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Most Up to Date resource list can be found here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DOhIOb-tI5NTJCtoUnpsQ8ntZvgqR5FW/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104628614202867399058&rtpof=true&sd=true) under tabs 'Psychology' & 'Media Literacy/Censorship/Morality/Fiction/Reality':

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• Gewirtz-Meydan, Ateret & Opuda, Eugenia (2021) "The Sexual Fantasies of Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors: A Rapid Review" Volume 24: Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380211030487.

  • "Studies have consistently found that the vast majority of people who practice BDSM do not report a history of CSA (Powls & Davies, 2012). According to Lehmiller (2018), the BDSM-themed sexual fantasies that are experienced by CSA survivors are not about survivors’ attempts to relive the past; rather, they serve as a mechanism to cope with past abuse. In terms of force fantasies, Lehmiller explained that these types of sexual fantasies may be a way for some survivors of CSA to take control of a previous experience over which they had no control. As the fantasizers, survivors may gain a feeling of empowerment. Sexual fantasies that involve BDSM elements offer survivors a distraction from self-awareness and negative aspects stemming from the abuse (e.g., anxiety, low self-esteem)."
     

  • "Having sexual fantasies can also be a source of resilience and recovery for CSA survivors if survivors embrace their sexual selves and fantasies (Hitter et al., 2017). Moyano and Sierra (2015) found that individuals who had experienced sexual abuse appraised their sexual fantasies more positively than did individuals with no history of abuse. For example, men who had experienced CSA reported a higher frequency of positive cognitions of sexual submission, and women who had experienced CSA reported more positive cognitions of sexual dominance. These findings are in contrast with traditional gender roles  and sexual selection in which men tend to have more fantasies related to dominance, and women have more fantasies related to submission, suggesting that not only might the abuse play a significant role in shaping the survivor’s sexual fantasies but also that these fantasies are wanted and experienced as positive. It can cautiously be suggested that these fantasies replay or repair past experience and as such might have the potential to facilitate growth and healing for the survivor"
     

  • "Improving the state of knowledge on sexual fantasies after CSA is important to facilitate ways to conduct examinations and to develop prevention programs and
    therapeutic approaches."
     

  • "When treating CSA survivors, therapists should acknowledge that a history of CSA can impact the extent and content of survivor’s sexual fantasies. Thus, exploring, normalizing, and possibly gaining control over sexual fantasies should be one of the goals of treatment."
     

  • "As survivors of CSA frequently arrive in treatment with an adversarial attitude toward their own fantasies, the therapist has an important role in legitimizing and validating the survivor’s sexual fantasies. To facilitate the healing process, it is the therapist’s responsibility to allow survivors a transitional safe space in which to fantasize, explore, and express the deepest and most private fantasies."
     

  • "Sexual fantasies can be used in therapy as part of thesurvivor’s journey of healing, as a form of reconstruction of or compensation for past experiences. If appropriately guided, the survivor can use these fantasies as a safe and secure way to return to familiar places and reconstruct the experience, or alternatively, engage in compensating fantasies of power and control. Replaying different fantasies via the use of one’s imagination may minimize some of the challenges in sexual relationships and can reduce feelings of embarrassment, surprise, and shame."

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• Lanning, Kenneth V. 2010. "Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children"; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, US Department of Justice. https://www.icmec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/US-NCMEC-OJJDP-Child-Molesters-A-Behavioral-Analysis-Lanning-2010.pdf.

  • "One especially sensitive area for investigators is the preferential sex offender who presents himself as a concerned civilian reporting what he inadvertently 'discovered' in cyberspace or requesting to work with law enforcement to search for child pornography and protect children. Other than the obvious benefit of legal justification for their past or future activity, most do this as part of their need to rationalize and validate their behavior as worthwhile and gain access to children. When these offenders are caught, instead of recognizing this activity as part of their preferential pattern of behavior, the courts sometimes give them leniency because of their “good deeds.” Preferential sex offenders who are also law-enforcement officers sometimes claim their activity was part of some well-intentioned, but unauthorized investigation. In the best-case scenario, these “concerned civilians” are well-intentioned, overzealous, and poorly trained individuals who are, therefore, more likely to make mistakes and errors in judgment that may jeopardize a successful prosecution. In the worst-case scenario these “concerned civilians” can be sex offenders attempting to justify and get legal permission for their deviant sexual interests. In any case investigators should never sanction or encourage civilians to engage in “proactive investigation” in these cases, even if they are working with the media and the department thinks they want potentially positive publicity."
     

