Porn Improves Relationships

You’re in a conversation about pornography and someone says, “Porn isn’t a problem for relationships. It can even be helpful.” What would you say? Some people claim that porn is not only harmless, it may even increase intimacy for couples. But is that true? No, and here are three reasons why: Porn harms sexual satisfaction A 2018 study of 1,500 young adults found that more frequent porn viewing was associated with lower rates of sexual satisfaction. Not only are people who use porn generally less satisfied, their levels of dissatisfaction increase with their level of porn use. The more porn someone watches, the more dissatisfied they generally are. Also, the same study found no evidence at all that porn led to greater sexual satisfaction for anyone. Which leads to the second point. Porn creates unrealistic expectations for sex Porn teaches young people what they should expect for themselves and what they should expect from others. But it’s not just young people, everyone who views porn is exposed to a warped, unrealistic, exaggerated, and unhealthy script about what to expect from sex. Just like photoshopped images of models create standards of beauty that don’t exist in real life, porn creates mental images of sex that are fabricated using the help of airbrushes, cameras, lights, stylists, and video editing tools. The result is a fictional view of sex that doesn’t actually exist for anyone, anywhere, including the people involved in porn. Which leads to the third point. Porn undermines the stability of relationships A 2018 study of 2,120 married adults found that those who began to use pornography after marriage doubled their chances of getting divorced. Other studies found links between porn use and lower levels of commitment to romantic partners, increased rates of infidelity, and overall harm to the perceived quality of a marriage. When our view of what is desirable is defined by something that isn’t real, it inevitably leads to disappointment. The more we desire things that are unhealthy, the less interest we have in things that are good for us. So next time someone tells you that porn is a victimless form of entertainment and can even be good for relationships, remember these three things. Porn harms sexual satisfaction. Porn doesn’t make us more satisfied; it makes us less satisfied. Porn creates unrealistic expectations for sex. Porn provides a fictional view of sex that doesn’t exist in the real world. Those expectations are not simply unrealistic, they’re often unhealthy. Porn undermines the stability of many relationships. Porn use is linked to higher divorce rates, higher rates of infidelity, and lower quality relationships. Let’s be better.

Personal pornography viewing and sexual satisfaction: A quadratic Analysis, Wright, Bridges, Sun, Ezzell, and Johnson (2018)  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experimentations/201803/4-ways-porn-use-causes-problems Point 1

Til Porn Do Us Part? A Longitudinal Examination of Pornography Use and Divorce, Perry and Schleifer (2018)

https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/jscp.2012.31.4.410

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-016-0770-y