Porn Science Deniers Alliance (AKA: “RealYourBrainOnPorn.com” and “PornographyResearch.com”)

Berger, J. H., Kehoe, J. E., Doan, A. P., Crain, D. S., Klam, W. P., Marshall, M. T., & Christman, M. S. (2019). Survey of Sexual Function and Pornography. Military Medicine. Link to web

Analysis: A study by many of the same US Navy doctors who were on this highly cited review of the literature: Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports (2016). Why has the Alliance purposely omitted this earlier paper (after-all, it is a review of the literature)? Oh yeah, because it completely counters RealYBOP’s talking points and unsupported assertions.

In this study, researchers looked for a link between ED and indices of pornography addiction using a “craving” questionnaire. While no such link turned up (perhaps because users don’t accurately assess their degree of “craving” until they attempt to quit using), some other interesting correlations appeared in their results, which the Alliance omitted (as we’ve come to expect). A few excerpts:

McKee, A. (2005). The objectification of women in mainstream pornographic videos in Australia. Journal of Sex Research, 42(4), 277-290. Link to web

This clearly contrasts the Winters et al.’s conclusion about the substantial overlap between high sexual desire and dysregulated sexuality [5]. One possible explanation for the discrepant findings are different measures used to indicate hypersexuality in the two studies. For example, in the present study, the negative consequences related to sexuality were assessed using a more exhaustive list. Furthermore, Winters et al. used the Sexual Compulsivity Scale [36], which has been suggested to poorly differentiate between sexual compulsiveness and openness to sexual experiences and experimentation [4,37].

Creswell, J. D., Pacilio, L. E., Denson, T. F., & Satyshur, M. (2013). The effect of a primary sexual reward manipulation on cortisol responses to psychosocial stress in men. Psychosomatic Medicine, 75(4), 397-403. Link to web

Analysis: More citation inflation. This paper has nothing to do with “regulation,” or porn’s effects on the viewer. Yet, it conatined interesting findings and was accurately described by the Alliance. Put simply, viewing porn reduced cortisol (reduced stress response) and improved performance on the math test. While not relevant to this (or any other) Alliance section’s theme, its inclusion needs to be placed in context.

First, the authors state that watching porn is a “primary reward”. Nicole Prause chronically states that viewing porn is not a primary reward, and that masturbating to porn is neurologically identical to watching puppies play. Not surprisingly, this study punches holes in Prause’s assertions.

Second, numerous other studies where subjects masturbated while viewing porn reported quite different hormonal results than this cherry-picked paper. Just a few examples: study1, study2, study3, study4, study5.

Third, while porn viewing temporarily reduced stress, which may have lead to better scores on a math test, many other studies report negative cognitive and academic outcomes related to porn use (both immediate and more importantly, long term):

These findings provide insight into a strategy for reducing men’s involvement in cyber delinquency; that is, through less exposure to sexual stimuli and promotion of delayed gratification. The current results suggest that the high availability of sexual stimuli in cyberspace may be more closely associated with men’s cyber-delinquent behavior than previously thought.

2) Trading Later Rewards for Current Pleasure: Pornography Consumption and Delay Discounting (2015) – The more pornography that participants consumed, the less able they were to delay gratification. This unique study also had porn users reduce porn use for 3 weeks. The study found that continued porn use was causally related to greater inability to delay gratification (note that the ability to delay gratification is a function of the prefrontal cortex). Excerpt from the first study (median subject age 20) correlated subjects’ pornography use with their scores on a delayed gratification task:

The more pornography that participants consumed, the more they saw the future rewards as worth less than the immediate rewards, even though the future rewards were objectively worth more……. These results indicate that continued exposure to the immediate gratification of pornography is related to higher delay discounting over time.

3) Viewing sexual images is associated with reduced physiological arousal response to gambling loss (2018) – Excerpt:

People should be aware that sexual arousal could reduce their attention and physiological sensitivity to monetary losses. In other words, people should pay extra attention to the losses and gains of financial decisions when they are sexually aroused.

4) Is students’ computer use at home related to their mathematical performance at school? (2008) – Excerpt:

Also, students’ cognitive abilities were positively linked to their achievement in mathematics. Finally, watching television had a negative relationship with students’ performance. Particularly, watching horror, action, or pornographic films was associated with lower test scores.

5) Pornographic picture processing interferes with working memory performance (2013) – German scientists have discovered that Internet erotica can diminish working memory. In this porn-imagery experiment, 28 healthy individuals performed working-memory tasks using 4 different sets of pictures, one of which was pornographic. Participants also rated the pornographic pictures with respect to sexual arousal and masturbation urges prior to, and after, pornographic picture presentation. Results showed that working memory was worst during the porn viewing and that greater arousal augmented the drop. An excerpt:

Results contribute to the view that indicators of sexual arousal due to pornographic picture processing interfere with working memory performance. Findings are discussed with respect to Internet sex addiction because working memory interference by addiction-related cues is well known from substance dependencies.

6) Sexual Picture Processing Interferes with Decision-Making Under Ambiguity (2013)– Study found that viewing pornographic imagery interfered with decision making during a standardized cognitive test. This suggests porn use might affect executive functioning, which is a set of mental skills that help with meeting goals. Excerpts:

Decision-making performance was worse when sexual pictures were associated with disadvantageous card decks compared to performance when the sexual pictures were linked to the advantageous decks. Subjective sexual arousal moderated the relationship between task condition and decision-making performance.This study emphasized that sexual arousal interfered with decision-making, which may explain why some individuals experience negative consequences in the context of cybersex use.

7) Arousal, working memory capacity, and sexual decision-making in men (2014)– Excerpts:

This study investigated whether working memory capacity (WMC) moderated the relationship between physiological arousal and sexual decision making. A total of 59 men viewed 20 consensual and 20 non-consensual images of heterosexual interaction while their physiological arousal levels were recorded using skin conductance response. Participants also completed an assessment of WMC and a date-rape analogue task for which they had to identify the point at which an average Australian male would cease all sexual advances in response to verbal and/or physical resistance from a female partner.

Participants who were more physiologically aroused by and spent more time viewing the non-consensual sexual imagery nominated significantly later stopping points on the date-rape analogue task. Consistent with our predictions, the relationship between physiological arousal and nominated stopping point was strongest for participants with lower levels of WMC. For participants with high WMC, physiological arousal was unrelated to nominated stopping point. Thus, executive functioning ability (and WMC in particular) appears to play an important role in moderating men’s decision making with regard to sexually aggressive behavior.

8) Early Adolescent Boys’ exposure to Internet pornography: Relationships to pubertal timing, sensation seeking, and academic performance (2015)– This rare longitudinal study (over a six-month period) suggests that porn use decreases academic performance. Excerpt:

Moreover, an increased use of Internet pornography decreased boys’ academic performance six months later.

9) Getting stuck with pornography? Overuse or neglect of cybersex cues in a multitasking situation is related to symptoms of cybersex addiction (2015) – Subjects with a higher tendency towards porn addiction performed more poorly of executive functioning tasks (which are under the auspices of the prefrontal cortex). A few excerpts:

We investigated whether a tendency towards cybersex addiction is associated with problems in exerting cognitive control over a multitasking situation that involves pornographic pictures. We used a multitasking paradigm in which the participants had the explicit goal to work to equal amounts on neutral and pornographic material. We found that participants who reported tendencies towards cybersex addiction deviated stronger from this goal.

10) Effects of Pornography on Senior High School Students, Ghana (2016) – Excerpt:

The study revealed that majority of the students admitted to watching pornography before. Furthermore, it was observed that majority of them agreed that pornography affects students’ academic performance negatively…

11) Frequency and Duration of Use, Craving and Negative Emotions in Problematic Online Sexual Activities (2019)– Excerpts:

In a sample of over 1,000 Chinese college students, we tested a model that pornography craving would operate through quantity and frequency measures of usage of OSAs to lead to problematic use of OSAs, and this then would lead to negative academic emotions. Our model was largely supported.

Results indicated that higher pornography craving, greater quantity and frequency of use of OSAs, and more negative academic emotions were associated with problematic OSAs. The results resonate with those of previous studies reporting a high level of pornography craving in association with other negative health measures.

12) Perception of Pornography Impacts on Social Studies’ Students in University of Jos, Nigeria (2019) – Excerpt:

The study was backed with four research questions sand two hypotheses, the research design adopted for the study was survey research and the population was the entire social studies students in university of Jos having the total of 244 population size and from which 180 were randomly selected as sample of the study. The study revealed that, most students who are involved in pornographic activities do not do well in academics and most times even procrastinate on their works.

Why did the Deniers omit the above studies?

Hallberg, J., Kaldo, V., Arver, S., Dhejne, C., Jokinen, J., & Öberg, K. G. (2019). A Randomized Controlled Study of Group-Administered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Hypersexual Disorder in Men. The journal of sexual medicine. Link to web

Analysis: Why is this study in the “regulation” category? It certainly doesn’t support Prause’s assertions surrounding “regulation”. To the contrary, the subjects were treatment-seeking sex addicts:

The target population was adult women and men suffering from self-identified problematic “hypersexual behavior,” “out-of-control sexual behavior,” or “sex addiction” who were interested in participating in a clinical study of a group treatment intervention.

The study counters Prause’s assertions around “regulation,” as the study’s subjects experienced difficulty controlling their sexual behaviors:

The hypersexuality Disorder criteria encompass an inability to control excessive sexual thoughts, fantasies, and behaviors in relation to dysphoric mood states and stress and have been validated in a clinical population.

The study’s outcome? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) resulted in a decrease of hypersexual behavior (inability to control unwanted sexual behaviors):

Beauregard, M., Lévesque, J., & Bourgouin, P. (2001). Neural correlates of conscious self-regulation of emotion. The Journal of neuroscience. Link to web

Analysis: More citation inflation. Why is this study in the “regulation” category (or any other category)? It doesn’t identify any subject as being a porn addict or CSB subject. It doesn’t correlate any measure of porn addiction or porn use with anything, including “regulation”. It does, however, counter Prause’s often-repeated assertion that masturbating to porn is neurologically identical to watching puppies play.

Regnerus, M., Gordon, D., & Price, J. (2016). Documenting pornography use in America: A comparative analysis of methodological approaches. The Journal of Sex Research, 53(7), 873-881. Link to web

Analysis: RealYBOP accurately describes one of the paper’s data points: “survey data from 2014 reveal that 46% of men and 16% of women between the ages of 18 and 39 intentionally viewed pornography in a given week. These numbers are notably higher than most previous population estimates employing different types of questions.” The irony: while this finding supports the long-standing YBOP claim that porn use has jumped due to the internet, it debunks claims by Deniers David Ley, Nicole Prause, and Peter Finn, who asserted in Ley et al., 2014 that porn use rates have not increased since the early 1970’s, (This one must have slipped by the Alliance’s cherry-picking checkers.)

Love and Intimacy Section

Context/Reality: First, the Alliance omitted all but two of the over 75 studies linking porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction. Second, the Alliance misled the reader on those 2 studies (found in this category): as both link porn use to poorer relationship satisfaction or more infidelity: Maddox, et al., 2011 and Miller et al., 2019. Third, 4 of the studies were authored by Alliance members and none of them are what they appear to be. Fourth, and most importantly, the Alliance failed to mention that every study involving males has reported more porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction (about 65 studies). Finally, the Alliance once again provides no reviews of the literature or meta-analyses to support their social media claim that “no negative effects is the most commonly reported impact of porn use in relationships.”

As far as we know, two meta-analyses and one review have been published, which contradict the Deniers’ claims. The Alliance conveniently omitted all 3:

1) Pornography Consumption and Satisfaction: A Meta-Analysis (2017) – This meta-analysis of various other studies assessing sexual and relationship satisfaction reported that porn use was consistently related to lower sexual and relationship satisfaction (interpersonal satisfaction). An excerpt:

However, pornography consumption was associated with lower interpersonal satisfaction outcomes in cross-sectional surveys, longitudinal surveys, and experiments. Associations between pornography consumption and reduced interpersonal satisfaction outcomes were not moderated by their year of release or their publication status. But analyses by sex indicted significant results for men only.

While a few studies report little effect of women’s porn use on women’s sexual and relationship satisfaction, most do report negative effects. When evaluating the research, it’s important to know that a relatively small percentage of all coupled females regularly consumes internet porn. Large, nationally representative data are scarce, but the General Social Survey reported that only 2.6% of all US women had visited a “pornographic website” in the last month. The question was only asked in 2002 and 2004 (see Pornography and Marriage, 2014).

2) Women’s perceptions of their male partners’ pornography consumption and relational, sexual, self, and body satisfaction: toward a theoretical model (2017) – Excerpts:

This paper’s meta-analysis of quantitative studies conducted to date primarily supports the hypothesis that the majority of women are negatively impacted by the perception that their partner is a pornography consumer. In main analyses including all of the available studies, perceiving partners as pornography consumers was significantly associated with less relational, sexual, and body satisfaction. The association for self satisfaction was also negative. The results also suggested that women’s satisfaction will generally decrease in correspondence with the perception that their partners are consuming pornography more frequently.

Perceiving male partners as more frequent consumers of pornography was significantly associated with less relational and sexual satisfaction.

Finally, the possibility of a publication bias was also explored. Taken in totality, the results did not suggest that publication bias is a significant concern in this literature.

3) Excerpts from a 2018 review of the literature (Pornography, Pleasure, and Sexuality: Towards a Hedonic Reinforcement Model of Sexually Explicit Internet Media Use), summarizing porn’s effects on sexual satisfaction:

In contrast to many of the previously discussed domains related to internet porn use (IPU) and motivations, in which research is still burgeoning, the relationships between IPU and sexual satisfaction have been extensively studied, with dozens of publications addressing the topic. Rather than exhaustively review the list of studies examining IPU and sexual satisfaction, the findings of these studies are summarized in Table 1.

In general, as indicated in Table 1, the relationships between IPU and personal sexual satisfaction are complex, but consistent with the supposition that IP may promote more hedonic sexual motivations, particularly as use increases. Among couples, there is limited support for the idea that IPU may enhance sexual satisfaction, but only when it is incorporated into partnered sexual activities. On an individual level, there is consistent evidence that IPU is predictive of lower sexual satisfaction in men, with both cross-sectional and longitudinal works pointing to the associations of such use with diminished satisfaction for men. Regarding women, scattered evidence suggests that IPU may enhance sexual satisfaction, have no effect on satisfaction, or diminish satisfaction over time.

Despite these mixed findings, the conclusion of no significant effect of IPU on sexual satisfaction in women is the most common finding. These results have also been confirmed by a recent meta-analysis (Wright, Tokunaga, Kraus, & Klann, 2017). Reviewing 50 studies of pornography consumption and various satisfaction outcomes (e.g., life satisfaction, personal satisfaction, relational satisfaction, sexual satisfaction), this meta-analysis found that pornography consumption (not internet-specific) was consistently related to and predictive of lower interpersonal satisfaction variables, including sexual satisfaction, but for men only. No significant findings were found for women. Collectively, such mixed results preclude definitive conclusions about the role of IP in influencing satisfaction for women.

One of the most important findings of recent works examining IPU and sexual satisfaction is that there appears to be a curvilinear relationship between use and satisfaction, so that satisfaction decreases more sharply as IPU becomes more common (e.g., Wright, Steffen, & Sun, 2017; Wright, Brigdes, Sun, Ezzell, & Johnson, 2017). The details of these studies are reflected in Table 1. Given clear evidence across multiple international samples, it seems reasonable to accept the conclusion that as IPU increases to more than once per month, sexual satisfaction decreases. Furthermore, although these studies (Wright, Steffen, et al., 2017; Wright, Bridges et al., 2017) were cross-sectional, given the number of longitudinal studies (e.g., Peter & Valkenburg, 2009) linking IPU to lower sexual satisfaction, it is reasonable to infer that these associations are causal in nature. As IPU increases, interpersonal sexual satisfaction appears to decrease, which is consistent with the present model’s contention that IPU is associated with more hedonic and self-focused sexual motivation.

The above review claims the effects of porn use on women’s sexual and relationship satisfaction is mixed. In reality, there are far more studies reporting negative outcomes: list of over 30 studies, with excerpts.

On to the truth about the Alliance’s cherry-picked papers:

Alliance Studies:

Balzarini, R. N., Dobson, K., Chin, K., & Campbell, L. (2017). Does exposure to erotica reduce attraction and love for romantic partners in men? Independent replications of Kenrick, Gutierres, and Goldberg (1989) study 2. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 70, 191-197. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member William Fisher’s underlings. This 2017 study attempted to replicate a 1989 study that exposed men and women in committed relationships to erotic images of the opposite sex. The 1989 study found that men who were exposed to the nude Playboy centerfolds rated their partners as less attractive and reported less love for their partner. As the 2017 failed to replicate the 1989 findings, we are told by Fisher’s underlings that the 1989 study got it wrong, and that porn use cannot diminish love or desire. Whoa! Not so fast.