  • "Legal definitions may not be the same as societal attitudes. The definition problem is most acute when professionals from different disciplines come together to work or communicate about the sexual victimization of children…The important point, then, is not that these terms have or should have only one definition but people using the terms should communicate their definitions, whatever they might be, and then consistently use those definitions. Failure to consistently use a definition is often a bigger problem than defining a term. Many will define a child as anyone younger than 18 years old but then make recommendations such as “never leave your children unattended,” which clearly does not apply to all children meeting that definition. When we use basic or common terms, we rarely even define them."

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• Knack N, Winder B, Murphy L, Fedoroff J.P. (2019). "Primary and secondary prevention of child sexual abuse". International Review of Psychiatry, 31:2, pp. 181–94 DOI: 10.1080/09540261.2018.1541872

  • "It is not difficult to understand why the mention of child sexual abuse can incite such an immediate and intense emotional reaction [...] While understandable, these emotions rarely lead to effective solutions to the problem, but rather lead to acts of vigilantism [...] Media-fuelled fears, along with over-simplified or incorrect characterizations of sexual offenders, can result in tertiary legal strategies [...] that are not evidence-based, and which may actually increase the risk of sexual recidivism (Finkelhor, 2009). As terms like ‘paedophilia’ and ‘child molester’ are used interchangeably in the media... Misunderstandings of the law and fears about ‘thought police’ [...] can also prevent these individuals from seeking treatment before they offend. If society truly wants to move toward a world in which no children are sexually abused, it is important to understand that one’s own emotional reactions, however justifiable they may be, cannot be permitted to hinder or override evidence-based strategies that can help ensure the safety and wellbeing of children [...] The ability of primary and secondary prevention initiatives to circumvent even initial sexual offences is nothing short of life-changing, and there is no reason why individuals who are at-risk of engaging in CSA should have to wait until after they’ve offended to be given access to treatment."

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• Nimbi, F. M., Galizia, R., Limoncin, E., Levy, T., Jannini, E. A., Simonelli, C., & Tambelli, R. (2023). Sexual Desire and Erotic Fantasies Questionnaire: The Development and Validation of the Erotic Fantasy Use Scale (SDEF2) on Experience, Attitudes, and Sharing Issues. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 11(8), 1159. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11081159.

  • Erotic fantasies are considered to be among the most common human sexual experiences [1,2]. They are defined as mental imagery and thoughts that are sexually arousing or erotic to the individual while awake, and thus are not externally observable [3]. Across studies, about 90–97% of the general population report having sexual fantasies and using them to stimulate their desire or intensify their arousal [3,4,5,6,7,8].
     

  • The use of erotic fantasies is typically referred to as a positive experience [2,3,7] that is often able to activate and increase the sexual response, pleasure, and satisfaction [9,10,11,12]. Fantasizing may also hinder the effects of the negative cognitions and distracting thoughts that are commonly experienced in sexual problems [13,14,15,16,17]. In intimate relationships, sharing sexual fantasies between partners seems to increase the positive perception of the relationship, which, in turn, may motivate the partners to invest further in the relationship [12]. However, sexual fantasies can also represent a negative experience, especially when they involve non-consensual sexual activities with harmful/painful scenarios or illicit behaviors that are perceived as unwanted and distressful for the individual [6,18].
     

  • Sexual fantasies are not necessarily desires that people want to perform in real life, but they are better represented as an expression of imaginative and phantasmatic activity [6,19]. For example, having erotic fantasies related to paraphilic topics is neither rare, nor directly connected to committing a crime [7,20]. In any case, since distress is a fundamental issue in clinical work, it is necessary to evaluate not only the content, but also the frequency, emotional reactions, and attitudes towards fantasies, in order to be more able to use them as effective tools for improving sexual satisfaction and sexual health.

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• Aronson, Elliot, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, and Samuel R. Sommers. 2018. Social Psychology, global ed., 9th ed. London: Pearson Education.

  • The usual assumption has been that watching violence makes people more aggressive, but aggressive people are also drawn to watching violence. Moreover, another entirely independent factor may be causing both. Some children are born with a mental or emotional predisposition toward violence; or learn it as toddlers from the way they are treated by abusive parents or siblings; or in other ways develop aggressiveness as a personality trait. In turn, this trait or predisposition manifests itself in both their aggressive behavior and their liking for watching violence or playing aggressive games (Bushman, 1995; Ferguson, 2013).
     

  • In an experiment investigating the interaction between temperament and exposure to violence, children watched either a film depicting a great deal of police violence or an exciting but nonviolent film about bike racing. They then played a game of floor hockey. Watching the violent film did increase the number of aggressive acts the children committed during the hockey game- but primarily by those who had previously been rated as highly aggressive by their teachers. These kids hit others with their sticks, threw elbows, and yelled aggressive things at their opponents to a much greater extent than did either the kids rated as nonaggressive who had also watched the violent films or the kids rated as aggressive who had watched the nonviolent film (Josephson, 1987).
     

