Sex Machine

Many people see pornography as a public health hazard, inherently harmful to our sex lives, relationships and mental health. There's a lot of talk about the negative effects of pornography that the more you use it, the more problems you get. I mean, the concept of "porn addiction" basically means constant and uncontrolled use, right?

Interestingly, however, the new study challenges the idea that more porn necessarily means more negative effects. In fact, it found the opposite - those who used the least pornography reported the most problems. What's going on here?

We'll talk about that later, but first, let's discuss a new study recently published in the Journal of Sex Research. Data came from a national survey in Germany with 4,177 participants (44% were women; Age range: 18-75 years). The sample was weighted to represent the German population, but the final sample included only those who had seen pornography at some point in their lives.

The participants completed a survey about their porn use and sex life. For survey purposes, "viewing pornography" is broadly defined to include all media depictions (including movies, photos, text, etc.). Pertaining to sex and pornography for the purpose of sexual arousal. Participants were asked to report how often they had watched pornographic movies in the past year. They were also asked to report how pornography affected their sex lives. Answer options include no impact, positive impact, negative impact, and positive and negative impact.

What effects did the participants report? The majority (62 per cent) said their sex life had not been affected. A quarter (25%) thought the impact was positive, 11% thought it was mixed (both positive and negative) and only 2.5% thought it was negative. Of those who reported only negative effects, the majority (57.5 percent) were men.

This in itself is interesting because, in other words, the vast majority (87 percent) of porn users report no or only positive effects. Only a small percentage reported negative effects, which is unusual.

Another interesting finding of the study was that "those who associated pornography use with bad behavior reported much less frequent use than those who reported that pornography played a positive role." That's right: Less porn = more problems.

To many, this may seem counterintuitive. So why do low-frequency users report more problems? There are several possible explanations.

One possibility is that those who watch less porn are more religious. Several studies have found that more religious affiliation is associated with less porn use -- and more religious affiliation is associated with moral conflicts over porn use. We tend to see the negative effects of porn when there is moral dissonance (where you are watching porn but you think it is morally wrong). It doesn't matter how much you watch; Instead, it's what you do that makes you feel morally conflicted. This can cause psychological distress. It can lead people to label their behavior as "addictive," even if it occurs infrequently.

Consistent with this view, the new research I discussed above found that more religious upbringing and moral problems associated with pornography were associated with reporting more negative effects.

Another possibility is that some people in the negative influence group watch different types of pornography. The study didn't take into account the type of pornography consumed, so it's at least feasible.

That said, the results are fascinating because they challenge the popular view that more porn consumption will inevitably lead to more sexual problems. Instead, frequency of use does not seem to be the key to understanding pornography's impact. More people think porn has no effect or has a positive effect than it does a negative effect -- and the negative effect is probably more about your moral perspective on porn.