The Dark Side of Internet Searches: A Macro Level Assessment of Rape Culture

Assessing the pervasiveness of rape culture in society or merely establishing at an empirical level the degree to which a nation reflects such attitudes or behaviors has remained of interest to scholars across numerous disciplines. One common limitation (or criticism) within prior empirical research is claims of lack of generalizability or influences of social desirability. This research employs the use of Google Trends data from 2004-2012, via nine keyword searches specific to rape-oriented pornography. We also include interest in the top five pornographic hubs. Findings suggest that there is both an interest in rape-oriented pornography and that interest across many search queries appear to be increasing.