  • Likewise, a few longitudinal studies have shown that exposure to violence in media or video games has the strongest relationship in children who are already predisposed to violence (Anderson & Dill, 2000). Thus, it may be that watching media violence merely server to give them permission to express their aggressive inclinations (Ferguson & Kilburn, 2009). The same conclusions apply to the research on violent pornography (in contrast to nonviolent erotica). Meta-analyses repeatedly conclude that although there is, for men, a positive correlation between watching violent pornography and hostile, aggressive attitudes towards women, that association is largely due to men who already have high levels of hostility toward women and are predisposed to sexual aggression (Malamuth, Mald, & Koss, 2012).
     

  • Taking all this research together, we conclude that frequent exposure to violent media, especially in the form of violent video games, does have an impact on average children and adolescents, but the impact is greatest on those who are already prone to violent behavior. Obviously, most people do not become motivated to behave aggressively or commit an act of violence as a result of what they observe. As social-cognitive learning theory predicts, people’s interpretation of what they are watching, their personality dispositions, and the social context can all affect how they respond (Feshbach & Tangney, 2008). Children and teens watch many different programs and movies and have many models to observe besides those they see in media, including parents and peers. But the fact that some people are influenced by violent entertainments […] cannot be denied.
     

  • One of the leading researchers who study media violence argues that it is “time to move forward with a more sophisticated perspective on media effects that focuses less on moral objections to certain content and more on media consumers and their motivations” (Ferguson, 2014). Finally, however, let’s put this issue in larger perspective. The effects of the media pale in comparison to the biological, social, economic, and psychological factors that are far more powerful predictors of aggressive behavior: a child’s genetic predispositions to violence, low feelings of self-control, being socially rejected by peers, criminal opportunity, being the victim of childhood physical abused, being in a peer group that endorses and encourages violence, and living in a community where aggression is a way of life (Crescioni &Baumeister, 2009; Ferguson & Kilburn, 2009).
     

  • Ch 12 Violence & The Media:

    • (418) "the effects of the media pale in comparison to the biological social economic and psychological factors that are far more powerful predictors of aggressive behavior."

    • (425) "most people find it difficult to inflict pain on a stranger unless they can find a way to justify it and the most common way of justifying it is to dehumanize the victim"

    •  (403) "according to a review prepared for the government on child safety and online technologies the greatest source of danger teens face on the internet does not come from pornography. the report found that the most frequent threats that minors faced both online and offline are bullying and harassment by peers."
       

  • Ch 6 Cognitive Dissonance:

    •  (178) "Social psychologists have discovered that one of the most powerful determinants of human behavior stems from our need to preserve a stable positive self-image. Most people believe they are above average … more ethical and competent turn the majority"

    • (180) "People who are in the midst of reducing dissonance are so involved with convincing themselves that they are right that they frequently end up behaving irrationally and maladaptively."

    • (Page 200 bottom) "The closer people are to committing acts of cruelty the greater their need to reduce the distance between I'm a good kind person and I am causing another human being to suffer. The easiest route is to blame the victim he is guilty he started this it's all his fault he is not one of us anyway."

    • "Success at dehumanizing the victim virtually guarantees a continuation or even an escalation of the cruelty it sets up an endless chain of violence followed by self-justification (in the form of dehumanizing and blaming the victim) followed by still more violence and dehumanization"

    • (301) "Discussion of deindividuation and how anonymity leaves people feeling less accountable for their actions. in meta-analysis of more than 60 studies, researchers found that becoming deindividuated also increases the extent to which people obey the group's norms. Sometimes the norms of a specific group to which we belong conflict with the norms of other groups or of society at Large. When group members are together and Deindividuated they become more likely to act according to the group norms than societal norms."

    • (456) "Ethnocentrism. the belief that your own culture Nation or religion is superior to all others is called ethnocentrism"

    • (458) "The tendency to blame victims for their victimization attributing their predicaments to inherent deficits and their abilities and character is typically motivated by a desire to see the world as a fair and just place one where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get."

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• Gilden, Andrew. (2016). "Punishing Sexual Fantasy." William and Mary Law Review 58 (2): 419–91. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol58/iss2/3/.

  • "This Article reveals a widespread and overlooked pattern of harshly punishing individuals for exploring their sexual fantasies on the Internet. It shows that judges and juries in several areas of the law repeatedly conflate sexual fantasy with sexual abuse, have largely been dismissive of both the merits and value of fantasy-based defenses"
     

  • "Reading, writing, and reflecting on sexuality—whether taboo or otherwise—allows individuals to understand their own desires and pursue a range of socially desirable ends; they might “come out,” seek treatment, channel the fantasy into a consensual offline form, openly question the wisdom of the underlying taboo, or use the fictional account to cathartically let off steam and aggression."
     