The replication “failed” because our cultural environment has become “pornified” in the interim. The 2017 researchers didn’t recruit 1989 college students who grew up watching MTV after school. Instead their subjects grew up surfing PornHub for gang bang and orgy video clips.

In 1989 how many college students had seen an X-rated video? Not too many. How many 1989 college students spent every masturbation session, from puberty on, masturbating to multiple hard-core clips in one session? None. The reason for the 2017 results is evident: brief exposure to a still image of a Playboy centerfold is a big yawn compared to what college men in 2017 have been watching for years. Even the authors admitted the generational differences with their first caveat:

1) First, it is important to point out that the original study was published in 1989. At the time, exposure to sexual content may not have been as available, whereas today, exposure to nude images is relatively more pervasive, and thus being exposed to a nude centerfold may not be enough to elicit the contrast effect originally reported. Therefore, the results for the current replication studies may differ from the original study due to differences in exposure, access, and even acceptance of erotica then versus now.

In a rare instance of unbiased prose even Denier David Ley felt compelled to point out the obvious:

It may be that the culture, men, and sexuality have substantially changed since 1989. Few adult men these days haven’t seen pornography or nude women—nudity and graphic sexuality are common in popular media, from Game of Thrones to perfume advertisements, and in many states, women are permitted to go topless. So it’s possible that men in the more recent study have learned to integrate the nudity and sexuality they see in porn and everyday media in a manner which doesn’t affect their attraction or love for their partners. Perhaps the men in the 1989 study had been less exposed to sexuality, nudity, and pornography.

Keep in mind that this experiment doesn’t mean internet porn use hasn’t affected men’s attraction for their lovers. It just means that looking at “centerfolds” has no immediate impact these days. Many men report radical increases in attraction to partners after giving up internet porn. And, of course, there is also the longitudinal evidence cited above demonstrating the deleterious effects of porn viewing on relationships.

Experiments where college-age guys view a few Playboy centerfolds (as in the study linked to by the authors) can tell you nothing about the effects of your mate masturbating to hard-core videos clips day after day for years on end. The only relationship studies that can “demonstrate if porn viewing really causes negative relationship effects” are longitudinal studies that control for variables or studies where subjects abstain from porn. To date seven longitudinal relationship studies have been published that reveal the real-life consequences of ongoing porn use. All reported that porn use relates to poorer relationship/sexual outcomes:

1. Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Sexual Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Study (2009).
2. A Love That Doesn’t Last: Pornography Consumption and Weakened Commitment to One’s Romantic Partner (2012).
3. Internet pornography and relationship quality: A longitudinal study of within and between partner effects of adjustment, sexual satisfaction and sexually explicit internet material among newly-weds (2015).
4. Till Porn Do Us Part? Longitudinal Effects of Pornography Use on Divorce, (2016).
5. Does Viewing Pornography Reduce Marital Quality Over Time? Evidence from Longitudinal Data (2016).
6. Are Pornography Users More Likely to Experience A Romantic Breakup? Evidence from Longitudinal Data (2017).
7. Pornography Use and Marital Separation: Evidence from Two-Wave Panel Data (2017).

Note – the Deniers provide no longitudinal studies on adult porn use and sexual or relationship satisfaction.

Kohut, T., Balzarini, R. N., Fisher, W. A., & Campbell, L. (2018). Pornography’s associations with open sexual communication and relationship closeness vary as a function of dyadic patterns of pornography use within heterosexual relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 35(4), 655-676. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance members Taylor Kohut & William Fisher, and the rest of the gang at The University of Western Ontario. The findings: couples who watch porn together experienced greater openness of sexual communication than couples where each uses porn alone, or one partner uses porn alone and the other does not. On the surface it could be read as though using porn together might be just fine. But as the Alliance is quick to parrot, “correlation doesn’t equal causation.”

The vast majority of individuals watch porn alone. Couples who regularly watch porn together represent a tiny fraction of the individuals using porn. Data from a large nationally representative survey (GSS) reported that only 2.6% of all US women had visited a “pornographic website” in the last month (question was only asked in 2002 and 2004). What is the percentage of committed couples who regularly share pornography use? Once again, we have headlines and conclusions arising from a (likely) small percentage of the general population (very clever).

Maas, M. K., Vasilenko, S. A., & Willoughby, B. J. (2018).A dyadic approach to pornography use and relationship satisfaction among heterosexual couples: The role of pornography acceptance and anxious attachment. The Journal of Sex Research, 55(6), 772-782. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance summary was accurate, as far as it goes. In reality, the basic correlations revealed that more porn use was related to less relationship satisfaction for both men and women (more so for men, who are the most likely to regularly use porn):

Kohut, T., Fisher, W. A., & Campbell, L. (2017).Perceived effects of pornography on the couple relationship: Initial findings of open-ended, participant-informed,“bottom-up” research. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(2), 585-602. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance members Taylor Kohut & William Fisher. This qualitative study, containing no correlations, is yet another example of Kohut’s magical ability to design studies that garner desired headlines. Is the intention behind this study to (attempt to) counter the over 75 studies that show porn use has negative effects on relationships? The two primary methodological tactics (flaws) of this study are:

1) Study did not contain a representative sample. Whereas most studies show that a tiny minority of females in long-term relationships use porn, in this study 95% of the women used porn on their own. And 83% of the women had used porn since the beginning of the relationship (in some cases for years). Those rates are higher than in college-aged men! In other words, the researchers appear to have skewed their sample to produce the results they were seeking. The reality? Data from the largest nationally representative US survey (General Social Survey) reported that only 2.6% of married women had visited a “pornographic website” in the last month. Data from 2000 – 2004 (for more see Pornography and Marriage, 2014).

2) Study did not correlate porn use with any variable assessing sexual or relationship satisfaction. Instead, the study employed “open ended” questions where the subject could ramble on about porn (it was qualitative rather than quantitative). Then, the researchers read the ramblings and decided, after the fact, what answers were “important,” and how to present (spin?) them in their paper. See “Porn Research: Fact or Fiction?” a video presentation that exposes the truth behind 5 studies propagandists cite to support their claims that porn addiction doesn’t exist or that porn use is largely beneficial (one is this Kohut study).

Despite these fatal flaws and despite the negative effects reported by some of their sample, the researchers claimed porn’s impact was overwhelmingly positive. In reality, excerpts from Kohut’s study reveal numerous couples reporting significant negative outcomes related to porn use.

It appears to us that William Fisher’s lab publishes questionable or carefully designed studies in an effort to confuse the public and journalists into believing there is equivalent evidence countering the preponderance of studies linking porn use to poorer sexual and relationship satisfaction. The word for this kind of intentional misinformation is “agnotology”: the deliberate production of misleading misinformation for public consumption. We suggest Linda Hatch’s PsychCentral article examining agnotology in the sexology field: “The Bogus Sex Addiction ‘Controversy’ and the Purveyors of Ignorance.“

Staley, C., & Prause, N. (2013). Erotica viewing effects on intimate relationships and self/partner evaluations. Archives of sexual behavior, 42(4), 615-624. Link to web.

Analysis: By Alliance member Nicole Prause. Viewing porn, becoming horny, and then wanting to get off, is hardly a remarkable finding. This “laboratory finding” by a defunct laboratory tells us nothing about the long-term effects of porn use on relationships (again, over 75 studies – and every study on men – link porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction). This experiment is akin to evaluating the effects of alcohol by asking bar patrons if they feel good after their first couple of beers. Does this one-time assessment tell us anything about their mood the next morning or the long-term effects of chronic alcohol use? Not surprisingly, the Alliance omitted the rest of Prause’s findings:

“Viewing the erotic films also induced greater reports of negative affect, guilt, and anxiety“

Negative affect means negative emotions. Alliance exposed.

Maddox, A. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Markman, H. J. (2011).Viewing sexually-explicit materials alone or together: Associations with relationship quality. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40(2), 441-448. Link to web

Analysis: As with other listed studies the Alliance omits any unfavorable findings. Their summary failed to divulge that individuals who never viewed porn (SEM) reported (1) “higher relationship quality on all indices than those who viewed SEM alone,” and (2) “lower rates of infidelity.” Excerpt:

“This study investigated associations between viewing sexually-explicit material (SEM) and relationship functioning in a random sample of 1291 unmarried individuals in romantic relationships…. Individuals who never viewed SEM reported higher relationship quality on all indices than those who viewed SEM alone. Those who viewed SEM only with their partners reported more dedication and higher sexual satisfaction than those who viewed SEM alone. The only difference between those who never viewed SEM and those who viewed it only with their partners was that those who never viewed it had lower rates of infidelity.”

Since the vast majority of individuals watch porn alone, this means most couples. While the study claimed that couples who “viewed SEM only with their partners reported more dedication and higher sexual satisfaction”, this group represents a tiny fraction of individuals using porn. This is supported by data from a large nationally representative survey (GSS) which reported that only 2.6% of all US women had visited a “pornographic website” in the last month. The question was only asked in 2002 and 2004 (see Pornography and Marriage, 2014). Maddox et al., 2011 is included in YBOP’s list of over 70 studies linking porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction.

Models of Hypersexuality Section

Context/Reality: It appears that all of the Alliance Members oppose the addiction model (several Deniers are fervently anti-porn addiction, chronically misrepresenting the research, attacking addiction researchers, defaming those who say porn addiction exists, harassing men in recovery). It goes without saying that the Alliance’s handful of mostly irrelevant papers is designed to fool their lay audience and uninformed journalists. What they offer pales in comparison to the published research supporting the existence of porn addiction.

First, it’s “Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder” and it’s in WHO’s new ICD-11. The more accurate descriptor “Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder” (CSBD) has largely replaced “Hypersexuality” in the literature. Both Hypersexuality and Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder have functioned as umbrella terms for various out of control sexual behaviors also known as “sex addiction,” “porn addiction,” “cybersex addiction,” etc. In line with the new terminology, the world’s most widely used medical diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), contains a new diagnosis suitable for porn or sex addiction: “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.”

By recognizing behavioral addictions and creating the container-diagnosis for compulsive sexual behaviors, the World Health Organization is coming into alignment with the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). In August, 2011 America’s top addiction experts at ASAM released their sweeping new definition of addiction.

Second, the Alliance omitted all papers supporting the addiction model:

• The Alliance omitted all 54 neurological studies on porn users and CSB subjects, except for Prause et al., 2015 (and they don’t tell their visitors about the 10 peer-reviewed papers that say that Prause’s EEG study actually supports addiction model).
• The Alliance omitted all 29 recent neuroscience-based literature reviews & commentaries, authored by some of the top neuroscientists in the world. All 29 papers support the addiction model.
• The Alliance omitted all but two of the papers in this list of over 45 studies reporting findings consistent with escalation of porn use (tolerance), habituation to porn, and even withdrawal symptoms (all signs and symptoms associated with addiction). The two studies are by Deniers Nicole Prause and Alexander Štulhofer, whose carefully crafted write-ups mislead the reader: study 1 (Prause et al., 2015 – again); study 2 by Štulhofer.

The Alliance omitted numerous other relevant studies, reviews, and commentaries about hypersexuality. For example, a Google Scholar search for “hypersexuality” returns 23,000 citations. While many of the citations deal with drug-induced or brain injury-induced hypersexuality, quite a few are relevant to this section – and purposely omitted.

Alliance Studies:

Krüger, T. H., Schiffer, B., Eikermann, M., Haake, P., Gizewski, E., & Schedlowski, M. (2006). Serial neurochemical measurement of cerebrospinal fluid during the human sexual response cycle. European Journal of Neuroscience, 24(12), 3445-3452. Link to web

Analysis: What is this study doing here? It neither supports nor counters the addiction model. Is it cited because Nicole Prause & David Ley chronically reject dopamine’s central role in sexual arousal and motivation? For example, Prause chronically asserts that watching puppies play is neurologically identical to masturbating to porn. While scientifically ridiculous, this talking point is often repeated by followers, journalists and other Alliance members. Perhaps the Alliance should consult their ally Jim Pfaus, who has published extensively on dopamine’s role in sexual behavior. Perhaps they should do a Google scholar search for “sexual arousal +dopamine” which happens to returns 48,000 citations. The following article is a response to Prause’s unsupported talking point: Correcting Misunderstandings About Neuroscience and Problematic Sexual Behaviors (2017) by Don Hilton, MD.

Byers, L. J., Menzies, K. S., & O’Grady, W. L. (2004). The impact of computer variables on the viewing and sending of sexually explicit material on the Internet: testing Cooper’s” Triple-A Engine”. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 13(3/4), 157. Link to web

Carvalho, J., Štulhofer, A., Vieira, A. L., & Jurin, T. (2015). Hypersexuality and high sexual desire: Exploring the structure of problematic sexuality. The journal of sexual medicine, 12(6), 1356-1367. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Alexander Štulhofer. As the Deniers’ summary stated, “Our study supports the distinctiveness of hypersexuality and high sexual desire.” An excerpt:

Overall, the presented findings inform the debate about hypersexuality in several ways. First, high sexual desire and frequent sexual activity did not substantially overlap with the negative consequences related to sex. The results support the distinctiveness between high sexual desire and problematic sexual behavior.

In other words, the Štulhofer study, along with these 25 studies, debunks the often-repeated talking point that sex and porn addicts “simply have high sexual desire.”

Winters, J., Christoff, K., & Gorzalka, B. B. (2010). Dysregulated sexuality and high sexual desire: Distinct constructs?. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(5), 1029-1043. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Jason Winters. Unlike the preceding Štulhofer study, this one reported that “Men and women who reported having sought treatment scored significantly higher on measures of dysregulated sexuality and sexual desire.” As the Štulhofer study explained, the Winters study was fatally flawed as it used Sexual Compulsivity Scale (SCS)

This clearly contrasts the Winters et al.’s conclusion about the substantial overlap between high sexual desire and dysregulated sexuality [5]. One possible explanation for the discrepant findings are different measures used to indicate hypersexuality in the two studies. For example, in the present study, the negative consequences related to sexuality were assessed using a more exhaustive list. Furthermore, Winters et al. used the Sexual Compulsivity Scale [36], which has been suggested to poorly differentiate between sexual compulsiveness and openness to sexual experiences and experimentation [4,37].

Aside from the fact that 25 other studies counter the claim that sex and porn addicts “just have high sexual desire,” it’s important to address the unbelievable claim that “high sexual desire” is mutually exclusive with porn addiction. Its irrationality becomes clear if one considers hypotheticals based on other addictions. (For more see– High desire’, or ‘merely’ an addiction? A response to Steele et al., by Donald L. Hilton, Jr., MD.)

For example, does such logic mean that being morbidly obese, unable to control eating, and being extremely unhappy about it, is simply a “high desire for food?” Extrapolating further, one must conclude that alcoholics simply have a high desire for alcohol, right? In short, all addicts have “high desire” or cravings for their addictive substances and activities (also known as “sensitization”), even when their enjoyment of such activities declines due to tolerance or habituation.

Porn addiction itself produces hard to ignore cravings to that often show up as “a high degree of sexual thoughts, feelings, and needs.” For example, cues, such as turning on the computer, seeing a pop-up, or being alone, trigger intense, intrusive cravings for porn. Some describe a sensitized porn response as “entering a tunnel that has only one escape: porn.” There are now 27 studies reporting sensitization (cue-reactivity, cravings to use) in porn users/sex addicts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.

It’s simply wishful thinking to suggest “high sexual desire” eliminates the existence of addiction. Only someone with insufficient training in addiction would draw such a rash conclusion.

Oeming, M. (2018). A new diagnosis for old fears? Pathologizing porn in contemporary US discourse. Porn Studies, 5(2), 213-216. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member, and grad student, Madita Oeming. More citation inflation. It’s not a study and it provides no insight into different “models of hypersexuality,” which is the section where it’s posted. In actuality, it’s another poorly referenced agenda-driven opinion piece from Porn Studies Journal. In Madita Oeming’s recent VICE article blaming religion and the media for porn addiction she admits to knowing virtually nothing about addiction, or neuroscience, or the neurological studies on porn users, or psychological studies on porn, etc:

I am neither a neurobiologist nor a behavioral psychologist, so I have no expertise in judging whether pornography is actually physically addictive. But first, it will be discussed among those who have this expertise. Although the WHO has now decided to “obsessive-compulsive sexual behavior”, including apparently also “excessive consumption of porn” , from 2022 to include in their diagnostic catalog. And secondly, I’m dealing with something completely different. As a cultural scientist, er, poetry interpreter, I understand pornography primarily as a narrative.

