“What Else Explains This Trauma but Porn?” Women Partners of Porn Addicts as Claims-Makers

Abstract

Heterosexual women partners of “porn addicts” are an understudied group of claims-makers in the construction of this social problem. To examine their diagnostic frames, this paper analyzes 33 surveys and 35 interviews with women recruited from a social support site. While respondents describe their negative relationship dynamics as a gendered collective trauma, the majority attribute blame exclusively to pornography as an addictive medium. Explanations of relationship dissatisfaction which invoke patriarchal control are read as feminist and inappropriate on the site, as trolls could have the site taken down for “man-hating.” In the absence of these alternate explanations, the saturation of stories of women’s reported suffering becomes linked to porn alone. This paper contributes to scholars’ understanding of how the censoring of feminist perspectives online shapes how diagnostic frames are circulated and repressed, with consequences for how groups can make meaning of gender and sexuality.