Various studies and evaluations of pornographic literature illuminate several recurring patterns: rape, sexual abuse, sexual violence, sexual exploitation, inter-familial rape (incest), and pedophilia.
In a longitudinal study conducted by Don Smith from 1968 to 1974, Smith did a content analysis on 428 pornographic books available in the United States. Over the course of the study, he found that 20% of all sex scenes were rape, of which 97% resulted in the female achieving orgasm and 75% in multiple orgasm. 6% of all rapes were perpetrated against family. With each passing year, the number of rapes per book increased.
In another longitudinal study, Neil Malamuth and Barry Spinner conducted a content analysis on sexual violence in both Playboy and Penthouse from June 1973 to December 1977. They found that 10% of all cartoons were sexually violent, and Penthouse was twice as likely to depict sexual violence as Playboy.
Between 1987 and 1988, Park Elliott Dietz and Alan Sears did an extensive content analysis on the contents of pornographic books, magazines, and videotape covers, as well as the stores in which they were sold. 92% of the stores sold books about sexual abuse perpetrated against children. 13% of all covers depicted explicit acts of sexual violence, and upwards of 15% depicted various paraphilias, including corpses, urine, diapers, bestiality, and childlike clothing.
In a 1997 study conducted on online pornographic literature, Denna Harmon and Scot B. Boeringer found that among 196 randomly selected stories, rape occurred in 40.8% of the stories. 4.6% of all rapes were perpetrated against family. 19.4% of the stories contained scenes of pedophilia. 11.7% of all stories contained acts of torture.
In 2015, Mark Allen Thornton utilized his knowledge of Python coding to conduct data analysis on 293,535 erotic stories available online. In searching for themes, he built a network of tags to highlight co-occurring subjects. The cluster that is most closely connected with love, for instance, is sex, romance, brother sister incest, brother sister sex. For revenge, some common associations were cheating wife, slut wife, cuckold, and watching. One of the most prevalent themes across all stories was BDSM. The cluster most closely related to control are the terms dominance, master, submission, submissive, slut, gang bang, whore, and so on.
One recent erotic series has had a significant impact in normalizing the themes found commonly in pornographic literature (namely sexual exploitation and sexual abuse). The Fifty Shades trilogy, having sold more than 40 million copies globally, has inspired video pornography, official BDSM clubs at Harvard University, a theatrical film series, and countless other writings, both published and online (where the books originated).
As with videos, pornographic literature has steadily increased its depictions of rape, sexual violence, sexual abuse, interfamilial rape, and so on, particularly with the proliferation of writers sharing their own stories online. In all of its forms, pornography has shown no signs of de-centering its ideology from exploiting women, and children, for the sexual gratification of men. To liken the consumption of Fifty Shades series to the consumption of softcore pornography by male consumers, the inevitable story that follows is excitement, desensitization, tolerance, and then an intensified desire to find something more edgy or shocking. Beyond Playboy, Hustler, Penthouse, and other pornographic magazines, pornographic literature has never really been mainstream. If we can rely on the growth of pornography into a vast global $100 billion market, then Fifty Shades was really just the beginning of making it so.