A poetry student?

The Alliance’s summary is especially disingenuous, and sounds as if it’s written by MindGeek:

Beside [sic] ostensibly morally motivated religious, conservative, and anti-pornography groups, an immense financially motivated treatment machinery has developed as a driving force and profiteer of the porn addiction discourse. [Evidence?] Together they form a powerful lobby across the country that does not hesitate to use any means necessary to silence potentially contradictory research (Prause and Fong 2015, 439).

Talk about spin. Oeming refers to scattered groups of sex addiction therapists as ‘immense financially motivated treatment machinery,” while ignoring the omnipresent, financially motivated multi-billion pornography industry, which is in denial about the harms it’s causing despite a vast quantity of peer-reviewed evidence. Oeming then cites Prause, declaring that this “powerful lobby” uses any means necessary to silence potentially contradictory research.

In reality, it is Prause who has employed “any means necessary” to harass and defame anyone who suggests that porn might cause problems. It is Prause who has worked behind the scenes to try (unjustly) to have research blocked, speakers cancelled, and studies rejected for publication and/or retracted. Much of Prause’s unethical and sometimes illicit behaviors have been documented on the following pages:

• Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others
• Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others (Page 2)
• Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others (Page 3)
• Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others (Page 4)
• Victims of Nicole Prause’s Malicious Reporting and Malicious Use of Process.
• Nicole Prause & David Ley libelous claim that Gary Wilson was fired from Southern Oregon University
• Prause’s efforts to have Behavioral Sciences review paper (Park et al., 2016) retracted
• Article by University of Wisconsin student newspaper (The Racquet) posts false police report by Nicole Prause (March, 2019)
• Aggressive Trademark Infringement Waged by Porn Addiction Deniers (www.realyourbrainonporn.com)
• Nicole Prause, David Ley & @BrainOnPorn’s long history of harassing & defaming Alexander Rhodes of NoFap
• Nicole Prause & David Ley commit perjury in Don Hilton defamation lawsuit.
• Prause’s efforts to silence Wilson foiled; her restraining order denied as frivolous & she owes substantial attorney fees in a SLAPP ruling

However, several additional incidents have occurred that we are not at liberty to divulge – as Prause’s victims fear further retribution.

Important point: While Prause continues to falsely claim she is “the victim,” it is Prause who initiated all harassment towards the individuals and organizations listed on the above pages. No one on those pages has harassed Nicole Prause. Her fabricated claims about being a victim of “stalking” or of misogyny by “anti-porn activists” lack one iota of objective documentation.

All the evidence Prause provides is self-generated: a single info-graphic, a few emails from her to others describing supposed harassment, and five spurious cease and desist letters containing false allegations. You will also see evidence of a number of malicious formal complaints Prause has filed with various regulatory agencies – which have been summarily dismissed or investigated and dismissed. She seems to file these bogus complaints so she can then go on to claim her targets are all “under investigation.”

Prause provides no objective examples of being the target of cyber-stalking whether by tweet, Facebook, or links to pages on YBOP. On the other hand, Prause’s Twitter feed alone once contained hundreds and hundreds of libelous and inaccurate tweets targeting Wilson and many others (Prause has since deleted over 3,000 tweets). Put simply, Prause has created a mythology with zero verifiable evidence, while being closely in sync with the pornography industry.

Prause, N., Steele, V. R., Staley, C., Sabatinelli, D., & Hajcak, G. (2016). Prause et al.(2015) the latest falsification of addiction predictions. Biological psychology, 120, 159-161. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Nicole Prause. More citation inflation as it’s not a study, Instead, this short commentary pretends to be a defense of Prause’s highly criticized 2015 EEG study (discussed elsewhere). It’s not and fails to legitimately address anything in these 9 peer-reviewed papers: Peer-reviewed critiques of Prause et al., 2015 As explained above, Prause et al., 2015, isn’t what it appears to be. While Prause boldly asserted that her lone, deeply flawed EEG study had debunked porn addiction, eight peer-reviewed papers disagree. All 9 papers do agree that Prause et al., 2015 actually found desensitization or habituation in the more frequent porn users (a phenomenon consistent with addiction).

Prause cited many of the same studies in her letter that she has cut and pasted on to this “research” page which is critiqued here. All of Prause’s claims and misuse of cherry-picked papers (while ignoring hundreds countering her claims), were thouroughly debunked here: Critique of: Letter to the editor “Prause et al. (2015) the latest falsification of addiction predictions“ (2016), by Nicole Prause, Vaughn R. Steele, Cameron Staley, Dean Sabatinelli, Greg Hajcake.

Prause, N., Janssen, E., Georgiadis, J., Finn, P., & Pfaus, J. (2017). Data do not support sex as addictive. The Lancet Psychiatry, 4(12), 899. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance members Nicole Prause, Peter Finn, Erick Jansen & Janniko Georgiadis. Not a study. This Prause-penned letter in Lancet, signed by four allies (Erick Janssen, Janniko Georgiadis, Peter Finn and James Pfaus), was a reply to another short letter: Is excessive sexual behaviour an addictive disorder? (Potenza et. al., 2017), authored by addiction experts Marc Potenza, Mateusz Gola, Valerie Voon, Ariel Kor and Shane Kraus.

Here Prause touts yet another of her cursory letters to the editor as “debunking” the existence of sex addiction and porn addiction (known as “Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder” in the upcoming ICD-11). Yet it does not. This 240-word opinion piece (Prause et al., 2017) cites zero studies to support its claims, providing only the following single, easily refuted sentence as its sole “evidence” countering the addiction model:

However, experimental studies do not support key elements of addiction such as escalation of use, difficulty regulating urges, negative effects, reward deficiency syndrome, withdrawal syndrome with cessation, tolerance, or enhanced late positive potentials.

This extensive critique, Analysis of “Data do not support sex as addictive” (Prause et al., 2017), debunks the scant claims put forth in the Prause letter. It also sets forth extensive empirical support for the key elements of addiction, which Prause et al. falsely states are missing from current research. As you will see, escalation of use, difficulty regulating urges, negative effects, reward deficiency syndrome, withdrawal syndrome, and tolerance/habituation have all been identified in numerous studies on porn users/CSB subjects. Moreover, the accepted neurological elements of addiction, such as sensitization, (cue-reactivity/cravings), greater wanting-less liking, dysfunctional prefrontal cortex, and dysfunctional stress response have all been reported in several of these 42 neuroscience-based studies.

Incidentally, three of Prause’s four co-signers in Lancet also lent their names to her earlier 2016 Salt Lake Tribune Op-Ed attacking Fight The New Drug and its position on internet porn. That Salt Lake Tribune 600-word Op-Ed was brimming with unsupported assertions calculated to mislead the lay public. And its authors, Prause and friends, failed to support a single claim they made. The Op-Ed cited only 4 papers – none of which had anything to do with porn addiction, porn’s effects on relationships, or porn-induced sexual problems. Several experts responded with this dismantling of the Prause Op-Ed: Op-Ed: Who exactly is misrepresenting the science on pornography? (2016). Unlike the “neuroscientists” of the initial Op-Ed, the response authors cited several hundred studies and multiple reviews of the literature that supported their statements.

Turning to Prause’s Lancet effort, we should mention that not one of the five Prause et al., 2017 signers has ever published a study involving verified “porn or sex addicts.” Moreover, some who signed Prause’s Lancet letter have histories of feverishly denying and attacking the concept of porn and sex addiction (thus demonstrating stark bias). In contrast, each of the five Potenza et al. 2017 co-authors (who wrote the first letter on this subject in Lancet) has published multiple studies involving subjects with compulsive sexual behavior disorder (including landmark brain studies on porn users and sex addicts).

Walton, M. T., & Bhullar, N. (2018). Compulsive sexual behavior as an impulse control disorder: awaiting field studies data. Archives of sexual behavior, 1-5. Link to web

Analysis: Not a study. It’s a commentary by two sexologists (neither are neuroscientists) who regularly co-author papers with Alliance member James Cantor. More citation inflation and cherry-picking. This 3-page commentary cites only 25 papers: eight of their own and five more by Alliance members. The commentary fails to mention any of the 43 neuroscience-based studies published on CSB subjects or porn users. Instead of citing the Walton commentary on the “Sexhavior Cycle” why didn’t the Deniers offer these more responsible commentaries, published in the same edition of that journal?

• Separating Models Obscures the Scientific Underpinnings of Sex Addiction as a Disorder (2017)
• The Proof of the Pudding Is in the Tasting: Data Are Needed to Test Models and Hypotheses Related to Compulsive Sexual Behaviors (2018)
  

Oh yeah, they don’t fit the Deniers’ agenda.

Ley, D. J. (2018). The pseudoscience behind public health crisis legislation. Porn Studies, 5(2), 208-212. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member David Ley. Not a study. Shoddy, inaccurate, pro-porn propaganda piece that reads like one of Ley’s Psychology Today blog posts. YBOP felt no need to address Ley’s stream of consciousness musings published in the highly dubious Porn Studies Journal. For a complete debunking of every Ley talking point, YBOP suggests this article – Dismantling David Ley’s response to Philip Zimbardo: “We must rely on good science in porn debate” (March, 2016), or this extensive dismantling of Ley’s most infamous propaganda piece – Critique of “The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Review of the ‘Pornography Addiction’ Model” (2014), David Ley, Nicole Prause & Peter Finn. More citation inflation.

Note: Ley et al., 2014 was published by the journal Current Sexual Health Reports, in their “Current Controversies Section.” The Editor of the Controversies Section, and thus Ley’s paper, was fellow Alliance member Charles Moser. Moser subsequently teamed up with Ley and Prause to “debunk” porn addiction at the February 2015 conference of the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health: Ley, Prause, Moser and then Current Sexual Health Reports chief editor Perelman presented a 2-hour symposium: “Porn Addiction, Sex Addiction, or just another OCD?” These Deniers have been working as a team, with an agenda, for years.

Prause, N., Steele, V. R., Staley, C., Sabatinelli, D., & Hajcak, G. (2015). Modulation of late positive potentials by sexual images in problem users and controls inconsistent with “porn addiction”. Biological psychology, 109, 192-199. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Nicole Prause. As discussed above, Prause et al., 2015, isn’t what it appears to be, and falsifies nothing. While Prause boldly asserted that her lone, deeply flawed EEG study had debunked porn addiction, 8 peer-reviewed papers disagree. All eight papers do agree that Prause et al., 2015 likely found desensitization or habituation in the more frequent porn users (a phenomenon consistent with addiction)Peer-reviewed critiques of Prause et al., 2015

The results: Compared to controls “individuals experiencing problems regulating their porn viewing” had lower brain responses to one-second exposure to photos of vanilla porn. The lead author claims these results “debunk porn addiction.” What legitimate scientist would claim that their lone anomalous study has debunked a well established field of study?

In reality, the findings of Prause et al. 2015 align perfectly with Kühn & Gallinat (2014), which found that more porn use correlated with less brain activation in response to pictures of vanilla porn. Prause et al. findings also align with Banca et al. 2015 which is #13 in this list. Moreover, another EEG study found that greater porn use in women correlated with less brain activation to porn. Lower EEG readings mean that subjects are paying less attention to the pictures. Put simply, frequent porn users were desensitized to static images of vanilla porn. They were bored (habituated or desensitized). See this extensive YBOP critique.

Prause proclaimed that her EEG readings assessed “cue-reactivity” (sensitization), rather than habituation. Even if Prause were correct, she conveniently ignores the gaping hole in her “falsification” assertion: If Prause et al. 2015 had found less cue-reactivity in frequent porn users, 24 other neurological studies have reported cue-reactivity or cravings (sensitization) in compulsive porn users: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.

Science doesn’t go with the lone anomalous study hampered by serious methodological flaws; science goes with the preponderance of evidence (unless you are agenda-driven).

Perhaps you are wondering why Prause’s first and most famous EEG study isn’t included on the Alliance’s list of studies: Sexual Desire, not Hypersexuality, is Related to Neurophysiological Responses Elicited by Sexual Images (Steele et al., 2013). After all, it was touted in the media as evidence against the existence of porn/sex addiction. Moreover, David Ley and study spokesperson Nicole Prause teamed up to write a Psychology Today blog post about Steele et al., 2013 called “Your Brain on Porn – It’s NOT Addictive“. (Once again targeting Gary Wilson and his website).

Here’s why: Steele et al. reported findings that are in direct opposition of the Prause et al., 2015 findings. Or you would think so if you compared the abstracts of the two EEG studies. In reality, Steele et al. – like Prause et al. – lends support to the existence of both porn addiction and porn use down-regulating sexual desire. How so? Steele et al. reported higher EEG readings (relative to neutral pictures) when subjects were briefly exposed to pornographic photos. Studies consistently show that an elevated P300 occurs when addicts are exposed to cues (such as images) related to their addiction. Shockingly, spokesperson Prause claimed that porn users merely had “high libido,” yet the results of the study say the exact opposite (subjects’ desire for partnered sex was dropping in relation to their porn use).

Together these two Steele et al. findings indicate greater brain activity to cues (porn images), yet less reactivity to natural rewards (sex with a person). That’s sensitization and desensitization, which are hallmarks of addiction. Seven peer-reviewed papers explain the truth: Peer-reviewed critiques of Steele et al., 2013

Aside from the many unsupported claims in the press, it’s disturbing that Prause’s 2013 EGG study passed peer-review, as it suffered from serious methodological flaws: 1) subjects were heterogeneous (males, females, non-heterosexuals); 2) subjects were not screened for mental disorders or addictions; 3) study had no control group for comparison; 4) questionnaires were not validated for porn use or porn addiction. Steele at al. is so badly flawed that only 4 of these 21 literature reviews and commentaries bother to mention it: two critiquing it as unacceptable junk science, while two cite it as correlating cue-reactivity with less desire for sex with a partner (signs of addiction).

It’s important to know that Prause et al., 2015 AND Steele et al., 2013 had the same subjects. Why the second study on this group? Because Steele et al. had no control group for comparison! So Prause et al., 2015 compared the 2013 subjects from Steele et al., 2013 to an actual control group (although this reprise of course suffered from the same methodological flaws named above). The results: Compared to controls, “individuals experiencing problems regulating their porn viewing” had lower brain responses to one-second exposure to photos of vanilla porn. The ACTUAL results of Prause’s two EEG studies:

1. Steele et al., 2013: Individuals with greater cue-reactivity to porn had less desire for sex with a partner, but not less desire to masturbate.
2. Prause et al., 2015: “Porn addicted users” had less brain activation to static images of vanilla porn. Lower EEG readings mean that the “porn addicted” subjects were paying less attention to the pictures.

Here’s a review by sexual medicine doctors from a leading Spanish lab critiquing Prause’s 2 EEG studies: Steele et al., 2013 & Prause et al., 2015: Online Porn Addiction: What We Know and What We Don’t—A Systematic Review (2019). (Note: citation 105 is Steele, citation 107 is Prause.)

Evidence of this neural activity signalizing desire is particularly prominent in the prefrontal cortex [101] and the amygdala [102,103], being evidence of sensitization. Activation in these brain regions is reminiscent of financial reward [104] and it may carry a similar impact. Moreover, there are higher EEG readings in these users, as well as the diminished desire for sex with a partner, but not for masturbation to pornography [105], something that reflects also on the difference in erection quality [8]. This can be considered a sign of desensitization.

However, Steele’s study contains several methodological flaws to consider (subject heterogeneity, a lack of screening for mental disorders or addictions, the absence of a control group, and the use of questionnaires not validated for porn use) [106]. A study by Prause [107], this time with a control group, replicated these very findings. The role of cue reactivity and craving in the development of cybersex addiction have been corroborated in heterosexual female [108] and homosexual male samples [109].

Youth Section

Context/Reality: As always, the Denier’s Alliance (RealYBOP) provides only a handful of outlier studies or fillers to delude journalists and the public that porn use is harmless for adolescents. As with the other sections, the Alliance provides no reviews of the literature or meta-analyses. Why did the Alliance omit these 14 literature reviews on pornography and “Youth” (adolescents): review#1, review2, review#3, review#4, review#5, review#6, review#7, review#8, review#9, review#10, review#11, review#12, review#13, review#14, review#15, review #16.

Why has the Alliance omitted all 280 studies in this comprehensive list of peer-reviewed papers assessing porn’s effect on adolescents? The answer is clear: the reviews, as with the vast majority of individual studies, fail to align with the Alliance’s pro-porn agenda. Here we present the reviews the Alliance omitted with relevant excerpts:

The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research (2006) – Excerpts:

Examining the systemic impact of Internet pornography, however, is relatively uncharted territory and the body of systemically-focused research is limited. A review of the research that does exist was undertaken and many negative trends were revealed. While much remains unknown about the impact of Internet pornography on marriages and families, the available data provide an informed starting point for policy makers, educators, clinicians, and researchers.

