Pornography and Relationship Quality: Establishing the Dominant Pattern by Examining Pornography Use and 31 Measures of Relationship Quality in 30 National Surveys. Samuel L. Perry. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Jan 2 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01616-7
Abstract: Numerous studies have examined the association between pornography use and various measures of relationship quality. Yet scholars have also pointed out the limitations of many such studies, including inconsistent findings for men and women, non-representative samples, and negatively biased measures that could result in misleading findings. The purpose of this study was to establish a dominant pattern in the association between pornography use and relationship quality in a way that mitigated these issues. Data were taken from 30 nationally representative surveys, which together included 31 measures of relationship quality: 1973–2018 General Social Surveys (1 repeated measure); 2006 Portraits of American Life Study (13 measures); 2012 New Family Structures Study (12 measures); and 2014 Relationships in America Survey (5 measures). This allowed for 57 independent tests examining the association between pornography use and relationship outcomes for married Americans and 29 independent tests for unmarried Americans. Along with bivariate associations, full regression models were estimated with sociodemographic controls and interaction terms for gender. For married and unmarried Americans alike, pornography use was either unassociated or negatively associated with nearly all relationship outcomes. Significant associations were mostly small in magnitude. Conversely, except for one unclear exception, pornography use was never positively associated with relationship quality. Associations were only occasionally moderated by gender, but in inconsistent directions. While this study makes no claims about causality, findings clearly affirmed that, in instances where viewing pornography is associated with relationship quality at all, it is nearly always a signal of poorer relationship quality, for men and women.
Discussion
Despite the numerous studies conducted on the association
between pornography use and committed romantic relationships,
there remains some disagreement among scholars as to
whether there are clear trends. Part of the challenge has been
that data were often taken from small, non-representative populations,
using measures or designs that could be negatively
biased, and findings could often be curiously different for men
and women. Using 31 measures of relationship quality across
30 nationally representative surveys, the current study sought
to mitigate these issues in order to establish a dominant trend in
the association between pornography use and relationship quality
for representative samples of unmarried and married men
and women. That dominant trend seems to be that pornography
use in the general population—either at all or in higher frequencies—
is either unassociated with romantic relationship quality
or is weakly associated with poorer relationship quality. This
was true for married and unmarried Americans alike as well as
for men and women. Conversely, more frequent pornography
use was almost never associated with better relationship quality,
at least on average. Moreover, consistent with Wright et al.
(2017), these patterns held across different measures of pornography
use, including dichotomous measures (GSS), those
asking about general frequency (PALS, NFSS), and those asking
about most recent use (RIA).
To be sure, this study has made no claim as to the direction
of the association between pornography use and relationship
quality nor could it do so with these data. While other studies
using the panel component of PALS (e.g., Perry, 2017a,
2018; Perry & Davis, 2017) or the GSS (e.g., Perry & Schleifer,
2018; Wright et al., 2014) have sought to establish a directional
“effect” between pornography use and relationship outcomes,
the goals of this study were to establish a dominant pattern in
associations across a maximum number of relationship outcomes
and surveys. Since this study cannot determine directionality,
it could very well be that any observed association
between pornography viewing and poorer relationship quality
can be explained by self-selection (i.e., Americans in struggling
relationships seek out pornography as an escape or alternative),
just as it could be that frequent pornography use is contributing
to the relationship struggles. As suggested by Muusses et al.
(2015), it could also be both.
Beyond the fact that all these data were cross-sectional, they
are also only of individual Americans rather than dyads. Thus,
the study was unable to address one of the primary critiques of
the previous research on pornography use and relationship quality
(see Campbell & Kohut, 2017; Newstrom & Harris, 2016),
in that it cannot examine the relationship quality of someone
whose partner is viewing pornography nor is it able to examine
relationship outcomes of couples who view pornography
together. Some of the confusion about findings linking pornography
use with relationship outcomes stems from these two
limitations. In their recent narrative review and meta-analysis
of literature examining heterosexual men’s pornography use
and their female partner’s response, Wright and Tokunaga
(2018) demonstrated the general trend that women who perceived
their male partner as pornography consumers tended
to be less relationally or sexually satisfied, and tended to be
more insecure about their own bodies. Moreover, because such
Americans who use pornography together with their partner
(and thus might experience positive returns to their pornography
use) would also be included in these samples, the findings
presented here suggest that these are a minority among pornography
users. That is, whether or not coupled pornography
use might be beneficial for some couples, the stronger pattern
among a larger percentage of Americans is that pornography
consumption happens more frequently in relationships that are
not doing well comparatively.
Interestingly, the tests for interactions also showed that in
the vast majority of instances, gender did not significantly moderate
the association between pornography use and relationship
outcomes. And the relatively few situations where these
interactions were significant painted rather inconsistent results.
Sometimes, it seemed that the quality of men’s romantic relationships
was more closely tied to pornography use, while other
times it seemed that the association was stronger for women.
At the very least, the consistent lack of a moderating effect for
gender would challenge assumptions that women’s pornography
use tends to be associated with better relationship quality,
while men’s is associated with poorer relationship quality
due to different use patterns. Rather, for both men and women,
married and unmarried, pornography use tended to be either
unassociated with relationship quality or associated with poorer
relationship quality.
There also seemed to be little discernable difference between
those in marriage relationships verses unmarried romantic relationship
in terms of the association between pornography use
and relationship outcomes. Despite research suggesting that
pornography use might be viewed as more of a violation in marriage
relationships perhaps due to more expansive and stringent
expectations for sexual “fidelity” (Bridges et al., 2003; Olmstead
et al., 2013; Schneider, 2000), there were relatively few
instances where associations in the 2006 PALS, 2012 NFSS,
or 2014 RIA survey were statistically significant for married
Americans and were not significant for unmarried Americans,
despite some potentially large differences in sample size.
Despite the broader trend that pornography use tended to
be an indicator of poorer relationship quality in the majority
of significant associations, the exception (in the 2012 NFSS;
Table 4) must be considered as an important qualifier. On the
face of it, the finding that married persons who viewed pornography
more often were less likely to talk to their spouse about
separating would contradict the idea that pornography use is
associated with poorer relationship outcomes. Unfortunately,
the interpretation of this association is not so clear. It could also
be that persons who view pornography more often are simply
less likely to talk to their spouse at all, not just about separating.
Moreover, given that 9 of the other 12 outcomes for married
participants in the NFSS all point to the conclusion that viewing
pornography more often is linked with poorer marital quality,
this finding is anomalous and perhaps an outlier. However, to
the extent that this association is capturing a real relationship,
it requires that scholars provide appropriate qualification when
drawing conclusions about pornography’s association with
relationship outcomes. To the extent that the two are related
at all (and in many instances they were not), pornography use
tends to be an indicator of poorer relationship quality, though
not always.
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