  • "the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, frequently steps into custody disputes to protect the legal interests of BDSM practitioners, and it often needs to educate judges that a demonstrated interest in bondage or sadomasochism does not equate to mental illness or poor parenting. For example, in one case, a woman’s ex-husband found her profile on the website FetLife and used her posts, pictures, and writings about consensual BDSM activities to claim that she was a danger to their children"

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• Abraham, Anna, D. Cramon, and Ricarda Schubotz. 2008. "Meeting George Bush versus Meeting Cinderella: The Neural Response When Telling Apart What Is Real from What Is Fictional in the Context of Our Reality." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20:965–76. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2008.20059.

  • "the findings of the present study essentially imply that different memory retrieval systems are more strongly recruited when making reality-based judgments about scenarios involving real or fictional characters."
     

  • "It appears then that one of the means by which we tell reality apart from fiction, at least in the explicit context of reality testing, seems to lie in the manner in which such information is coded and accessed, namely, if it is personally significant or not. The degree of associated self-relevance is therefore a possibly critical determinant factor that enables us to differentiate between what is real and unreal."

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• Nekola, A. (2013). “More Than Just a Music”: Conservative Christian Anti-Rock Discourse and the U.S. Culture Wars." Popular Music, 32(3), 407–426. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24736782.

  • “Beginning in the 1960s, prominent conservative Christian leaders including David A. Noebel, Bob Larson and Frank Garlock preached on the threat of rock music, arguing that not only was the culture of this music morally threatening, but the sounds themselves were inherently dangerous and fundamentally evil, and thus could harm the bodies and minds–and souls–of listeners... they believed this music threatened the family, the church and the very integrity of the nation itself.”
     

  • “Garlock attributed rock’n’roll’s harmful physical and mental effects to both its volume and its irregular rhythm, citing as proof of its danger for living beings a series of now (in)famous experiments in which plants that were exposed to rock music died while those shielded from rock flourished. Arguing that...it was possible to see a person’s nature through their musical choices, but also that one might ‘re-tune’ oneself and become better or worse through the music listened to (Garlock1971, p. 9).”
     

  • “In addition to their fears of supernatural evil, all three conservative Christian critics’ claims about rock’s beat were grounded in the concept of a duality between the mind and body drawn, like neo-Platonism, from Classical philosophy. In this conception, white men were most associated with reason,‘the spirit’ and the mind, while women, children and so-called ‘primitive’ or non-Western peoples existed outside of rationality and were thus associated with the physical, ‘the flesh’ and the body. It is no surprise that these Christian critics aimed their crusade at youth; not only were teens more likely to listen to rock’n’roll; they were also more susceptible to music’s affective powers (and its demons) because they were not fully rational adults. Similarly, conservative Christian critics also argued that non-whites were more vulnerable than whites to rock music’s evils and the satanic presence it invited. The notion that race and rhythmic music are linked in dangerous ways can be traced back to long-standing anxieties about the non-rational body–the racialised, feminised and youthful body–as disruptive of the social order. In the 1920s, psychologist Carl Jung claimed that an entire culture could be ‘infected’ by another culture’s rhythms (quoted in Golston1996).”

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• Buckingham, David (2001) , ‘Electronic child abuse? Rethinking the media’s effects on children’, in M. Barker and J. Petley (eds), Ill Effects: The Media/Violence Debate, New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 63–77.

  • "Elite discourses about popular culture have traditionally been suffused with patronizing assumptions about the audience, based largely on a contempt for women and other members of the ‘lower orders’. yet it is also children who are often defined as quintessentially ‘other’, and who have historically been seen to be most at risk from the media." [...] "The imitative violence, which has remained the central focus of anxiety and such debates, is largely seen as rising from the inability to distinguish fiction and reality. Children copy what they see on television because they lack the experience and the intellectual capacities that might enable them to see through the illusion [...] And, of course, in expressing our concern about these matters we implicitly position ourselves as somehow immune from such inadequacies. Using such arguments thus in itself appears to guarantee our rationality and maturity and thereby distinguishes us from those others whom we take it upon ourselves to protect."

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• Nyberg, A. K. (2009). Seal of approval: The History of the Comics Code. Jackson, Miss: Univ. Press of Mississippi.

  • "Many felt that even children who did not exhibit other delinquent behavior might be enticed into imitating crimes pictured in detail in their favorite comics, and children who did not act on what they read were still getting the wrong message about authority from the stories that glorified criminals."