Direct Impact on Children and Adolescents The following effect are considered to have the most impact on children and adolescents who use or encounter pornography themselves:

1. In spite of the illegalities, youth have easy access to pornographic material and this can have traumatic, distorting, abusive, and/or addictive effects.

2. Youth are commonly being solicited, tricked, misled, or “mouse trapped” into viewing sexually explicit content online.

3. Research shows that exposure to pornography can make a lasting impression in young people and that this impression is most often described using emotions such as disgust, shock, embarrassment, anger, fear, and sadness.

4. The consumption of Internet pornography and/or involvement in sexualized chat can harm the social and sexual development of youth and undermine their success in future relationships.

5. Pornography consumption in youth has been associated with earlier onset of sexual intercourse, as well as increased likelihood of engaging in anal sex and sexual relations with people they are not romantically engaged with.

Mass Media Effects on Youth Sexual Behavior Assessing the Claim for Causality (2011)

Studies of the impact of the mainstream mass media on young people’s sexual behavior have been slow to accumulate despite longstanding evidence of substantial sexual content in the mass media. The sexual media effects landscape has changed substantially in recent years, however, as researchers from numerous disciplines have answered the call to address this important area of sexual socialization scholarship. The purpose of this chapter is to review the subset of accumulated studies on sexual behavior effects to determine whether this body of work justifies a causal conclusion. The standards for causal inference articulated by Cook and Campbell (1979) are employed to accomplish this objective. It is concluded that the research to date passes the threshold of substantiation for each criterion and that the mass media almost certainly exert a causal influence on United States’ youth sexual behavior.

The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents: A Review of the Research (2012) – From the conclusion:

Increased access to the Internet by adolescents has created unprecedented opportunities for sexual education, learning, and growth. Conversely, the risk of harm that is evident in the literature has led researchers to investigate adolescent exposure to online pornography in an effort to elucidate these relationships. Collectively, these studies suggest that youth who consume pornography may develop unrealistic sexual values and beliefs. Among the findings, higher levels of permissive sexual attitudes, sexual preoccupation, and earlier sexual experimentation have been correlated with more frequent consumption of pornography….

Nevertheless, consistent findings have emerged linking adolescent use of pornography that depicts violence with increased degrees of sexually aggressive behavior. The literature does indicate some correlation between adolescents’ use of pornography and self-concept. Girls report feeling physically inferior to the women they view in pornographic material, while boys fear they may not be as virile or able to perform as the men in these media. Adolescents also report that their use of pornography decreased as their self-confidence and social development increase. Additionally, research suggests that adolescents who use pornography, especially that found on the Internet, have lower degrees of social integration, increases in conduct problems, higher levels of delinquent behavior, higher incidence of depressive symptoms, and decreased emotional bonding with caregivers.

A New Generation of Sexual Addiction (2013) – While not technically a review, it was one of the first papers to distinguish young compulsive porn users from “classic” CSB subjects. The conclusion:

It is proposed that sexual addiction may be distinguished by two unique etiologies. The “contemporary” addict is suggested to be distinctive in that early and chronic exposure to graphic cybersexual content within a highly sexualized culture drives sexual compulsivity, whereas the “classic” addict is driven by trauma, abuse, disordered attachment, impulse control impairment, shame-based cognitions, and mood disorders. While both may share similar presentations (compulsive behavior, mood disorders, relational impairment), etiology and some facets of treatment will likely be distinct.

“Classic” sexual addiction, while very much debated, has received a great deal of attention in the research, in the professional community, and in the popular culture. Treatment options, while not widespread, are varied and available, even to the extent that certified sexual addiction therapist training is conducted across the United States, allowing mental health professionals to receive extensive credentialing in work with “classic” sexual addiction.

“Contemporary” sexual addiction, however, is an underexplored phenomenon, particularly with children and adolescents. Research and literature are scarce and, interestingly, often published from countries outside the United States (He, Li, Guo, & Jiang, 2010; Yen et al., 2007). Research on young women and sexual addiction is virtually nonexistent. Specialized treatment with child and adolescent therapists trained in sexual addiction is extremely uncommon. Yet significant numbers of children, adolescents, and young adults are in need of just such specialized treatment, and the professional community is delayed in responding. Research, dialogue, and education are urgently needed in order to appropriately meet the needs of those youngest among our population who are struggling with sexually compulsive behavior.

Is sexual content in new media linked to sexual risk behaviour in young people? A systematic review and meta-analysis (2016) – From abstract:

Results: Fourteen studies, all cross-sectional in design, met the inclusion criteria. Six studies (10 352 participants) examined young people’s exposure to SEWs and eight (10 429 participants) examined sexting. There was substantial variation across studies in exposure and outcome definitions. Meta-analyses found that SEW exposure was correlated with condomless sexual intercourse; sexting was correlated with ever having had sexual intercourse, recent sexual activity, alcohol and other drug use before sexual intercourse, and multiple recent sexual partners . Most studies had limited adjustment for important potential confounders.

Conclusions: Cross-sectional studies show a strong association between self-reported exposure to sexual content in new media and sexual behaviours in young people. Longitudinal studies would provide a greater opportunity to adjust for confounding, and better insight into the causal pathways underlying the observed associations.

Media and Sexualization: State of Empirical Research, 1995–2015 (2016) – From the abstract:

The goal of this review was to synthesize empirical investigations testing effects of media sexualization. The focus was on research published in peer-reviewed, English-language journals between 1995 and 2015. A total of 109 publications that contained 135 studies were reviewed. The findings provided consistent evidence that both laboratory exposure and regular, everyday exposure to this content are directly associated with a range of consequences, including higher levels of body dissatisfaction, greater self-objectification, greater support of sexist beliefs and of adversarial sexual beliefs, and greater tolerance of sexual violence toward women. Moreover, experimental exposure to this content leads both women and men to have a diminished view of women’s competence, morality, and humanity.

Adolescents and Pornography: A Review of 20 Years of Research (2016) – From the abstract:

The goal of this review was to systematize empirical research that was published in peer-reviewed English-language journals between 1995 and 2015 on the prevalence, predictors, and implications of adolescents’ use of pornography. This research showed that adolescents use pornography, but prevalence rates varied greatly. Adolescents who used pornography more frequently were male, at a more advanced pubertal stage, sensation seekers, and had weak or troubled family relations. Pornography use was associated with more permissive sexual attitudes and tended to be linked with stronger gender-stereotypical sexual beliefs. It also seemed to be related to the occurrence of sexual intercourse, greater experience with casual sex behavior, and more sexual aggression, both in terms of perpetration and victimization.

Longitudinal associations between the use of sexually explicit material and adolescents’ attitudes and behaviors: A narrative review of studies (2017) – Excerpts:

This review analyzed longitudinal studies examining the effects of sexually explicit material on adolescents’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors.

The aim of this study was to provide a narrative review of the longitudinal studies focusing on the effects of sexually explicit material use on adolescents. A number of direct associations between sexually explicit material and adolescents’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors were reported in the studies. Sexually explicit material seemed to affect several sexuality related attitudes, gender-related stereotypical beliefs, likelihood of having sexual intercourse and sexually aggressive behavior.

The reviewed studies found that the use of sexually explicit material may affect a range of adolescents’ attitudes and beliefs, such as sexual preoccupancy (Peter & Valkenburg, 2008b), sexual uncertainty (Peter & Valkenburg, 2010a; van Oosten, 2015), the sexual objectification of women (Peter & Valkenburg, 2009a), sexual satisfaction (Peter & Valkenburg, 2009b), recreational and permissive sex attitudes (Baams et al., 2014; Brown & L’Engle, 2009; Peter & Valkenburg, 2010b), egalitarian gender role attitudes (Brown & L’Engle, 2009) and body surveillance (Doornwaard et al., 2014).

The Impacts of Sexual Media Exposure on Adolescent and Emerging Adults’ Dating and Sexual Violence Attitudes and Behaviors: A Critical Review of the Literature (2017) – Abstract:

Dating violence (DV) and sexual violence (SV) are widespread problems among adolescents and emerging adults. A growing body of literature demonstrates that exposure to sexually explicit media (SEM) and sexually violent media (SVM) may be risk factors for DV and SV. The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic and comprehensive literature review on the impact of exposure to SEM and SVM on DV and SV attitudes and behaviors. A total of 43 studies utilizing adolescent and emerging adult samples were reviewed, and collectively the findings suggest that:

(1) exposure to SEM and SVM is positively related to DV and SV myths and more accepting attitudes toward DV and SV;

(2) exposure to SEM and SVM is positively related to actual and anticipated DV and SV victimization, perpetration, and bystander nonintervention;

(3) SEM and SVM more strongly impact men’s DV and SV attitudes and behaviors than women’s DV and SV attitudes and behaviors; and

(4) preexisting attitudes related to DV and SV and media preferences moderate the relationship between SEM and SVM exposure and DV and SV attitudes and behaviors.

Adolescent Pornography Use: A Systematic Literature Review of Research Trends 2000-2017. (2018) – Excerpts from sections related to porn’s effects on the user:

The aim of this systematic literature review is to map the research interest in the field and to examine whether statistically significant results have emerged from the areas of research focus.

Attitudes Towards Sex – Overall, 21 studies examined adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviors towards sex in relation to PU. Not surprisingly, intentions to consume pornographic material have been primarily linked to a perceived normalizing attitude considering PU and a significant impact to adolescents’ sexual attitudes and sexual behaviors.

Development – Counterintuitively, viewing pornography has been found to affect the development of values, and more specifically those towards religion during adolescence. Not surprisingly, viewing pornography has been shown to have a secularizing effect, reducing adolescents’ religiosity over time, independent of gender.

Victimization – Exposure to violent/degrading pornography appears to have been common among adolescents, associated with at-risk behaviors, and, for females in particular, it correlates with a history of victimization. Nevertheless, other studies concluded that pornography exposure did not have an association with risky sexual behaviors and that the willingness of exposure to pornography did not seem to have an impact on risky sexual behaviors among adolescents in general. Despite these, other findings indicated that overall, intentional exposure to PU was associated with higher conduct problems among adolescents, higher online sexual solicitation victimization and online sexual solicitation perpetration with boys’ perpetration of sexual coercion and abuse being significantly associated with regular viewing of pornography.

Mental Health Characteristics – Conclusively, and despite some studies not confirming an association between poorer psychosocial health and PU, the vast majority of findings converges on that higher PU during adolescence tends to relate to higher emotional (e.g. depression) and behavioral problems. In that line, Luder et al. suggested gender-related variations in the association between PU and depressive manifestations with males presenting with higher risk. This finding was in consensus with longitudinal studies revealing that poorer psychological wellbeing factors were involved in the development of compulsive use of sexually explicit Internet material among adolescent boys.

Social Bonds – Overall, there seems to be a consensus that adolescent frequent users of the Internet for pornography tend to differ in many social characteristics from adolescents who use the Internet for information, social communication and entertainment.

Online Usage Characteristics – Online usage characteristics were researched in 15 out of the 57 studies included in the present review. These suggest that common characteristics of adolescents exposed to online pornography and sexual solicitation victimization include higher levels of online game use, internet risk behaviors, depression and cyberbullying manifestations, and voluntary self-sexual exposure online.

Adolescents’ Sexual Behaviors – Adolescents’ sexual behavior in regards to PU was researched in 11 studies, with all studies reporting significant results. The study conducted by Doornward, et al. found that adolescent boys’ with compulsive sexual behaviors, including the use of explicit internet material, reported low levels of self-esteem, higher levels of depression and higher levels of excessive sexual interest. In that context, other studies have shown that boys who were found to engage in the use of sexually explicit material and social networking sites received more peer approval and indicated greater experience considering their sexual involvement. Furthermore, boys who demonstrated the frequent use of pornography tended to have sexual debuts at a younger age and to engage in a broader range of sexual encounters.

Alliance Studies:

Hesse, C., & Pedersen, C. L. (2017). Porn sex versus real sex: How sexually explicit material shapes our understanding of sexual anatomy, physiology, and behaviour. Sexuality & Culture, 21(3), 754-775. Link to web

Analysis: First, the mean age was 24, so this isn’t a study on “youth.” Second, most of the subjects were females, so the study was not representative. Third, the main finding that porn viewers have slightly better scores on a sexual anatomy & physiology assessment isn’t all the surprising. The more you see the better your recall. It may seem dated, but one could just as easily consult an online anatomy text as watch hard core porn to learn about anatomy.

As for “participants reported greater positive self-perceived effects of SEM consumption than negative effect,” this to be expected as the study used the porn use questionnaire known as the Pornography Consumption Effect Scale (PCES). As explained in this critique by YBOP and a psychology professor the study creating the PCES may be the most egregious porn study ever published (Hald & Malamuth, 2008).

The PCES questions are designed and scored so that the more porn one uses the greater the benefits. In fact, if you don’t use porn, the lack of porn use is having a negative effect on your life according to this instrument. This is no exaggeration as many PCES- based studies conclude just that! This 7-minute video critique of the PCES reveal Hald & Malamuth’s primary results from what the dismayed psychology professor called a “psychometric nightmare”:

• Porn use was almost always beneficial – with few, if any, drawbacks, for anyone.
• The more hardcore the porn the greater its positive effects in your life. Put simply, “More porn is always better.”
• For both genders the more porn you use, the more you believe it represents real sex, and the more you masturbate to it, the more positive the effects it has in every area of your life.

The PCES almost always reports benefits because:

1. Hald & Malamuth randomly decided what was a “positive” and “negative” effect of porn use. For example “added to your knowledge of anal sex” is always beneficial, while “reducing your sexual fantasies” is always negative.
2. The PCES gives equal weight to questions that do not assess equivalent effects. For example “Has added to your knowledge of anal sex?” can cancel out “Has led to problems in your sex life?” Whether or not you think superficial effects are positive effects, they are in no way equivalent to reduced quality of life (job loss, divorce), or problems in your sex life (erectile dysfunction, no sex drive).

In other words, your marriage could be destroyed and you could have chronic ED, but your PCES score can still show that porn has been just great for you. As one recovering porn user said after viewing the 47 PCES questions: “Yeah, I’ve dropped out of university, developed problems with other addictions, never had a girlfriend, have lost friends, got into debt, still have ED and never had sex in real life. But at least I know about all the porn star acts and am up to speed on all the different positions. So yeah, basically porn has enriched my life no end.”

Spišák, S. (2016). ‘Everywhere they say that it’s harmful but they don’t say how, so I’m asking here’: young people, pornography and negotiations with notions of risk and harm. Sex Education, 16(2), 130-142. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance summary said, “Very few of the young people who contact sexual health experts experience porn itself as harmful. Rather, it is the risk talk that is experienced as unsettling. Research tends not to find conclusive evidence of harm in relation to young people’s encounters with pornography.”

The summary omits important details. The study is based on a non-representative collection of anonymous questions submitted to different online services targeted at teenagers and young people (in 2013). Only small percentage of questions were concerned with porn. From the study:

This paper builds on data consisting of 4212 questions about sexuality that were sent by young people in Finland to experts on sexual health. Only 64 (1.5%) of these contributions explicitly focused on pornography.

The paper continues:

Indeed, physical changes in the body during puberty and what is considered ‘normal’ development in a physical and sexual context are the most frequently asked questions. Other topics of interest are sexual orientation, pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and relationships (cf. Rinkinen 2012).

The author tells us that porn use isn’t causing problems because so few ask about it. A few other possibilities exist: (1) these services may not be perceived as the right resource for questions about porn use, (2) the adolescents’ problems could be related to their porn use, yet they fail to make the connection, (3) porn use is ubiquitous – the adolescents know more about porn than the adults. Whatever the case, hundreds of studies report myriad negative outcomes related to porn use (see introduction to this section).

Just because a teen doesn’t yet connect their own (or their partner’s) porn use with an issue doesn’t mean porn use isn’t having an effect. Wait a few years. For example, a 2019 BBC survey suggests that 20% of porn watchers 18-25 say it has affected their ability to have sex. Just under a quarter (24 percent) of those surveyed agreed they have felt pressured to do things that a partner has seen in porn and just under one in five (19 percent) agree that they have tried things they have seen in porn and regretted it. Over a third (35 percent) agrees that they have had riskier sex due to porn. Almost a quarter (23 percent) of people aged 18-25 who watch porn think they might be addicted.

