Pornography & aggression, & sexual & relationship dissatisfaction: Studies reveal methodological bias in favor of findings for effects that disappear when better methodologies are employed

Fisher, W. (2019). 004 How Science Studies Pornography Impact and What Science Can, and Cannot, Tell Us. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 16(6), S2. doi:10.1016/j.jsxm.2019.03.461

Introduction:Sexuality clinicians have been concerned about the impact of pornography on sexual behavior at least since Dr. Ivan Bloch’s declaration, in 1902, that “There is no sexual aberration, no perverse act, however frightful,that is not photographically represented today.” Historically, the US, Britain,and Canada have funded national commissions to investigate the presumed negative effects of pornography, and in very recent years, the US Republican party platform and the US states of Florida and Utah have declared that pornography represents a public health crisis. More recently still, the Canadian parliament launched an inquiry into the health effects of online pornography.

Objective:There is a widely accepted social, scientific, and clinical narrative to the effect that pornography is a pervasive cause of sexual aggression against women, relationship devaluation and deterioration, and cause of sexual dysfunction. This presentation provides an overview of four decades of scientific research on the effects of pornography with a view towards soberly assessing what science can, and cannot, tell us about the effects of pornography on sexual aggression, relationship breakdown, and sexual dysfunction.

Methods:The methodological approaches and findings of classic studies inthe areas of pornography and sexual aggression, pornography and sexual and relationship satisfaction, and pornography-induced sexual dysfunction are reviewed and critiqued.

Results:Careful methodological review of laboratory experimentation concerning pornography and aggression reveals staggering methodological bias in favor of findings for effects of pornography on sexual aggression that disappear when appropriate methodologies are employed. Similarly, findings for effects of pornography on sexual and relationship dissatisfaction appear tohave been exaggerated in close-ended research that focuses solely on assessing harms and are not replicated in open-ended participant-informed research approaches. Findings for pornography-induced sexual dysfunction are ambiguous and may be interpreted to mean that individuals are receiving access to idiosyncratically arousing content in pornography that is not otherwise available to them in setting in which their sexual function is suboptimal.

Conclusions:This overview of research calls attention to the need for scientific skepticism in evaluating widely shared but scientifically questionable conclusions concerning the supposed negative effects of pornography. Attention to methodological bias, failures to replicate, and recognition of conflicting findings suggest that the science does not support the conclusions with any degree of consistency. At the same time, we do see patients clinically who have significant problems with their or their partner’s use of pornography, and careful, clinically relevant science on the actual role of pornography in these presentations and effective treatment approaches that focus appropriately on causal factors remains to be accomplished.