  • Wertham listed seven ways in which he believed comic books affected children:

    • They may suggest criminal or sexually abnormal ideas (like homosexuality)

    • they create a mental preparedness or readiness for temptation

    • they may tip the scales and behavior of otherwise normal children

    • they set off a chain of undesirable and harmful thinking

    • they create for the child atmosphere of deceit trickery and cruelty

    • He would make statements such as "the fact that some child psychiatrists endorse comic books does not prove the healthy state of the comic books. It only proves the unhealthy state of child psychiatry. He refuted the consultant's claims that comic books were simply healthy fantasy outlets for aggression and that children were aware that the world of comics was one of Make Believe." and "We are not dealing with the rights and privileges of adults to read and write as they choose. We are dealing with the mental health of [children]"

  • "The church's position was that while removal of such material might infringe on an adult's "right to read," good citizens should be willing to waive their rights in order to protect children"

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• Victor, J. S. (1998). "Moral Panics and the Social Construction of Deviant Behavior: A Theory and Application to the Case of Ritual Child Abuse". Sociological Perspectives, 41(3), 541–565. https://doi.org/10.2307/1389563.

  • "In simplification, a moral panic is a societal response to beliefs about a threat from moral deviants [...] “A condition, episode, person or group emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnosis and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes visible”
     

  • The following five specific indicators of a moral panic (summarized from Goode and Ben- Yehuda 1994:33-39):

    • 1. Volatility- The sudden eruption and subsiding of concern about a newly perceived threat to society from a category of people regarded as being moral deviants.

    • 2. Hostility- The deviants are regarded with intense hostility as enemies of the basic values of the society and attributed stereotypes of 'evil' behavior. 

    • 3. Measurable Concern- Concern about the threat is measurable in concrete ways, such as attitude surveys. 

    • 4. Consensus- There is consensus in significant segments of the population that the threat is real and serious.

    • 5. Dis-proportionality- Concern about the number of moral deviants and the extent of the harm that they do is much greater than can be verified by objective, empirical investigations of the harm. Even though the measur- able concern is great, the numbers of deviants are minimal or even non-existent and their harm is very limited or even non-existent. 
       

  • “False accusations are a necessary part of a moral panic. In order for a moral panic to take hold among a large number of people, it is necessary for some people to be publicly identified with the perceived threat, even if the deviance of which they are accused is purely imaginary”

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• Lepore S.J., Kliewer W. (2013) "Expressive Writing and Health". In: Gellman M.D., Turner J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1225

  • (Summarized):

    • Fewer stress-related visits to the doctor

    • Improved immune system functioning

    • Reduced blood pressure

    • Improved lung function

    • Improved liver function

    • Fewer days in hospital

    • Improved mood/affect

    • Feeling of greater psychological well-being

    • Reduced depressive symptoms before examinations

    • Fewer post-traumatic intrusion and avoidance symptoms

    • Reduced absenteeism from work

    • Quicker re-employment after job loss

    • Improved working memory

    • Improved sporting performance

    • Higher students’ grade point average

    • Altered social and linguistic behaviour

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• Sloan, D. M., Marx, B. P., Epstein, E. M., & Dobbs, J. L. (2008). "Expressive writing buffers against maladaptive rumination." , (2), 302–306. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.8.2.302.

  • "In line with previous hypotheses regarding the mechanisms of action for expressive writing (e.g., Sloan & Marx, 2004) and the speculations of Nolen-Hoeksema et al. (in press), we propose that the expressive writing sessions may allow brooders to confront their negative thoughts and feelings, use more constructive problem-solving skills, and restructure maladaptive cognitions regarding their stressful experiences, all of which served to ward off further increases in stress that they would otherwise have experienced and led to or maintained future depression symptoms. Another possible explanation is that the expressive writing intervention prompted the participants to seek out social support. That is, writing about stressful or traumatic experiences provoked the participants to discuss what they had written about with others, which, in turn, strengthened their social bonds. The strengthened social bonds hypothesis has been suggested by Pennebaker (1997) to account for what maintains beneficial outcomes resulting from expressive writing. Seeking out social support would be particularly beneficial for brooders as these individuals have been found to socially isolate themselves (Nolen-Hoeksema & Davis, 1999). Moreover, people who are socially isolated or who do not receive emotional support from others are less likely to use active coping strategies (e.g., Holahan & Moos, 1987). Consequently, the increase in social bonds would serve as a positive distraction from brooding and would increase the likelihood that these individuals would engage in active coping strategies to address ongoing stressors they might have been experiencing"
     

  • "Rumination is defined as a mode of coping with distress in which the individual repeatedly and passively focuses on distress and its possible causes and consequences. It is regarded as a stable response tendency that exacerbates further negative thinking, increases negative emotions, and interferes with effective problem solving. Ruminators also tend to display cognitive inflexibility. Numerous studies have found that rumination increases the risk for depression"

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• Van, M. E., & Mar, R. A. (January 01, 2019). "Interest and Investment in Fictional Romances". Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 13, 4, 431-449.