Analysis: By Alliance member Alexander Štulhofer. As with several other studies cited here, the subjects were 16-year old Croatians (Štulhofer keeps asking the same 16 year olds about their perceptions of porn’s effects). In this study Štulhofer asks 16-year olds about their levels of “sexual satisfaction,” finding “no significant association between changes in the frequency of adolescents’ pornography use over time and their sexual satisfaction.” Not so fast Stulhofer. The study reported that 90% of males viewed porn, while few females used porn. Guess what the study found:

“During the observed period, the mean pornography use among male participants was once a week. In contrast, the majority of female participants reported no pornography use. Compared to their male peers, adolescent females were substantially more satisfied with their sex lives.”

Interesting, but ignored by The Deniers. But can a study accurately assess sexual satisfaction in 16 year olds? From the study:

“the majority of our participants had no or only limited sexual experience at baseline…”

A few questions: With so little experience, how might a 16-year old accurately judge satisfying sex? How many 16 year olds are having regular sex? What 16-year old guy doesn’t say he finds sexual activity satisfying, let alone full-on sexual intercourse? What about all the porn-viewing 16-year olds who are watching porn instead of having sex – where are they in this survey?

As mentioned elsewhere, the negative effects of continual porn use often manifest much later (twenties and thirties). This is especially true for “sexual satisfaction” and relationship satisfaction. How do we know? Every single study involving adult males has reported more porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction (see Over 70 studies link porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction.)

That said, the Denier’s omitted all other adolescent studies assessing the relationship between pornography use and sexual satisfaction (including a longitudinal study). Surprise – all linked more porn use with less satisfaction:

1. Pornography, sexual socialization, and satisfaction among young men (2008)
2. Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Sexual Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Study (2009)
3. Associations between young adults’ use of sexually explicit materials and their sexual preferences, behaviors, and satisfaction (2011)
4. Young Adult Women’s Reports of Their Male Romantic Partner’s Pornography Use as a Correlate of Their Self-Esteem, Relationship Quality, and Sexual Satisfaction (2012)
5. Frequency of pornography use is indirectly associated with lower relationship confidence through depression symptoms and physical assault among Chinese young adults (2011)
6. Associations between young adults’ use of sexually explicit materials and their sexual preferences, behaviors, and satisfaction (2011)

The Deniers’ Alliance exposed.

Marengo, D., Settanni, M., & Longobardi, C. (2019). The associations between sex drive, sexual self-concept, sexual orientation, and exposure to online victimization in Italian adolescents: Investigating the mediating role of verbal and visual sexting behaviors. Children and Youth Services Review. Link to web

Analysis: More citation inflation, as it’s not a study on porn’s possible effects. Why did the Deniers list a sexting study that failed to assess porn use, when numerous other studies have assessed the relationships between sexting with porn use? Oh yeah, because the preponderance of studies link more porn use to sexting behaviors.

Rothman, E. F., Adhia, A., Christensen, T. T., Paruk, J., Alder, J., & Daley, N. (2018). A pornography literacy class for youth: Results of a feasibility and efficacy pilot study. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 13(1), 1-17. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Emily Rothman. More citation inflation, as it’s not a study on porn’s possible effects. It, too, appears to be promoting the authors’ “Porn Literacy Curriculum.”

Kohut, T., & Štulhofer, A. (2018).Is pornography use a risk for adolescent well-being? An examination of temporal relationships in two independent panel samples. PloS one, 13(8), e0202048. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance members Taylor Kohut and Alexander Štulhofer. Average age 16, and Croatians only (as in most of Štulhofer’s studies). First, as noted below, negative effects of continual porn use often manifest after the teen years. Second, the data are included in the Kohut & Štulhofer study below, so we can view these 2 studies as two halves of a single study. While both studies assert that changes in porn were not related to changes in psychological well-being, both studies found that using porn was related to poorer psychological well-being. Excerpts:

However, pornography use was associated with increases in both self-esteem and symptoms of depression and anxiety, albeit only among adolescent women in one of the two panels. In addition, low subjective well-being was associated with a subsequent increase in pornography use, but only in female adolescents in one panel.

Why is it that Štulhofer’s studies seem to find few problems related to porn use, while the preponderance of the research does find problems? For example, this page contains over 75 studies link porn use to poorer mental-emotional health & poorer cognitive outcomes. Some of the studies are longitudinal and a few had porn users eliminate porn for a period of time.

Štulhofer, A., Tafro, A., & Kohut, T. (2019).The dynamics of adolescents’ pornography use and psychological well-being: a six-wave latent growth and latent class modeling approach. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 1-13. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance members Taylor Kohut and Alexander Štulhofer. First, the data are included in the above Kohut & Štulhofer study, so we can view these 2 studies as two halves of a single study. Second, the average age was 16 (Croatians only). It’s important to note that the negative effects of continual porn use often manifest much later (twenties and thirties). Third, and importantly, the Alliance’s summary omitted key findings:

“a significant negative association was found between female adolescents’ pornography use and psychological well-being at baseline”

“the lowest levels of depression and anxiety were found among male adolescents who reported the lowest frequency of pornography use at baseline”

Put simply, more porn use was related to poorer psychological well-being in females, while lowest frequency of porn use was related to the lowest levels of depression and anxiety in males. Štulhofer & Kohut’s findings represent a cherry-picked outlier finding, as over 75 studies link porn use to poorer mental-emotional health & poorer cognitive outcomes.

Peter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2011). The use of sexually explicit internet material and its antecedents: A longitudinal comparison of adolescents and adults. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40(5), 1015-1025. Link to web

Analysis: Why is this paper listed? More citation inflation, as it’s not a study on porn’s possible effects. The Dutch study reports that adult males use porn more frequently than adolescent males, yet this doesn’t align with most other studies. The age of the data (from 2008), and sampling only a small country, may account for the anomalous results. Or maybe Dutch teens are more apt to lie about their porn use. The 2008 results don’t align with more recent data –Young Australians’ use of pornography and associations with sexual risk behaviour (2017). This study on Australians, ages 15-29, found that 100% of the men (82% of women) had viewed porn. Also, 69 percent of males and 23 percent of females first viewed porn at age 13 or younger. In addition this study reported that more frequent pornography viewing correlated with mental health problems.

Van Ouytsel, J., Ponnet, K., & Walrave, M. (2014).The associations between adolescents’ consumption of pornography and music videos and their sexting behavior. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17(12), 772-778. Link to web

Analysis: As the Alliance summary said “Sexting behaviors were significantly associated with the consumption of pornography, when controlling for age, gender, school track, and Internet use.”

Films or Masturbation Section

Context/Reality: Deniers’ conundrum: what to do about all the many studies linking porn use to myriad negative outcomes? Since the Deniers could pump out only so many dubious studies and opinion pieces, they developed a new strategy to support their agnotology campaign: blame all of porn’s ills on masturbation instead. (Say what?)

In 2016 a few of the Deniers (Ley & Prause) became the first professionals to try to convince the world that masturbation, not digital porn use, was responsible for the tremendous jump in erectile dysfunction rates in men under 40. The “value” of this audacious talking point lies in its ability to engender doubt in the public mind about porn’s risks. It’s a marvelous distraction from all of the evidence pointing to overuse of internet porn causing harms.

However, none of the studies the Deniers cite, with one dodgy exception, furnish the least bit of support for their red herring. The exception, a paper by sociologist S.L. Perry, which did not contain reliable data for masturbation frequency, is essentially nothing more than hypothetical – as discussed below.

True sexuality experts never claim that masturbation causes youthful ED. Certainly urologists, the front-line experts in men’s sexual health, don’t. The fact is, virtually no one in the history of modern sexology (save these few brash sexologists) has ever suggested porn-free masturbation is a cause of problems such as chronic erectile dysfunction in young men. Indeed, masturbation has been touted as beneficial for decades. Physiologically, how could good ole do-it-yourself pleasuring explain changes in some users’ sexual templates that are so profound that encounters with real partners are no longer arousing? How could it explain the alarmingly long recovery times some young men are reporting after quitting porn? How does masturbation explain away over 70 studies linking porn use to lower sexual and relationship satisfaction (including 7 longitudinal studies)?

While the Deniers are purposely vague in describing exactly how masturbation might produce chronic ED in otherwise healthy young men, the only logical conclusion is that they’re suggesting that masturbation is causing trauma so severe that those injured cannot achieve an erection. Trouble is, such trauma is a type of organic ED (easily diagnosed by healthcare givers). While there are various studies indicating a 500-1000% increase in ED in men under 40, no study suggests severe tissue damage is behind this tremendous rise. The fact is, most men with porn-induced ED can achieve an erection and masturbate to climax just fine…as long as they’re viewing internet porn.

In short, absent underlying organic or psychological problems, erections and sexual arousal are not problems in youthful masturbators unless they are using digital porn. The Deniers’ Alliance motto appears to be: “It can’t be porn….anything but porn.”

As for the Alliance papers, only one paper attempts to examine whether “its porn or masturbation”, and it fails to do so because it had no reliable data for masturbation frequency (Perry, 2019). All the remaining Alliance papers have absolutely nothing to do with this section’s supposed theme: “is pornography or masturbation behind reported negative outcomes?”. RealYBOP hoping no one checks her work. We did.

Alliance Papers:

Carvalheira, A., Træen, B., & Štulhofer, A. (2015). Masturbation and pornography use among coupled heterosexual men with decreased sexual desire: How many roles of masturbation?. Journal of sex & marital therapy, 41(6), 626-635. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Alexander Štulhofer. Citation inflation. It tells nothing about whether it’s “masturbation or films” (as if porn use & masturbation could ever be reliably separated in studies employing only recall). Only studies following porn users who abstain from porn over time could even begin to assess differing effects of masturbation and porn. The study found that masturbating to porn was related to decreased sexual desire and low relationship intimacy. Excerpts from study:

Among men who masturbated frequently, 70% used pornography at least once a week. A multivariate assessment showed that sexual boredom, frequent pornography use, and low relationship intimacy significantly increased the odds of reporting frequent masturbation among coupled men with decreased sexual desire.

Among men [with decreased sexual desire] who used pornography at least once a week [in 2011], 26.1% reported that they were unable to control their pornography use. In addition, 26.7% of men reported that their use of pornography negatively affected their partnered sex and 21.1% claimed to have attempted to stop using pornography.

Wow – over 25% said that porn use had negatively affected their sex lives. And porn use was related to decreased sexual desire and boredom with sexual partners. You didn’t get those juicy bits from the Alliance’s summary.

Hald, G. M., & Malamuth, N. M. (2008). Self-perceived effects of pornography consumption. Archives of sexual behavior, 37(4), 614-625.

Analysis: Citation inflation. It tells nothing about whether it’s “masturbation or films”. This study creeted as the Pornography Consumption Effect Scale (PCES). As explained in this critique by YBOP and a psychology professor the study creating the PCES may be the most egregious porn study ever published (Hald & Malamuth, 2008).

The PCES questions are designed and scored so that the more porn one uses the greater the benefits. In fact, if you don’t use porn, the lack of porn use is having a negative effect on your life according to this instrument. This is no exaggeration as many PCES- based studies conclude just that! This 7-minute video critique of the PCES reveal Hald & Malamuth’s primary results from what the dismayed psychology professor called a “psychometric nightmare”:

• Porn use was almost always beneficial – with few, if any, drawbacks, for anyone.
• The more hardcore the porn the greater its positive effects in your life. Put simply, “More porn is always better.”
• For both genders the more porn you use, the more you believe it represents real sex, and the more you masturbate to it, the more positive the effects it has in every area of your life.

The PCES almost always reports benefits because:

1. Hald & Malamuth randomly decided what was a “positive” and “negative” effect of porn use. For example “added to your knowledge of anal sex” is always beneficial, while “reducing your sexual fantasies” is always negative.
2. The PCES gives equal weight to questions that do not assess equivalent effects. For example “Has added to your knowledge of anal sex?” can cancel out “Has led to problems in your sex life?” Whether or not you think superficial effects are positive effects, they are in no way equivalent to reduced quality of life (job loss, divorce), or problems in your sex life (erectile dysfunction, no sex drive).

In other words, your marriage could be destroyed and you could have chronic ED, but your PCES score can still show that porn has been just great for you. As one recovering porn user said after viewing the 47 PCES questions: “Yeah, I’ve dropped out of university, developed problems with other addictions, never had a girlfriend, have lost friends, got into debt, still have ED and never had sex in real life. But at least I know about all the porn star acts and am up to speed on all the different positions. So yeah, basically porn has enriched my life no end.”

Baćak a, V., & Štulhofer, A. (2011). Masturbation among sexually active young women in Croatia: Associations with religiosity and pornography use. International Journal of Sexual Health, 23(4), 248-257. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Alexander Stulhofer. More citation inflation. Study tells nothing about whether it’s “masturbation or films”. The Alliance was accurate in their summary:

60% of the female participants reported masturbating. Pornography use was very strongly, positively associated with masturbation.

What does this say about whether “porn or masturbation” is behind poorer relationship satisfaction? Nothing.

Hald, G. M. (2006). Gender differences in pornography consumption among young heterosexual Danish adults. Archives of sexual behavior, 35(5), 577-585. Link to web

Analysis: More citation inflation. Once again, the study tells nothing about whether it’s “masturbation or films”. The Alliance was accurate, in that earlier age of exposure to porn was related to greater porn use as the subjects aged:

Compared to women, men were exposed to pornography at a younger age, consumed more pornography as measured by time and frequency, and used pornography more often during sexual activity on their own.

These findings could easily be interpreted as earlier exposure leading to escalation of porn use, which is a sign of habituation, or even an addiction process.

Ley, D., Prause, N., & Finn, P. (2014).The emperor has no clothes: A review of the ‘pornography addiction’model. Current sexual health reports, 6(2), 94-105. Link to web

Clark, C. A., & Wiederman, M. W. (2000).Gender and reactions to a hypothetical relationship partner’s masturbation and use of sexually explicit media. Journal of Sex Research, 37(2), 133-141. Link to web

Analysis: More citation inflation – as the paper has nothing to do with this section’s supposed question: “is it porn or masturbation?” That said, the Alliance summary twisted the reported findings. From the abstract:

Compared to men, women indicated more negative feelings about a partner’s solitary sexual behavior. For men and women, a partner’s use of sexually explicit material was rated more negatively than a partner’s masturbation. Regarding the attributions, there was a difference on concerning the belief about partner satisfaction. Respondents were more likely to see a partner’s use of sexually explicit materials rather than masturbation as a sign of dissatisfaction with the original partner or the sexual relationship.

Put simply, men and women experienced greater negative feelings about a partner’s porn use than about their masturbation.

Miller, D. J., McBain, K. A., Li, W. W., & Raggatt, P. T. (2019).Pornography, preference for porn‐like sex, masturbation, and men’s sexual and relationship satisfaction. Personal Relationships, 26(1), 93-113. Link to web

Analysis: Once again, the Alliance omits any unfavorable findings. The paper contains a questionable abstract focusing on the dubious assessment of ‘preference for porn‐like sex,” and downplaying the important findings: Both studies (not just study 2) reported more porn use related to less sexual and relationship satisfaction. This paper attempts to blame masturbation, not porn, for relationship dissatisfaction, but there is no legitimate method to tease masturbation apart from porn use. Excerpts:

“Frequent pornography use was associated with sexual dissatisfaction, greater preference for porn‐like sex, and more frequent masturbation in both studies. Pornography use was associated with relationship dissatisfaction in Study 2 only.” [actually it was both studies]

The study falsely claims that porn use was associated with relationship dissatisfaction in study 2 only. See study tables for the truth. Miller et al., 2019 is included in YBOP’s list of over 70 studies linking porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction.

Prause, N. (2019). Porn Is for Masturbation. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1-7. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Nicole Prause. More citation inflation, as it’s not a study. It’s an opinion piece with the familiar collection of cherry-picked studies and unsupported or false claims. As with all other opinion pieces by the Deniers, Prause’s commentary omits the vast preponderance of evidence countering her usual mishmash of talking points. Prause’s commentary is an unconvincing attempt to debunk many of the empirically well supported negative effects associated with internet porn use. Prause promotes the idea that using porn is actually beneficial…for most everyone…at any age. Aside from the bits about porn being safe for kids (below), Prause’s commentary is little more than bits and pieces copied from three earlier Prause pieces, which YBOP has critiqued:

1. For an analysis of nearly every talking point and cherry-picked study Prause, Kohut and Ley ever cite, see this extensive critique of a 2018 piece published in SLATE magazine: Debunking “Why Are We Still So Worried About Wat­­ching Porn?”, by Marty Klein, Taylor Kohut, and Nicole Prause.
2. For a critique of the claims in Prause’s 240-word letter to Lancet see this extensive response: Analysis of “Data do not support sex as addictive” (Prause et al., 2017).
3. YBOP has long since addressed most of the cherry-picked, often irrelevant, studies and questionable claims in its response to Prause’s 2016 “Letter to the editor”: Critique of: Letter to the editor “Prause et al. (2015) the latest falsification of addiction predictions“ (2016)

This critique addresses the cherry-picked studies and unsupported claims not found in the above critiques: Critique of Nicole Prause’s “Porn Is for Masturbation” (2019).

