Context of pornography consumption and sexual desire in romantic relationships

AbstractIn society, pornography consumption is generally associated mostly with negative outcomes in relationships. Several studies also draw attention to the positive outcomes that pornography consumption can have. The current study investigated associations between the context of internet pornography use and sexual desire in a sample of 1742 individuals in romantic relationships. Having used an online questionnaire, we compared shared pornography consumption, concordant solitary consumption, discordant consumption, and no consumption. The study centred on the frequency of intercourse in relationships and partner-focused dyadic sexual desire. Results showed that shared pornography consumers and non-consumers had the highest frequency of intercourse per month compared to discordant consumers and solitary concordant consumers. In terms of sexual desire, shared consumers and discordant consumers had the highest sexual desire. However, the effect is caused more by the influence of gender than by the context of pornography consumption, as males showed higher sexual desire than females. Implications, significance, and limitations of obtained results in the present study are also discussed in relation to moderating variables included. It is suggested that the associations of these factors are investigated in future studies. Several directions for further research are discussed in light of these findings.LAY SUMMARYThe research examines the connections between pornography and sexual desire in relationships. We compare individuals from relationships in which pornography is consumed together, separately, by only one of the partners, or not at all. Shared pornography consumers and discordant consumers had the highest sexual desire.Keywords: Pornographyromantic relationshipssexual activitysexual desire Disclosure statementThe authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.Ethics approvalApproval was obtained from the ethics committee of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. All human participants read and approved the informed consent before completing the questionnaire.Data availability statementThe publicly available dataset for peer review can be found here: Open Science Framework. https://osf.io/ru2wk/?view_only=dc09a034b437452d92d3ba332d283d84Additional informationNotes on contributorsEliška Burian LexováEliška Burian Lexová: PhD student at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Czech Republic. At the same time, psychologist in the Psychiatric hospital Bohnice, Prague, Czech Republic. Research interest is pornography and partner sexual activity.Petr WeissPetr Weiss: Professor of clinical psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Czech Republic and clinical psychologist at the Institute of Sexology, General University Hospital in Prague, Czech Republic. Research interests are sexual behavior, paraphilias, pornography, and sexology in general.