More male Iowa State students have seen pornography on the Internet, but more women say cyberporn should be banned, a random phone survey of 320 ISU students indicates.

The survey was conducted by students in an intermediate journalism class from Oct. 24-27.

More than half of the men surveyed said they had seen pornography, either words or pictures, on the Internet, while only 20 percent of the ISU women surveyed said they had viewed Internet pornography.

“Males are more sexually aroused by visual imagery,” Corlice Peterson said.

Peterson, who teaches human sexuality at ISU, wrote an article for the Oct. 3 issue of USA Today about depictions of young children in advertising. She also served on a related panel for ISU’s “Week Without Violence.”

“Male fantasies center around nudity, power and aggression. Females focus on intimacy and romance,” Peterson said.

She said because there is a great deal more pornography geared toward men on the Internet, men are more likely to view the pornography than women. “Many women are afraid to look at [pornography], or buy it. In much pornography, women are victimized and degraded,” Peterson said.

Peterson said there is “more of a taboo” for women to look at pornography, so many avoid it. “Some women will even say ‘Oh, yuck’ to a picture of a nude man. There is definitely a gender difference.”

However, Peterson foresees a change in the way women will view pornography because of the Internet. Viewing pornography on-line, “is something women can do very privately,” she said. “It’s not like having to go out in public to an adult book store.”

Sixty percent of the women surveyed said there should be some restrictions on pornography posted on the Internet, while only 36 percent of the men surveyed thought restrictions were necessary.

Of those who wanted restrictions on pornography, more females than males thought banning pornography on the Internet would be the best plan.

“I would have to think long and hard about a ban,” Peterson said. “Consenting adults can choose what they want to view.”

Peterson’s main concerns with pornography are violence and protecting children.

Protecting children from viewing pornography, she said, is important, but hard to enforce.

“Personal supervision is necessary, but if we think a parent can monitor every minute their child spends on the computer, we’re kidding ourselves.”

While there is no way to prevent minors from accessing pornography, Peterson suggested putting codes on computers much like codes installed in phones to prevent children from dialing 1-900 numbers.