Perry, S. L. (2019). Is the link between pornography use and relational happiness really more about masturbation? Results from two national surveys. The Journal of Sex Research, 1-13. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Samuel Perry. Religion researcher Perry published this brief re-analysis of data used in one of his earlier porn studies. After sophisticated statistical “modeling” Perry proposed that masturbation, not porn use, is the real culprit in relationship happiness. The gaping hole in Perry’s new analysis is the absence of specific, reliable data on masturbation frequency, as he only asked “When did you last masturbate?” Without solid data on frequency, his claim is little more than a hypothetical. From Perry’s study:

Masturbation Practice. Both the NFSS and the RIA ask the same two questions about masturbation that the author combined into a single masturbation measure for both surveys. Participants were first asked if they have ever masturbated (Yes or No). Those who answered that they had ever masturbated were then asked, “When did you last masturbate?” Responses ranged from 1 = today to 9 = over a year ago.

Perry continues:

“While this question technically does not inquire about frequency…..”

No kidding. And yet Perry, Prause, Ley, Grubbs and others are now making extraordinary claims based on this solitary study, relying on these highly dubious data. The Alliance propaganda machine is in full view with respect to Perry’s re-analysis. Perry’s assertions are countered by over 70 studies linking porn use to lower sexual and relationship satisfaction – and Perry’s current study which correlated more porn use with less relationship happiness. That’s right, greater porn use was associated with less relationship happiness in both Perry samples (A & B):

———————

Perry’s claims that he could magically tease apart porn use from masturbation cannot be taken seriously – especially since he lacked accurate data for masturbation frequency.

Walton, M. T., Lykins, A. D., & Bhullar, N. (2016).Sexual arousal and sexual activity frequency: Implications for understanding hypersexuality. Archives of sexual behavior, 45(4), 777-782. Link to web

Analysis: Not an actual study. The paper re-analyzes old data from Denier Alliance member James Cantor. The paper reported that sexual arousal (cravings, feeling horny) is linked to sexual activity. Groundbreaking. From discussion section:

Therefore, sexual arousal may be a stronger predictor of sexual activity frequency than data from self-report measures of hypersexuality, such as the HBI.

The paper has nothing to do with this section’s supposed question: “is it porn or masturbation?” However, the findings reveal that some who score high on “hypersexuality“ questionnaires are not that interested in actual sex:

Although results suggest that sexual arousal may be a stronger predictor of sexual activity frequency than hypersexuality, interpreting data becomes more complicated because sexual activity frequency of self-identified hypersexuals is likely to vary considerably.

Findings align with the experience of many porn addicts, who are not aroused by real partners. It also debunks the unsupported talking point that “high sexual desire” explains away porn or sex addiction (as do at least 25 studies falsifying the claim that sex & porn addicts “just have high sexual desire”).

van Rouen, J. H., Slob, A. K., Gianotten, W. L., Dohle, G. R., van Der Zon, A. T. M., Vreeburg, J. T. M., & Weber, R. F. A. (1996).Sexual arousal and the quality of semen produced by masturbation. Human Reproduction, 11(1), 147-151.Link to web

Analysis: The paper has nothing to do with the section’s supposed question: “is it porn or masturbation?” However, its findings support YBOP’s contention that masturbating to pornography videos is more stimulating than masturbation to one’s imagination:

significantly higher scores were given for ‘feeling at ease/relaxed’, ‘sexual arousal’, ‘quality of erection’, ‘intensity of orgasm’, ‘satisfaction after orgasm’, and ‘ease with which orgasm was achieved with VES (sexually explicit video)

In fact the YBOP ‘Start Here’ article begins with a more recent and somewhat similar study, which demonstrates the combined power of video porn and sexual novelty:

This is called the Coolidge effect—the automatic response to novel mates. Interestingly, men ejaculate more motile sperm and they do it more quickly when they view a novel porn star. This powerful automatic response to erotic novelty is what started you down the road to getting hooked on internet porn.

The illegitimate RealYBOP’s citation supports the legitimate YBOP’s thesis! Thanks Deniers. By the way, several studies directly or indirectly demonstrate how video pornography or internet porn are uniquely different from static porn of the past:

• Male sexual arousal across five modes of erotic stimulation (1988)
• Male Sexual Arousal Elicited by Film and Fantasy Matched in Content (1997)
• Habituation of female sexual arousal to slides and film (1995)
• Allocation of Attentional Resources During Habituation and Dishabituation of Male Sexual Arousal (1999)
• Sexual behavior and responsiveness to sexual stimuli following laboratory-induced sexual arousal (2004)
• Identification with Stimuli Moderates Women’s Affective and Testosterone Responses to Self Chosen Erotica (2015)
• Changes in erectile response to repeated audiovisual sexual stimulation (1998)
• Changes in the Magnitude of the Eyeblink Startle Response During Habituation of Sexual Arousal (2000)
• Habituation and Dishabituation of Female Sexual Arousal (1990)
• Habituation and Dishabituation of Male Sexual Arousal (1993)
• The Long Term Habituation of Sexual Arousal in The Human Male (1991)
• Does deviant pornography use follow a Guttman-like progression? (2013)
• The Use of Film Clips in a Viewing Time Task of Sexual Interests (2017)
• The impact of immersion on the perception of pornography: A virtual reality study (2018)
• The impact of virtual reality versus 2D pornography on sexual arousal and presence (2019)

Sex Offender Section

Context/Reality: Similar to other sections, several of the studies have nothing to do with the section’s heading (Sex Offenders). Forced to speculate, we must assume the Deniers are attempting to “falsify” any links between porn use and rape, violence, sexual aggression, sexual harassment, or sexual coercion. While studies report disparate findings, we discuss the Alliance’s over-reliance upon a few carefully chosen studies. We also provide numerous relevant studies that the Alliance purposely omitted. Two recent articles address many Alliance talking points:

• YBOP – Rape rates are on the rise, so ignore the pro-porn propaganda (2018)
• FTND – Does Porn Really Decrease Rates of Sexual Assault? (2018) (written by a professor who has published numerous porn studies)

In essence the Alliance points to a handful of studies correlating changes in a nation’s reported rape rates with estimated changes in the availability of porn. By citing studies involving a few select countries, various Deniers have irresponsibly claimed that sexual violence rates universally decrease as porn becomes more accessible in a society. Below we punch holes in this assertion.

#1 – What about other variables? Correlation doesn’t equal causation. Numerous other variables likely account for the decline in reported rapes in select countries. The most obvious variable playing a role is that developed countries have experienced a decline (per 100K of the population) in the age group most likely to commit sexual crimes (12-34) as the population aged. As you can see in the graph, US rates for all violent crimes peaked around 1990, and then declined until about 2013, when rape rates started to rise. Important to note that rape rates declined the least (of the crime categories) during this period:

The decline in violent crime coincided with an increase in percentage of aged members of the population, and a corresponding decrease in the age group most likely to commit violent crime. This demographic shift has occurred in many “first world” nations. First, the 1990 population distribution by age. Note the population in the 15-44 age ranges.

Next, the 2015 population distribution by age. Notice the decline in the age groups most likley to commit violent crimes, and how old folks make up a much larger percentage of the population.

The above demographic shifts could account for the decrease in rape rates (which are typically reported “per [X number] of the population”). Researcher Neil Malamuth responded on a major sexology listserve to Milton Diamond’s papers (touted by the Alliance as proof of their reckless claims):

The Aggregate Issue — Intuitively, it appears to make a lot of sense that the critical “bottom line” is what appears to be happening in the “real world” (e.g., rates of violent crime) as media violence and/or pornography consumption have increased over the years. I think that on the contrary, the problems with looking at this are great and it is virtually impossible to come to any cause and effect conclusions by looking at the aggregate data. For example, consider the following association: The number of guns in the US and the rates of crime.

As revealed in the following article Pew: Homicide Rates Cut in Half Over Past 20 Years (While New Gun Ownership Soared) as the number of guns in the US has increased dramatically over the past twenty years, the rates of homicide have dramatically decreased. How many of us are willing to conclude therefore that the wide availability of guns is actually a very good thing and has contributed to the reduction in homicide, as some indeed would be quick to conclude? Drew Kingston and I discuss this aggregate issue more extensively in the following: Problems with Aggregate Data and the Importance of Individual Differences in the Study of Pornography and Sexual Aggression (2010).

The cross-cultural aggregate data regarding pornography use and crime (e.g., Mickey Diamond’s important work) have been obtained, to my knowledge, only in Denmark and in Japan. In those two countries, there has generally been a very low rate of known sexually violent crime. We might expect based on that data as well as several other sources of data that in these countries, there are relatively few men with risk for committing sexual aggression (within the culture and in non-wartime conditions). Therefore, in the context of the Confluence Model’s predictions, in such countries we would actually predict little or no increase in sexual aggression as the availability of pornography increases, as Diamond and associates have reported.

Remember, that the men who we have studied in the USA who similarly have low risk have not shown any increased proclivity even with high pornography use. As a critical test, as I noted before, Martin Hald and I did find that even in Denmark, men with relatively higher risk did in fact show greater attitudes accepting of violence against women as a function of both experimental exposure in lab and in“real world” association (see 2015 publication). I would be very interested to see what would happen if a huge change occurred in the availability of pornography in countries with a relatively large percentage of men with high proclivity and associated, sexism, attitudes accepting of violence against women, hostility towards women, etc.).

Moreover, rates of known crime may not be the only “dependent variable” to examine (see below). Although Japan’s adjudicated rates of violence against women are indeed relatively very low (and my limited experience many years ago while visiting Japan suggested that women felt safe walking streets at night) the highest documented rates of rape ever were committed in a single day were by Japanese men (in China in the city of Nanking). Thus, once the culture sanctioned the violence, potential proclivities may have become very evident. Further, in current Japan, there appear to be other manifestations of what may be considered sexual aggressive proclivities and related acts and attitudes towards women (e.g., back in 2000, special train cars were introduced for women to combat men’s groping (chikan).

The “Dependent Variable” Issue

As I mentioned earlier, the Confluence Model focuses on sexually aggressive attitudes and behaviors in men in the general population, particularly college students. Virtually none of the participants we have studied have ever been adjudicated. Known crime rates are therefore somewhat irrelevant. As part of the discussion of the applicability of the model, we have suggested over the years that when it comes to convicted individuals, the model has less relevance as it appears that with such men“general anti-sociality characteristics” have far more direct relevance.

These convicted men are often not “specialists” but much more likely to commit a wide variety of crimes. Measures that have consistently shown their utility in the prediction of the sexual aggressors we study, (hostility towards women, attitudes supporting violence against women, etc.) have not as consistently been found to be predictive for known criminals in this area.

Although changes in rates of sexual aggression among students would be relevant, it is far from clear whether these have actually increased or decreased over the years or whether there has just been more attention to the matter (I would guess the latter is important). This also relates to the “aggregate problem”: While availability of pornography has increased dramatically over the years, at the same time there has been much more intervention to reduce sexual assault and increase relevant awareness.

Almost every university in the nation now has mandated interventions for all freshman, something that was not the case years ago. Assuming the some media influences may contribute to some increased proclivity to sexual aggression, how can we possibly disentangle the corresponding increases in public awareness of the issue of sexual aggression and actual interventions occurring at much of the same time?

Another important variable revolves around the (in)accuracy of statistics related to sexual crimes.

#2 – Studies reveal that rape rates are often underreported. It’s important to keep in mind that the crime of rape is consistently under-reported. Even reports to police may be wildly off, as this paper by a US law professor suggests: How to Lie with Rape Statistics: America’s Hidden Rape Crisis (2014).

Using this novel method to determine if other municipalities likely failed to report the true number of rape complaints made, I find significant undercounting of rape incidents by police departments across the country. The results indicate that approximately 22% of the 210 studied police departments responsible for populations of at least 100,000 persons have substantial statistical irregularities in their rape data indicating considerable undercounting from 1995 to 2012. Notably, the number of undercounting jurisdictions has increased by over 61% during the eighteen years studied.

Correcting the data to remove police undercounting by imputing data from highly correlated murder rates, the study conservatively estimates that 796,213 to 1,145,309 complaints of forcible vaginal rapes of female victims nationwide disappeared from the official records from 1995 to 2012. Further, the corrected data reveal that the study period includes fifteen to eighteen of the highest rates of rape since tracking of the data began in 1930. Instead of experiencing the widely reported “great decline” in rape, America is in the midst of a hidden rape crisis.

#3 – Many countries have reported an increase in rape rates during this same period. For example, studies from Spain and Norway report findings that contradict Diamond’s claims (all omitted by the Alliance):

• Is sexual violence related to Internet exposure? Empirical evidence from Spain (2009) – Excerpt: Using a panel data approach for the provinces of Spain during the period 1998-2006, outcomes indicate that there is a substitution between rape and Internet pornography, while Internet pornography increases other violent sexual behaviors, such as sexual assaults.
• Broadband Internet: An Information Superhighway to Sex Crime? (2013) – Excerpt: Does internet use trigger sex crime? We use unique Norwegian data on crime and internet adoption to shed light on this question. A public program with limited funding rolled out broadband access points in 2000–2008, and provides plausibly exogenous variation in internet use. Our instrumental variables estimates show that internet use is associated with a substantial increase in both reports, charges and convictions of rape and other sex crimes. Our findings suggest that the direct effect on sex crime propensity is positive and non-negligible, possibly as a result of increased consumption of pornography.

Take a look at this table of rape rates and you will see there’s no real global pattern (indicating a problem with gathering accurate statistics). One thing is for certain, Diamond omitted numerous “modern” countries where both the availability of porn and rape rates have concurrently increased, such as Norway, Sweden, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Iceland, Italy, Argentina, Portugal, etc.

#4 – Rates of sexual offenses rising in the US and United Kingdom (two biggest users of Pornhub). According to new statistics released by the FBI (see graph), the number of rapes (per 100,000 of the population) has steadily increased from 2014-2016 (the last year for which stats are available). In the UK, there were 138,045 sex offenses, up 23%, in the 12 months preceding September, 2017. Yet, during those same periods:

• the population has continued to age,
• ED rates for men under 40 have skyrocketed, and
• overall rates of sexual activity have steadily dropped, as have fertility rates in the West.

#5 – Studies assessing actual porn users show a link between porn and increased sexual violence, aggression and coercion. Instead of highly dubious aggregate studies on a few select countries, how about studies on actual porn users that controlled for relevant variables? As with every other Alliance section, this one omitted relevant reviews of literature and meta-analyses, so here are a few. (At the end of the section we also provide numerous individual studies omitted by the Alliance.)

A meta-analysis summarizing the effects of pornography II: Aggression after exposure (1995) – Excerpt:

Conducted a meta-analysis of 30 studies, published 1971–1985, to examine the effect of exposure to pornography on aggressive behavior under laboratory conditions, considering a variety of moderating conditions (level of sexual arousal, level of prior anger, type of pornography, gender of S, gender of the target of aggression, and medium used to convey the material).

Results indicate that pictorial nudity induces subsequent aggressive behavior, that consumption of material depicting nonviolent sexual activity increases aggressive behavior, and that media depictions of violent sexual activity generate more aggression than those of nonviolent sexual activity. No other moderator variable produced homogeneous findings.

Pornography and sexual aggression: are there reliable effects and can we understand them? (2000)– Excerpt:

In response to some recent critiques, we (a) analyze the arguments and data presented in those commentaries, (b) integrate the findings of several metaanalytic summaries of experimental and naturalistic research, and (c) conduct statistical analyses on a large representative sample. All three steps support the existence of reliable associations between frequent pornography use and sexually aggressive behaviors, particularly for violent pornography and/or for men at high risk for sexual aggression. We suggest that the way relatively aggressive men interpret and react to the same pornography may differ from that of nonaggressive men, a perspective that helps integrate the current analyses with studies comparing rapists and nonrapists as well as with cross-cultural research.

A meta-analysis of the published research on the effects of pornography (2000) – Excerpt:

A meta-analysis of 46 published studies was undertaken to determine the effects of pornography on sexual deviancy, sexual perpetration, attitudes regarding intimate relationships, and attitudes regarding the rape myth. Most of the studies were done in the United States (39; 85%) and ranged in date from 1962 to 1995, with 35% (n=16) published between 1990 and 1995, and 33% (n=15) between 1978 and 1983. A total sample size of 12,323 people comprised the present meta-analysis. Effect sizes (d) were computed on each of the dependent variables for studies which were published in an academic journal, had a total sample size of 12 or greater, and included a contrast or comparison group.

