts that viewers can see in the most minute technical details and physiological particulars.

In the second half of the 20th century, the issue of pornography became particularly important with the emergence and flourishing of the porn business (porn industry). Pornographic sites began to appear, which are web hostings.

A porn site is an internet site (website) whose purpose is the paid or free broadcast of pornographic materials, public display of photo/video content, products of a sexual or erotic nature.

American sexologist, doctor of clinical psychology, and psychotherapist Bernie Zilbergeld claims that pornography can help avoid sexual monotony in married life. In a survey of readers of "Psychology Today" magazine (USA) in 1981, 92% of men and 72% of women responded that they use pornography for sexual arousal.

According to most foreign and some domestic sexologists, "soft porn" can sometimes be useful for adults. For the younger generation, it can often serve as a kind of guide to sexual literacy, and for older people whose sexuality is already fading or has faded, it can be an effective means of stimulating sexual arousal.

As for "hard porn," a number of studies conducted in the United Kingdom, Canada, USA, Australia, Denmark, and Belgium have shown that viewing even short video clips with violent pornography causes viewers to clearly confuse their views on sexual aggressiveness, and they begin to underestimate the degree of human suffering.

Regular viewing of "hard pornography" causes in some people a mixing of moral values, moreover, fixation on sex, lack of "brakes," impulsivity, and inability to predict the consequences of their actions and deeds can lead to manifestations of criminogenic behavior and provoke sexual crime in society.

There are various types and themes of sexual scripts for pornographic films, including non-violent pornography, violent pornography, and others. Embedded sexual material is a scene from an R-rated film (according to the American Film Association's rating system) where people have sex outdoors, in the open air. And there is non-violent pornography – when a man and a woman satisfy their sexual desires and do not harm anyone. But what most affects human behavior is precisely violent pornography, when people have sex and at the same time are subjected to torture, and this can lead to death, physical damage, mutilation, unbearable suffering, bleeding of the partner, etc. Excited people who watch violent pornography may be prone to committing such acts as rape, sexual violence, in order to satisfy their needs, perverted fantasies.

Typically, violent pornography is characterized by male domination and female subordination. A stronger person has sex with a less strong one, either forcing her, or both voluntarily want to engage in brutal or aggressive sex. With the spread of BDSM practices, the situation began to change in the opposite direction, and female domination and male subordination began to prevail. Such sexual practice can have various hidden motives, in particular, the desire to be spanked, punished by a woman, can be expressed as a defensive mechanism of the psyche, projection of child-parent relationships, a way to overcome accumulated feelings of guilt or shame, etc.

The effect of violent pornography is that those who constantly watch it will be extremely satisfied with this spectacle, and people who want more are more likely to force people into sex and rape them. That is, at the core of violent sex is dominant control over a person and obtaining complete control over their body, so it is likely that the number of victims will increase, and more people may suffer and even die just because of the violent sexual needs and whims of others.

According to the current legislation of Ukraine, criminal liability is provided for committing criminal offenses against public order and morality, in particular, for:

• importation, production, sale, and distribution of pornographic items (Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine);
• gaining access to child pornography, its acquisition, storage, importation, transportation or other movement, production, sale, and distribution (Article 301¹ of the Criminal Code of Ukraine);
• conducting a spectacle event of a sexual nature involving a minor (Article 301² of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

It should also be noted that neither administrative nor criminal legislation provides for liability for viewing pornographic materials, films, etc., which may depict adults. That is, adults are not prohibited from watching pornography.

To summarize, it should be noted that for some, pornography and the porn business are:

• directorial work, film script, pictorial work, role play, a way to realize oneself as porn actors;
• fun, entertainment, a passionate spectacle, an opportunity to get pleasure;
• a profitable business, a way to earn quick money to purchase necessary things, property, solve social and domestic issues, etc.;
• solving psychological problems (inferiority complex, low self-esteem, feelings of rejection, hypersexuality, internal protest (rebellion), etc.);
• sin (violation of religious canons, God's instructions and prescriptions);
• a way to conduct psychological observations, empirical research on manifestations of sexuality and unconscious desires of a person, understanding their motives, etc.

The impact of human behavior on pornography is so great that it is necessary to reduce harmful sexual behavior. One way to minimize harmful influence is to teach people that they should not harm others. Psychological correction and support can help a specific person find their internal resources to exit a state of psychological crisis with minimal trauma for them. Thanks to pornography, people also think and undergo critical viewing training, and this helps to reduce violent behavior, - noted the psychologist.