  • "fictional romances could provide an avenue for exploring and ultimately informing individuals’ romantic identity. Focusing on fictional relationships may help individuals decide which aspects of a relationship are important to them without opening themselves up to the risks that accompany forming and maintaining actual relationships."
     

  • "Individuals may essentially learn “what not to do” from becoming invested in these dramatized relationships. Conversely, a practical approach to love might make the turbulence of fictional relationships seem all the more alluring, leading to a greater emotional investment in dramatic fictional relationships. Becoming invested in these fictional passionate relationships also means no risk of personal emotional fallout, unlike taking a passionate approach to one’s real relationships. It is also possible that people who are more interested in fictional relationships simply like to think more about relationships in general, and that this means quite different things for different people."
     

  • "Another explanation for this association is that individuals who observe and become invested in fictional relationships, which might be more volatile in nature, are more likely to want to avoid this kind of turmoil in their own lives"
     

  • "People do not become deeply engaged with fictional relationships to compensate for unhappiness with their own relationships, but rather possess a deep interest in relationships and romance"

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• Lagrange V, Hiskes B, Woodward C, Li B, Breithaupt F. (2019). "Choosing and enjoying violence in narratives". PLoS ONE 14(12): e0226503. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0226503

  • "People who chose highly violent plot developments generally enjoyed the stories more than people who made less violent choices. A large percentage of our participants (up to 66%) could be persuaded to opt for highly violent plot choices and as a result rated their satisfaction higher than people who did not make highly violent choices. However, people who did not have choices and read completed stories generally strongly disliked high violence. It is when participants are given control of a situation and execute it by opting for high violence that they find greater satisfaction. In short, choosing violence increases enjoyment"
     

  • "Apparently, the very act of opting for high violence simultaneously disconnects people from constraints of morality and responsibility and thereby opens an aesthetic realm of fun and satisfaction."
     

  • "We suggest that by choosing high violence, people claim specific forms of agency over the media content, which leads to greater enjoyment. The appeal might not be the satisfaction of a disposition, but rather an act of choosing stories that break out of the ordinary and thus open up an aesthetic zone of enjoyment. Choosing violence is enjoyable, not violence itself."

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• Maslej, M. M., Mar, R. A., & Kuperman, V. (January 01, 2021). "The Textual Features of Fiction That Appeal to Readers: Emotion and Abstractness". Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 15, 2, 272-283.

  • "In contrast, interesting characters were described using negative and arousing words. It therefore seems that readers are drawn toward characters that elicit negative emotions or possess arousing characteristics, or perhaps ones that do negative or exciting things. Although readers may not necessarily like these characters, they can still be compelled or intrigued by such characters."
     

  • "In exploring the topic of the appeal of negative media, Oliver and Raney (2011) argue that individuals have an intrinsic need to gain insight into human nature by deriving meaning, truth, or purpose from the world around them, which includes narratives. Characters that grapple with negative experiences—such as failure, frailty, or mortality—tend to pose questions about human nature and perhaps facilitate insight into questions regarding our own existence."

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• Childs, Chivonna. 2021. "Is Your Love of True Crime Impacting Your Mental Health?" https://health.clevelandclinic.org/psychological-effects-of-watching-crime-shows/.

  • “Watching true crime doesn’t make you strange or weird,” Dr. Childs says. “It’s human nature to be inquisitive. True crime appeals to us because we get a glimpse into the mind of a real person who has committed a heinous act.” 
     

  • "as women are also disproportionately likely to be the victims of crime.  “We want to watch true crime in part to learn how to avoid being a victim,” she says. “It can teach us to be prepared in case we’re ever in that situation.”  
     

  • "stopping to consider how the stories make you feel in the moment can help clue you in to whether you should walk away from them now and try again later. “Your body is going to tell you how much is too much,” Dr. Childs says. "You don’t need to swear off all your favorite true and fictionalized crime shows forever."

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• Levand, Mark A, Stephanie C. Chando, Mark Wolfe, Sabitha Pillai-Friedman, and Elliot Love. "The Light in the Shadows: Therapeutic Explorations of Fantasy and Fear*." Sexual and Relationship Therapy. 34.4 (2019): 473-495. Print.