Average unweighted and weighted d’s for sexual deviancy (.68 and .65 ), sexual perpetration (.67 and .46), intimate relationships (.83 and .40), and the rape myth (.74 and .64) provide clear evidence confirming the link between increased risk for negative development when exposed to pornography. These results suggest that the research in this area can move beyond the question of whether pornography has an influence on violence and family functioning.

Research and the Behavioral Effects Associated with Pornography

For Weaver (1993), the controversy stems from three theories of the consequences of exposure to pornography:

1. The representation of sexuality as a form of learning in view of the social dogma related to what has long been denied or hidden (liberalization)— inhibition, guilt, puritanical attitudes, fixation on sexuality, all of which can be partly eliminated through pornography (Feshbach, 1955).2 Kutchinsky (1991) reiterated this idea, stating that the rate of sexual assault dropped when pornography was made more readily available, serving as a kind of safety valve that eases sexual tensions and thus reduces the rate of sexual offences. Although highly debatable, what this premise means is that pornography offers a form of learning which, according to the author, offsets the acting out.
   It is debatable because this argument is also used by proponents of the liberalization of prostitution as a way of potentially reducing the number of sexual assaults (McGowan, 2005; Vadas, 2005). That way of thinking undermines human dignity and what it means to be a person. The bottom line is that people are not commodities;
2. The dehumanization of the person, in contrast to the preceding theory, and where pornography is first and foremost men’s misogynistic image of women (Jensen, 1996; Stoller, 1991);
3. Desensitization through an image that is not in line with reality. Simply put, pornography offers a highly reductionist view of social relationships. Because the image is nothing more than a series of explicit, repetitive and unrealistic sexual scenes, masturbation to pornography is part of a series of distortions and not a part of reality. Those distortions can be compounded by dynamic and static criminogenic variables. Frequent exposure desensitizes the person by gradually changing his values and behaviour as the stimuli become more intense (Bushman, 2005; Carich & Calder, 2003; Jansen, Linz, Mulac, & Imrich, 1997; Malamuth, Haber, & Feshbach, 1980; Padgett & Brislin-Slutz, 1989; Silbert & Pines, 1984; Wilson, Colvin, & Smith, 2002; Winick & Evans, 1996; Zillmann & Weaver, 1999).

In short, the research carried out to date has not clearly shown a direct cause-and-effect link between the use of pornographic material and sexual assault, but the fact remains that many researchers agree on one thing: Long-term exposure to pornography material is bound to disinhibit the individual. This was confirmed by Linz, Donnerstein and Penrod in 1984, then Sapolsky the same year, Kelley in 1985, Marshall and then Zillmann in 1989, Cramer, McFarlane, Parker, Soeken, Silva, & Reel in 1998 and, more recently, Thornhill and Palmer in 2001, and Apanovitch, Hobfoll and Salovey in 2002. On the basis of their work, all of these researchers concluded that long-term exposure to pornography has an addictive effect and leads offenders to minimize the violence in the acts they commit.

Pornography and attitudes supporting violence against women: revisiting the relationship in nonexperimental studies (2010) – Excerpt:

A meta-analysis was conducted to determine whether nonexperimental studies revealed an association between men’s pornography consumption and their attitudes supporting violence against women. The meta-analysis corrected problems with a previously published meta-analysis and added more recent findings. In contrast to the earlier meta-analysis, the current results showed an overall significant positive association between pornography use and attitudes supporting violence against women in nonexperimental studies. In addition, such attitudes were found to correlate significantly higher with the use of sexually violent pornography than with the use of nonviolent pornography, although the latter relationship was also found to be significant.

The study resolves what appeared to be a troubling discordance in the literature on pornography and aggressive attitudes by showing that the conclusions from nonexperimental studies in the area are in fact fully consistent with those of their counterpart experimental studies. This finding has important implications for the overall literature on pornography and aggression.

Research has examined pornography use on the extent of offending. However, virtually no work has tested whether other sex industry experiences affect sex crime. By extension, the cumulative effect of these exposures is unknown. Social learning theory predicts that exposure should amplify offending.

Drawing on retrospective longitudinal data, we first test whether exposure during adolescence is associated with a younger age of onset; we also examine whether adulthood exposure is linked with greater frequency of offending.

Findings indicate that most types of adolescent exposures as well as total exposures were related to an earlier age of onset. Exposure during adulthood was also associated with an overall increase in sex offending, but effects were dependent on “type.”

A Meta‐Analysis of Pornography Consumption and Actual Acts of Sexual Aggression in General Population Studies (2015). – Excerpt:

Meta‐analyses of experimental studies have found effects on aggressive behavior and attitudes. That pornography consumption correlates with aggressive attitudes in naturalistic studies has also been found. Yet, no meta‐analysis has addressed the question motivating this body of work: Is pornography consumption correlated with committing actual acts of sexual aggression? 22 studies from 7 different countries were analyzed. Consumption was associated with sexual aggression in the United States and internationally, among males and females, and in cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies. Associations were stronger for verbal than physical sexual aggression, although both were significant. The general pattern of results suggested that violent content may be an exacerbating factor.

Adolescents and Pornography: A Review of 20 Years of Research (2016) – Excerpt:

The goal of this review was to systematize empirical research that was published in peer-reviewed English-language journals between 1995 and 2015 on the prevalence, predictors, and implications of adolescents’ use of pornography. This research showed that adolescents use pornography, but prevalence rates varied greatly. Adolescents who used pornography more frequently were male, at a more advanced pubertal stage, sensation seekers, and had weak or troubled family relations. Pornography use was associated with more permissive sexual attitudes and tended to be linked with stronger gender-stereotypical sexual beliefs. It also seemed to be related to the occurrence of sexual intercourse, greater experience with casual sex behavior, and more sexual aggression, both in terms of perpetration and victimization.

Predicting the Emergence of Sexual Violence in Adolescence (2017) – Excerpt:

After adjusting for potentially influential characteristics, prior exposure to parental spousal abuse and current exposure to violent pornography were each strongly associated with the emergence of SV perpetration-attempted rape being the exception for violent pornography. Current aggressive behavior was also significantly implicated in all types of first SV perpetration except rape. Previous victimization of sexual harassment and current victimization of psychological abuse in relationships were additionally predictive of one’s first SV perpetration, albeit in various patterns.

In this national longitudinal study of different types of SV perpetration among adolescent men and women, findings suggest several malleable factors that need to be targeted, especially scripts of inter-personal violence that are being modeled by abusive parents in youths’ homes and also reinforced by violent pornography.

We conclude with another post from a major sexology listserve discussion of porn and sexual offenses/aggression. As you will see, the author is very pro-porn (and a PhD sex researcher):

I think that the general statement I made does stand for sexual aggression as well as for the other outcome variables. At this point, in addition to a) correlational data showing greater exposure to porn linked to all sorts of sexual and nonsexual aggressive attitudes and behaviors, we also have:

b) experimental data showing that exposure to porn increases nonsexual aggression in the lab (things like physical, material, or psychological aggression like the administration of electric shocks) (33 studies meta-analyzed in Allen, D’Alessio, & Brezgel, 1995);

c) experimental data showing exposure to porn increases attitudes supportive of sexual violence (acceptance of interpersonal violence, rape myth acceptance, and sexual harassment proclivities) (16 studies meta-analyzed in Emmers, Gebhardt, & Giery, 1995);

d) longitudinal evidence that watching more porn at Time 1 is linked to more acts of real-life sexual aggression at Time 2 (5 studies meta-analyzed in Wright, Tokunaga, & Kraus, 2015), even after controlling for many potential confounding factors, including sexual victimization, substance use, etc.

In light of all this evidence, it is really hard and unreasonable, in my opinion, to argue that the real-life causal links between porn and aggression are somehow not real and completely nonexistent. Yes, a dose of skepticism should remain, and better and more research studies should always continue to be done, but right now, if I was forced to bet, I’d have to say that I’d put my money on there being SOME negative effect of porn on sexual aggression, with that effect likely being a) relatively small, b) limited to a high-risk group of people, and c) much more pronounced for some types of porn (violent) than others (nonviolent but typical mainstream porn) and nonexistent for yet other types of porn (feminist, queer).

Of course, neither experimental nor longitudinal data are perfect for determining causality in the real world, but we all seem to agree that they strongly imply causality when it comes to other areas of psych research. They are our gold standards for establishing causality for all sorts of behavioral outcomes. Why are we so skeptical when it comes to this one area of research? Because it doesn’t suit our desires for porn not to have any negative effects? I’m sorry, but I love porn as much as you all do (I really do), but I cannot justify holding porn to higher standards of proof just because I don’t like the findings. This is what I meant when I said that rejecting or ignoring these findings makes us as blind and ideological about it as the anti-porn crusaders….

…..I didn’t mean to equate us with the anti-porn in how we use the findings and the implications for real-world interventions we draw from them. What I was saying is that just like they do, we seem to be employing some pretty strong confirmation biases to only see what we want to see. But by turning a blind eye to the evidence that keeps mounting, we are compromising our credibility as objective truth-seekers, and we are limiting the impact our position that banning porn is not the solution can have on enacting real-world change.

By taking an extreme position (“no kind of porn has any effects on sexual aggression in anyone”) which is not supported by the evidence, we’re making ourselves less relevant and more easily dismissed as just as ideologically driven as the crazies taking the other extreme position (“all porn increases sexual aggression in everyone who watches it”).

Again, don’t get me wrong: I love porn, I watch it all the time, and have zero desire to ban it.

On to the studies the Alliance carefully chose, and many more examples of what was purposely omitted.

Alliance Studies:

Burton, D. L., Leibowitz, G. S., & Howard, A. (2010).Comparison by crime type of juvenile delinquents on pornography exposure: The absence of relationships between exposure to pornography and sexual offense characteristics 1. Journal of Forensic Nursing, 6(3), 121-129. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance summary omits a few very important findings: porn use was related to both sexual offending and non-sexual crimes. From the abstract:

Sexual abusers reported more pre‐ and post‐10 (years of age) exposure to pornography than nonsexual abusers. Yet, for the sexual abusers, exposure is not correlated to the age at which the abusers started abusing, to their reported number of victims, or to sexual offense severity. The pre‐10 exposure subscale was not related to the number of children the group sexually abused, and the forceful exposure subscale was not correlated with either arousal to rape or degree of force used by the youth. Finally, exposure was significantly correlated with all of the nonsexual crime scores in the study.

The Alliance is hoping that no one reads the actual study.

Kutchinsky, B. (1991). Pornography and rape: Theory and practice? Evidence from crime data in four countries where pornography is easily available. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. Link to web

Analysis: Pre-internet data from the 1980’s. As with Milton Diamond’s selected countries, this involves nation-wide data. Addressed in the introduction.

Rasmussen, K. R., & Kohut, T. (2019). Does religious attendance moderate the connection between pornography consumption and attitudes toward women? The Journal of Sex Research, 56(1), 38-49. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Taylor Kohut. More citation inflation, as his study has nothing to do with sex offending. Like other Kohut studies (described above), he chose criteria to make sure religious women (who use less porn) score lower on his version of “egalitarian attitudes.” Kohut framed “egalitarianism” as only:

1. Support for abortion.
2. NOT Believing that family life suffers when the woman has a full-time job.

Regardless of your personal beliefs, it’s easy to see that religious populations would score far lower on Taylor Kohut’s 2-part “egalitarianism” assessment.

Here’s the key: secular populations, which tend to be more liberal, use porn at far higher rates than religious populations. By choosing only these 2 criteria and ignoring endless other variables, Taylor Kohut knew he would end up with porn use (greater in secular populations) correlating with his study’s strategically selected criteria of what constitutes “egalitarianism” (lower in religious populations). Then Kohut chose a title that spun it all.

Kristen N. Jozkowski, Tiffany L. Marcantonio, Kelley E. Rhoads, Sasha Canan, Mary E. Hunt & Malachi Willis (2019) A Content Analysis of Sexual Consent and Refusal Communication in Mainstream Films, The Journal of Sex Research, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2019.1595503 Link to web

More citation inflation. This study is not about pornography. None of the selected movies were X-rated. In fact, most were PG-13. Nice try, Alliance.

Mellor, E., & Duff, S. (2019).The use of pornography and the relationship between pornography exposure and sexual offending in males: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance summary was fairly accurate. However, we question the author’s choice of accepting only 21 of the 157 relevant papers for his review. Our reservations are supported by that fact that no other literature review arrives at the same conclusions. In addition, most of the 21 chosen papers involved adult on child sex offenders, not child on child, or adult on adult offenders. Commenting on Milton Diamond’s studies, researcher Neil Malamuth noted that the effects of pedophiles using child pornography may be quite different from the effects of non-pedophiles using adult pornography:

It is worthwhile to consider the possibility that there may be some very different “subgroups” with very differing (and opposite) influences of exposures, particularly in connection with child pornography, as suggested by Mickey Diamond’s work and the virtual pornography possibility. We have discussed this topic in the following article: Malamuth, N. & Huppin, M. (2007). Drawing the line on virtual child pornography: Bringing the law in line with the research evidence.

Put simply, the meta-analaysis omitted nearly every study on adult sexual offenders, which resulted in a very skewed result.

Ferguson, C. J., & Hartley, R. D. (2009).The pleasure is momentary… the expense damnable?: The influence of pornography on rape and sexual assault. Aggression and violent behavior, 14(5), 323-329. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance summary is accurate – “Victimization rates for rape in the United States demonstrate an inverse relationship between pornography consumption and rape rates. Data from other nations have suggested similar relationships.” However, the study depends on aggregated data on rape rates and porn availability from only a handful of countries. The serious flaws in these types of studies are examined above in the introduction, which also addressed the Milton Diamond study below.

Note: For years, Ferguson has been attacking the concept of internet addiction, while intensely campaigning to keep Internet Gaming Disorder out of the ICD-11. (He lost that one in 2019 when the World Health Organization adopted the ICD-11, but his campaign continues on many fronts.) In fact, Ferguson and Nicole Prause were co-authors on major paper attempting to discredit internet addictions. (Their assertions were debunked in a series of papers by experts, in this issue of Journal of Behavioral Addictions.)

Diamond, M., Jozifkova, E., & Weiss, P. (2011). Pornography and sex crimes in the Czech Republic. Archives of sexual behavior, 40(5), 1037-1043. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance’s summary is accurate: “A prolonged interval during which possession of child pornography was not illegal …showed a significant decrease in the incidence of child sex abuse.” Here’s what Malamuth said about Diamond’s study in a discussion on an academic sexology listserve (“You Wrote” is questioner, response is Malamuth):

Pornography use and sex crimes: I think that many people seem to have the impression that the correlational country wide research has shown an inverse correlation between porn use and rape. I don’t believe this is true at all. If you go to Milton Diamond’s own site you can see that once the data is separated between child sex abuse and rape, it is clear that the latter did not decrease (but also did not increase) as porn became more available. Furthermore you can see that there are examples of countries where at least cross-sectionally, there is a high positive correlation between the two. For example, there is an article there indicating that,

“Papua New Guinea, is the most pornography-obsessed country in the world, according to Google Trends. PNG has a population of less than 8 million people and low rates of internet use, but has the greatest percentage of searches for the words “porn” and “pornography” compared to the nation’s total searches. A study published in The Lancet reported that 59 percent of the men in PNG Autonomous Region of Bougainville had raped their partner and 41 per cent had raped a woman who was not their partner.

In addition, the article indicates that Top ten countries searching for ‘pornography’: Google Trends
1. Papua New Guinea
2. Zimbabwe
3. Kenya
4. Botswana
5. Zambia
6. Ethiopia
7. Malawi
8. Uganda
9. Fiji
10. Nigeria

I would guess that among these may also be countries with high rates of sexual and other forms of violence against women. Please note that I am not arguing that pornography is “the” or even “a” cause but rather against the common belief that world-wide or longitudinally that an inverse association has been demonstrated between porn use and rape. It would be interesting to conduct a study that looked cross-culturally at the association after controlling statistically for the risk factors of the Confluence Model, particularly Hostile Masculinity.

I would predict that in those countries with high levels of risk, there is a positive correlation between porn use and rape (particularly among men generally rather than only adjudicated crimes) but no correlation or an inverse one in countries with relatively few men who are at risk according to the Confluence Model.

