Both camps overstate this one. The "it destroys every relationship" story and the "it has no effect at all" story are each contradicted by the same body of evidence.
A meta-analysis of 50 studies across ten countries found pornography use unrelated to intrapersonal satisfaction, meaning body image and self-regard, but associated with lower interpersonal satisfaction, meaning sexual and relational. The association held across cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental designs, which makes it more than a fluke. It was also small, with effect sizes around r = −.13 for men and r ≈ −.11 for sexual satisfaction, and analyses by sex were significant for men only.
A separate look across 30 national surveys and 31 measures of relationship quality found roughly half the associations significantly negative and roughly half null. That is what a small effect looks like when you go looking for it in many places.
Some studies also find the relationship is curvilinear rather than a straight line: occasional use looks different from heavy use, and the effect is not simply "more is worse" at every level.
The population average is not you. Problematic use, meaning use with impaired control and distress, tracks harm far better than use alone does. If your relationship is suffering, the question worth asking is not whether porn correlates with satisfaction in general, but whether the way you use it is costing this relationship in particular, and whether the concealment is doing more damage than the use.
Where this comes from
Read the full lesson: What the research says about the actual harms →
Sources and how strong they are (4)
- Well establishedA meta-analysis of 50 studies (50,000+ people, ten countries) found pornography consumption unrelated to intrapersonal satisfaction (body and self), but associated with lower interpersonal satisfaction — sexual and relational — across cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental designs. The association is small, and analyses by sex were significant for men only. Reported effect sizes include r = −.13 (95% CI −.16, −.10, k = 29) for men on interpersonal satisfaction, r = −.11 (95% CI −.14, −.07) for sexual satisfaction and r = −.09 (95% CI −.12, −.05, k = 24) for relational satisfaction.
- Wright PJ, Tokunaga RS, Kraus A & Klann E 2017, Human Communication Research 43(3):315-343, doi:10.1111/hcre.12108
- Well establishedAcross 30 national surveys and 31 relationship-quality measures, roughly half of the tested associations were significantly negative and roughly half were null.
- Perry SL 2020, Arch Sex Behav 49(4):1199-1213, doi:10.1007/s10508-019-01616-7, PMID 31897829
- Mixed evidenceSome studies find curvilinear rather than linear effects — occasional use looks different from heavy use.
- Willoughby BJ, Leonhardt ND & Augustus RA 2021, Computers in Human Behavior 125:106966, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2021.106966
- Well establishedProblematic pornography use tracks distress better than overall frequency of use does. People who use frequently without distress and people who use frequently with it are distinguishable, and it is the problematic group that differs on mental-health measures - most clearly on depressive symptoms and self-esteem. Adult ADHD symptoms are a further replicated correlate (see C51), measured almost entirely by screening questionnaire rather than diagnosis. Loneliness is a further cross-sectional correlate of pornography use, measured once in a sample of 1,247 and modelled by its authors as potentially bidirectional.
- Bőthe B, Tóth-Király I, Potenza MN, Orosz G, Demetrovics Z 2020, J Sex Med 17(4):793-811, doi:10.1016/j.jsxm.2020.01.007
- Butler MH, Pereyra SA, Draper TW, Leonhardt ND & Skinner KB 2018, J Sex Marital Ther 44(2):127-137, doi:10.1080/0092623X.2017.1321601, PMID 28448246 (published online 2017)
- Dropped as a source, because it does not resolve to a paper containing this claim — Grubbs et al. 2020, Clin Psychol Rev 82:101925, doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2020.101925, PMID 33038740, whose systematic review of 415 studies cuts the other way on confidence
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