  • "Individuals may participate in rape play, consensual nonconsent, edge play, or forced sex for a variety of reasons. A fascination with rape is a common theme in media and literature, and those within the BDSM and Kink communities consider rape play a safe way to experience and enact these fascinations (Easton, 2007). Other individuals enjoy this type of play because acting out a rape fantasy allows for guilt avoidance (Strokes, 2008; Guest author, 2010). Individuals who want and enjoy sex are often made to feel guilty for those desires, and pretending to be raped is a way of enjoying sex (particularly rough or forceful sex) without guilt (Friday, 1973). However, research indicates that most individuals who engage in rape play or consensual nonconsent do not express high levels of guilt about sex (Hawley & Hensley, 2009). Negotiated rape scenes can allow individuals to fantasize about their irresistibility, imagining that they are so irresistible that others absolutely must have sex with them (Strokes, 2008; Hawley & Hensley, 2009). Other people simply like the level of excitement involved in rape play and consensual nonconsent (Taormino, 2012). They find great appeal in taking risks, being pushed passed their boundaries, learning about their endurance, and experiencing fear-induced-excitement in controlled scenarios (Guest author, 2010; Pitagora, 2013; Strokes, 2008). Regardless of the initial motivation, all individuals, whether the 'perpetrator' or 'victims,' learn about themselves and each other as a result of the experience (Pitagora, 2013)."
     

  • "Some people also use rape play as a way to heal from traumatic experiences (Strokes, 2008; Shadowborne, 1998). This is commonly known as shadowplay because it involves encountering darker past experiences (the shadows) These 'shadows' can be explored by creating a similar, controlled scenario that allows the individual to meet their fears directly (Bauer, 2014; Lady Celeste, 2000). Participating in a structured rape play scenario based on past sexual trauma that has been planned and involves a trusted individual (or individuals) can allow one to reclaim or achieve control over the event in their minds moving past the trauma. Both Bauer (2014) and Hawley and Hensley (2009) note that in rape, the victim has no self-determination; they are unable to determine a positive outcome for themselves. However, through rape play or shadowplay, rape victims can “redo” their rape, as they are in control of the situation and able to determine the outcome."

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• Bivona, J., & Critelli, J. (2009). "The Nature of Women’s Rape Fantasies: An Analysis of Prevalence, Frequency, and Contents". The Journal of Sex Research, 46(1), 33–45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20620397

  • "Results indicated that 62% of women have had a rape fantasy"
     

  • "Erotic rape fantasies, which comprised 45% of the rape fantasy logs, are highly erotic fantasies that included forced sex at some point in the story. By definition, fantasies within this group were not at all aversive to the fantasizer. In a large majority of erotic rape fantasies, the non-consent was feigned or token (i.e., not a real attempt to end the sexual interaction in the fantasy). In about three-fourths of erotic rape fantasies, the self-character’s level of consent changed from being initially resistant to willing, and this type of change in consent was also more common in erotic than in the other two types of rape fantasy"
     

  • "many rape fantasies are not realistic depictions of rape. They are often abstracted, eroticized portrayals that emphasize some aspects of actual rape and omit or distort other features"

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• Holvoet, Lien & Huys, Wim & Coppens, Violette & Seeuws, Jantien & Goethals, Kris & Morrens, Manuel. (2017). "Fifty Shades of Belgian Gray: The Prevalence of BDSM-Related Fantasies and Activities in the General Population". Journal of Sexual Medicine. 14. 10.1016/j.jsxm.2017.07.003. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318505712_Fifty_Shades_of_Belgian_Gray_The_Prevalence_of_BDSM-Related_Fantasies_and_Activities_in_the_General_Population

  • "To conclude, there is a high level of interest in BDSM in the general population, which strongly argues against pathological characterization and stigmatization of these interests. Further research is needed to confirm BDSM as a leisurely preference rather than psychiatric affliction to destigmatize it within the population. This quest might benefit from exploring comparisons between BDSM profiles from the general population and those from the BDSM community"
     

  • "The majority (61.4%) of the completers with a self-proclaimed interest in BDSM became aware of this interest before the age of 25. Bezreh and colleagues [4] demonstrated awareness at an even younger age (85% before the age of 20) within a small sample of the BDSM community. Similarly, Floyd and Bakeman [17] demonstrated first awareness of same-sex attraction was reported around the age of 13.2 years old and self-identification as being gay/lesbian/bisexual came at an age (19.7y) which is comparable with our findings concerning BDSM interests"

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• Labrecque, Frédérike & Potz, Audrey & Larouche, Émilie & Joyal, Christian. (2020). "What Is So Appealing About Being Spanked, Flogged, Dominated, or Restrained? Answers from Practitioners of Sexual Masochism/Submission." The Journal of Sex Research. 58. 1-15. 10.1080/00224499.2020.1767025.

  • https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341869861_What_Is_So_Appealing_About_Being_Spanked_Flogged_Dominated_or_Restrained_Answers_from_Practitioners_of_Sexual_MasochismSubmission

    • "These results show that, contrary to classic psychopathological hypotheses about m/s, such proclivities were not necessarily associated with sexual or physical childhood abuse. Childhood trauma is neither sufficient nor necessary to develop interest in m/s behaviors, as the vast majority of adults with a history of childhood abuse do not
      practice m/s behaviors and the vast majority of m/s practitioners were not victims of childhood abuse (e.g., Richters
      et al., 2008). Still, the narratives studied confirm that some persons with m/s proclivities may have issues related to childhood adversity, as is the case with many psychological attitudes. Psychoptherapists (and practitioners of BDSM who take a dominant role) should be aware of this possibility."

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• Rorty, Amelie. 2012. "The Use and Abuse of Morality". The Journal of Ethics. 16 (1): 1-13.

  • "in their most general forms, the distinctive functions of morality can cast shadows: they are all subject to the abuse of excess or deficiency. Moreover, when they laid down in unquestionable, unqualifiable ironclad commands or ideals, specific prohibitions and obligations alike can cripple the improvisation and inventiveness that is essential to the necessary subtlety of morality in action"
     

  • "The first abuse is fairly obvious [...] Righteous and self-righteous people misappropriate the claims and language of morality. Instead of using its various dimensions as heuristic guides in attempting to determine what needs to be done and how to do it well, they treat the function of morality as providing judgment, as if its point was to issue in summary sentencing: this is moral; that is immoral or evil. In theological terms, the righteous place themselves in the position of divinity, judging the world, praising and condemning according to their lights. Equally seriously, they are committed to a reductive and impoverished Manichean moral theology with two moral judgments: right or wrong, good or bad, beneficial or harmful, moral heroes or evil empires, as if the world is a battle ground between the forces of good and evil, winner take all. They forgo the work of trying to find out exactly what is good or harmful in each situation, the work of understanding and crafting the complex tasks and roles that morality requires."

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• Freeman, Joreen. (April, 1976). "Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood". Ms.. https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm.

• [Shared to deconstruct the act of Trashing in a marginalized group]

  • "What is "trashing," this colloquial term that expresses so much, yet explains so little? It is not disagreement; it is not conflict; it is not opposition. These are perfectly ordinary phenomena which, when engaged in mutually, honestly, and not excessively, are necessary to keep an organism or organization healthy and active. Trashing is a particularly vicious form of character assassination which amounts to psychological rape. It is manipulative, dishonest, and excessive. It is occasionally disguised by the rhetoric of honest conflict, or covered up by denying that any disapproval exists at all. But it is not done to expose disagreements or resolve differences. It is done to disparage and destroy.
    The means vary. Trashing can be done privately or in a group situation; to one's face or behind one's back; through ostracism or open denunciation. The trasher may give you false reports of what (horrible things) others think of you; tell your friends false stories of what you think of them; interpret whatever you say or do in the most negative light; project unrealistic expectations on you so that when you fail to meet them, you become a "legitimate" target for anger; deny your perceptions of reality; or pretend you don't exist at all. Trashing may even be thinly veiled by the newest group techniques of criticism/self-criticism, mediation, and therapy. Whatever methods are used, trashing involves a violation of one's integrity, a declaration of one's worthlessness, and an impugning of one's motives In effect, what is attacked is not one's actions, or one's ideas, but one's self.
    This attack is accomplished by making you feel that your very existence is inimical [...] and that nothing can change this short of ceasing to exist. These feelings are reinforced when you are isolated from your friends as they become convinced that their association with-you is similarly inimical to the Movement and to themselves. Any support of you will taint them. Eventually all your colleagues join in a chorus of condemnation which cannot be silenced, and you are reduced to a mere parody of your previous self."
     

  • "I gave the movement the right to judge me because I trusted it. And when it judged me worthless, I accepted that judgment."
     

  • "This legitimated for many the idea that the Movement could tell us what kind of people we ought to be, and by extension what kind of personalities we ought to have. As no boundaries were drawn to define the limits of such demands, it was difficult to preclude abuses. Many groups have sought to remold the lives and minds of their members, and some have trashed those who resisted."
     

  • "Rage is a logical result of oppression. It demands an outlet. Because most women are surrounded by men whom they have learned it is not wise to attack, their rage is often turned inward. The Movement is teaching women to stop this process, but in many instances it has not provided alternative targets. While the men are distant, and the "system" too big and vague, one's "sisters" are close at hand. Attacking other feminists is easier and the results can be more quickly seen than by attacking amorphous social institutions. People are hurt; they leave. One can feel the sense of power that comes from having "done something." Trying to change an entire society is a very slow, frustrating process in which gains are incremental, rewards diffuse, and setbacks frequent. It is not a coincidence that trashing occurs most often and most viciously by those feminists who see the least value in small, impersonal changes and thus often find themselves unable to act against specific institutions."
     

  • "Instead of trying to prove one is better than anyone else, one proves someone else is worse. This can provide the same sense of superiority that traditional competition does, but without the risks involved. At best the object of one's ire is put to public shame, at worst one's own position is safe within the shrouds of righteous indignation"
     

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