YOU WROTE: at a society level, pornography may indeed have a positive effect on adjudicated sex crimes

RESPONSE: As I indicated before, I don’t believe the Diamond’s and related data reveal what is often assumed about sex crimes generally. As Diamond and colleagues have themselves noted, the data show an inverse relationship between pornography availability and child sex abuse. There is no similar significant association generally between pornography and rape. The causes of rape and the characteristics of rapists vs. child abusers are often quite different and should not be lumped together. In addition, the data are correlational at the country level generally and require much caution about causal relationships, partly due to the “aggregate problem” (Kingston & Malamuth, 2011).

What can be concluded with confidence is that for the countries studied, there is no general increase in rape when pornography laws are changed to allow greater availability of pornography. Also, it is important to keep in mind that it appears that all of the countries studied by Diamond and associates appear to be ones that may have relatively few men who are at relatively high risk for committing sexual aggression. I hadn’t previously looked up Croatia, but a quick google search indicates that 94% do not agree with the statement that women should tolerate violence in order to keep the family together.

YOU WROTE: but, within that society wide access there are men exposed to porn where porn increases risk of sex violence, due to a confluence of risk factors

RESPONSE: largely consistent with what you wrote but phrased somewhat differently: for men in the general population who have relatively high levels on the “key” risk factors, the data strongly indicate that “heavy” use of porn may increase sexually violent attitudes and behavioral inclinations.

YOU WROTE: societies which allow porn access may be engaging in a trade off, accepting a small amount of increased risk in a small group for a larger amount of decreased risk across the larger population

RESPONSE: I think we have to be careful about making generalizations about societies without taking into consideration the contextual differences among them. I would guess that changing pornography laws in Saudi Arabia vs. Denmark would have had very different consequences. Also, I think that focusing only or primarily on adjudicated sex crimes, particularly rape, may be a problem. For example, as we have written elsewhere, Japan is often used as one of the prime examples of countries where pornography is widely available (including “violent” porn) and rates of rape are very low now and historically.

Japan is indeed a country that has had strong socialized inhibitions against “within group” violence against women. Yet, consider other potential manifestations: “Groping in crowded commuter trains has been a problem in Japan: according to a survey conducted by Tokyo Metropolitan Police and East Japan Railway Company, two-thirds of female passengers in their 20s and 30s reported that they had been groped on trains, and the majority had been victimized frequently.” When violence against women has been tolerated, it has been extremely high (e.g., see Chang, *The Rape of Nanking*,). Although I am not necessarily disagreeing with your suggestion, I am not sure we can reach such a conclusion at this time.

Put simply, relying on two sets of nationwide data (reported sex crimes and estimated porn availability) from a handful of countries (while ignoring hundreds of other countries), to support a claim that more porn definitively leads to fewer sexual offenses, doesn’t fly among true scientists.

Goldstein, M., Kant, H., Judd, L., Rice, C., & Green, R. (1971).Experience with pornography: Rapists, pedophiles, homosexuals, transsexuals, and controls. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1(1), 1-15. Link to web

Analysis: A 1971 study on adult men (probably born in the 1920’s-40’s) to assess the effects of “Sex Films” on “deviants.” Note – the study categorized gay and transgender subjects as “deviants.” Numerous more recent studies (listed below), report findings that counter the 1971 study.

Hald, G. M., & Malamuth, N. N. (2015). Experimental effects of exposure to pornography: The moderating effect of personality and mediating effect of sexual arousal. Archives of sexual behavior, 44(1), 99-109. Link to web

Analysis: Supports the hypothesis that porn use may lead to sexual attitudes supporting violence against women among certain personality types. The abstract:

Using a randomly selected community sample of 200 Danish young adult men and women in a randomized experimental design, the study investigated the effects of a personality trait (agreeableness), past pornography consumption, and experimental exposure to non-violent pornography on attitudes supporting violence against women (ASV).

We found that lower levels of agreeableness and higher levels of past pornography consumption significantly predicted ASV. In addition, experimental exposure to pornography increased ASV but only among men low in agreeableness. This relationship was found to be significantly mediated by sexual arousal with sexual arousal referring to the subjective assessment of feeling sexually excited, ready for sexual activities, and/or bodily sensations associated with being sexually aroused. In underscoring the importance of individual differences, the results supported the hierarchical confluence model of sexual aggression and the media literature on affective engagement and priming effects.

Note: Men with “lower levels of agreeableness” might represent a significant percentage of the population.

Bauserman, R. (1996). Sexual aggression and pornography: A review of correlational research. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 18(4), 405-427. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance left out a key sentence from their excerpt of the abstract (it’s underlined):

Sex offenders typically do not have earlier or more unusual exposure to pornography in childhood or adolescence, compared to nonoffenders. However, a minority of offenders report current use of pornography in their offenses. Findings are consistent with a social learning view of pornography, but not with the view that sexually explicit materials in general contribute directly to sex crimes. The effort to reduce sex offenses should focus on types of experiences and backgrounds applicable to a larger number of offenders.

A whole lot of studies have been published in the last 25 years that do report links between porn use and sexual offending.

LGBT Section

Context/Reality: Not sure why this section exists. The studies here falsify nothing. The section could be viewed as another example of RealYBOP cherry-picking, as most other studies report higher rates of porn use and porn addiction (CSBD) in gays and lesbians. From The Role of Maladaptive Cognitions in Hypersexuality among Highly Sexually Active Gay and Bisexual Men (2014):

Problematic hypersexuality is a particular concern for gay, bisexual, and other MSM given the unique psychosocial factors driving this problem among this group, including minority stressors across development (Parsons, Grov, & Golub, 2012; Parsons et al., 2008) and the relationship between problematic hypersexuality and HIV risk (Dodge et al., 2008; Grov, Parsons, & Bimbi, 2010). In addition to experiencing disproportionate problems with hypersexuality compared to heterosexual men (Baum & Fishman, 1994; Missildine, Feldstein, Punzalan, & Parsons, 2005), gay and bisexual men contend with elevated rates of other factors shown to be associated with both hypersexuality and maladaptive cognitive processes, including childhood sexual abuse (Purcell et al., 2007) and stressors related to social prejudice and stigma (Muench & Parsons, 2004; Pincu, 1989).

These stressors combine with mental health problems, such as problematic hypersexuality, to form a synergistic cluster of risks, or syndemic, that simultaneously threaten the health of this group of individuals (Parsons et al., 2012; Stall et al., 2003). Thus, the identification of treatable components of any one of these health risks has the potential to disrupt the health-depleting cascade of interrelated risks facing members of this population.

The Alliance cherry-picked studies that did not assess porn’s effects on the user, while omitting all studies that did examine the effects of porn use on LGBT subjects (the following studies reported porn use linked to negative outcomes):

Sexually Explicit Online Media, Body Satisfaction, and Partner Expectations Among Men who have Sex with Men: a Qualitative Study (2017)– Excerpt:

Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 MSM, covering the perceived influence of MSM-specific SEOM. All nine men who broached the topics of body satisfaction and partner expectations reported that MSM-specific SEOM set unreasonably high physical appearance expectations for themselves and/or their potential partners.

Viewing Sexually Explicit Media and Its Association with Mental Health Among Gay and Bisexual Men Across the U.S. (2017) – Excerpts

Gay and bisexual men (GBM) have reported viewing significantly more sexually explicit media (SEM) than heterosexual men. There is evidence that viewing greater amounts of SEM may result in more negative body attitude and negative affect. However, no studies have examined these variables within the same model.

Greater consumption of SEM was directly related to more negative body attitude and both depressive and anxious symptomology. There was also a significant indirect effect of SEM consumption on depressive and anxious symptomology through body attitude. These findings highlight the relevance of both SEM on body image and negative affect along with the role body image plays in anxiety and depression outcomes for GBM.

Pornography use in sexual minority males: Associations with body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms, thoughts about using anabolic steroids and quality of life (2017) – Excerpts:

A sample of 2733 sexual minority males living in Australia and New Zealand completed an online survey that contained measures of pornography use, body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms, thoughts about using anabolic steroids and quality of life. Almost all (98.2%) participants reported pornography use with a median use of 5.33 hours per month.

Multivariate analyses revealed that increased pornography use was associated with greater dissatisfaction with muscularity, body fat and height; greater eating disorder symptoms; more frequent thoughts about using anabolic steroids; and lower quality of life.

The Dual Control Model – The Role Of Sexual Inhibition & Excitation In Sexual Arousal And Behavior (2007) – Study by Kinsey Institute scientists reporting a connection between porn exposure and both reduced desire and sexual performance. In an experiment employing video porn, 50% of the gay young men couldn’t become aroused or achieve erections with standard porn used in earlier experiments (average age was 29). The shocked researchers discovered that the men’s erectile dysfunction was,

“related to high levels of exposure to and experience with sexually explicit materials.“

The men experiencing erectile dysfunction had spent a considerable amount of time in bars and bathhouses where porn was “omnipresent,” and “continuously playing.” The researchers stated:

“Conversations with the subjects reinforced our idea that in some of them a high exposure to erotica seemed to have resulted in a lower responsivity to “vanilla sex” erotica and an increased need for novelty and variation, in some cases combined with a need for very specific types of stimuli in order to get aroused.”

Understanding the Personality and Behavioral Mechanisms Defining Hypersexuality in Men Who Have Sex With Men (2016) – Excerpt:

Further, we found no associations between the CSBI Control scale and the BIS-BAS. This would indicate that lack of sexual behavior control is related to specific sexual excitation and inhibitory mechanisms and not to more general behavioral activation and inhibitory mechanisms. This would seem to support conceptualizing hypersexuality as a dysfunction of sexuality as proposed by Kafka. Further, it does not appear that hypersexuality is a manifestation of high sex drive, but that it involves high excitation and a lack of inhibitory control, at least with respect to inhibition owing to expected negative outcomes.

Sexual Excitability and Dysfunctional Coping Determine Cybersex Addiction in Homosexual Males (Laier et al., 2015) – Neuropsychological study reported the signs and symptoms of addiction in gay men (greater cravings/sensitization) – Excerpt:

The aim of this study was to test this mediation in a sample of homosexual males. Questionnaires assessed symptoms of CA, sensitivity to sexual excitation, pornography use motivation, problematic sexual behavior, psychological symptoms, and sexual behaviors in real life and online. Moreover, participants viewed pornographic videos and indicated their sexual arousal before and after the video presentation. Results showed strong correlations between CA [addiction] symptoms and indicators of sexual arousal and sexual excitability, coping by sexual behaviors, and psychological symptoms.

CA was not associated with offline sexual behaviors and weekly cybersex use time. Coping by sexual behaviors partially mediated the relationship between sexual excitability and CA. The results are comparable with those reported for heterosexual males and females in previous studies and are discussed against the background of theoretical assumptions of CA, which highlight the role of positive and negative reinforcement due to cybersex use.

Depression, Compulsive Sexual Behavior, and Sexual Risk-Taking Among Urban Young Gay and Bisexual Men: The P18 Cohort Study (2016) – Excerpt:

Young gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (YMSM) are at increased likelihood of experiencing depression and engaging in condomless sexual behaviors…. We found a significant positive correlation between CSB and depression and between CSB and frequency of condomless anal sex acts reported over the last 30 days. Multivariate results found that the presence of both depression and CSB contributed to elevated sexual risk-taking among these urban YMSM.

Sexually Explicit Media and Condomless Anal Sex Among Gay and Bisexual Men (2017) – Excerpt:

Gay and bisexual men (GBM) have reported viewing significantly more sexually explicit media (SEM) than heterosexual men. There is some evidence that SEM depicting bareback anal sex may be linked to engagement in condomless anal sex (CAS) and thus HIV/STI transmission among GBM….. there was an interaction between amount of SEM consumed and percentage of bareback SEM consumed on both outcomes, such that men who reported both a high frequency of SEM consumption and a high percentage of their SEM being bareback reported the highest levels of risk behavior. These findings highlight the role that barebacking depicted in SEM may play in the normalization of sexual risk behaviors for GBM.

Sexually explicit media exposure as a sexual milestone among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (2018)– Excerpt:

Every 1-year delay in age of first SEM exposure resulted in a 3% decrease in the odds of engaging in condomless anal sex as an adult. This association remained significant in 3 separate multivariable models that controlled for age of sexual debut, age of anal sex debut, and current age, respectively. This association was moderated by ethnicity such that the effect was stronger among Latino men.

Conclusions: GBMSM who were exposed to SEM earlier in their lives report more sexual risk behavior as adults. SEM exposure in GBMSM is an important sexual development milestone deserving further research.

Sexually explicit online media and sexual risk among men who have sex with men in the United States (2014) – Excerpt:

This study aimed to describe sexually explicit online media (SEOM) consumption among men who have sex with men (MSM) in the United States and examine associations between exposure to unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) in SEOM and engagement in both UAI and serodiscordant UAI.

In the 3 months prior to interview, more than half (57 %) of the men reported viewing SEOM one or more times per day and almost half (45 %) reported that at least half of the SEOM they viewed portrayed UAI. Compared to participants who reported that 0-24 % of the SEOM they viewed showed UAI, participants who reported that 25-49, 50-74, or 75-100 % of the SEOM they viewed portrayed UAI had progressively increasing odds of engaging in UAI and serodiscordant UAI in the past 3 months. As SEOM has become more ubiquitous and accessible, research should examine causal relations between SEOM consumption and sexual risk-taking among MSM as well as ways to use SEOM for HIV prevention.

The relationship between pornography use and sexual behaviours among at-risk HIV-negative men who have sex with men (2010) – Excerpt:

Results: Time spent viewing pornography was significantly associated with having more male sexual partners and unprotected insertive anal sex acts. Moreover, increased substance use and decreased perception of risk for HIV infection were found to be significantly associated with greater time spent viewing pornography.

Conclusions: This exploratory study is novel in that it sheds light on the associations between viewing pornography and sexual risk taking for HIV infection. Future studies in this area should focus on understanding how the content of pornography; in particular, the viewing of unprotected and protected sex acts, may affect sexual risk taking behaviour.

Viewing pornography depicting unprotected anal intercourse: are there implications for HIV prevention among men who have sex with men? (2012)– Excerpt:

Polytomous logistic regression of the 751 subjects who provided data on pornography viewing showed significantly elevated odds ratios for having engaged in receptive UAI, insertive UAI, and both receptive and insertive UAI associated with increasing percentage of pornography viewed that depicted UAI. We also found independently significant associations of engaging in UAI with age, use of inhalant nitrites, and HIV status. Although the data cannot establish causality, our findings indicate that viewing pornography depicting UAI and engaging in UAI are correlated. Further research is needed to determine if this observation may have utility for HIV prevention.

Examining the relationship between use of sexually explicit media and sexual risk behavior in a sample of men who have sex with men in Norway (2015) – Excerpt:

The purpose of this study was to investigate consumption patterns of gay-oriented sexually explicit media (SEM) among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Norway, with a particular emphasis on a possible relationship between gay SEM consumption and HIV risk behavior.

SEM consumption was found to be significantly associated with sexual risk behaviors. Participants with increased consumption of bareback SEM reported higher odds of UAI and I-UAI after adjusting for other factors using multivariable statistics. MSM who started using SEM at a later age reported lower odds of UAI and I-UAI than MSM who started earlier. Future research should aim at understanding how MSM develop and maintain SEM preferences and the relationship between developmental and maintenance factors and HIV sexual risk behavior.

Normal, Problematic and Compulsive Consumption of Sexually Explicit Media: Clinical Findings using the Compulsive Pornography Consumption (CPC) Scale among Men who have Sex with Men (2015) – Excerpt:

While most (76-80%) MSM do not report compulsive symptoms, about 16-20% report levels of problematic SEM consumption, including 7% with extreme scores consistent with DSM criteria for compulsive disorders. Demographic, sexual, and HIV risk differences were identified between the three groups. Researchers and clinicians are encouraged to consider using the CPC scale for comprehensive assessment of compulsive sexual behavior.

On to the Alliance’s largely irrelevant papers:

Alliance Studies:

Downing, M. J., Schrimshaw, E. W., Scheinmann, R., Antebi-Gruszka, N., & Hirshfield, S. (2017). Sexually explicit media use by sexual identity: A comparative analysis of gay, bisexual, and heterosexual men in the United States. Archives of sexual behavior, 46(6), 1763-1776. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance summary seemed reasonable: Both gay and bisexual men reported significantly more frequent use of Internet SEM compared to heterosexual men. 20.7 % of heterosexual identified men reported viewing male same-sex behavior and 55.0 % of gay-identified men reported viewing heterosexual films.

Billard, T. J. (2019). (No) Shame in the Game: The Influence of Pornography Viewing on Attitudes Toward Transgender People. Communication Research Reports, 36(1), 45-56. Link to web

Analysis: The study surveyed transgender pornography viewers (reddit community dedicated to viewing transgender porn). It did not assess the effects of porn use. The findings:

In this study, we found statistically significant but substantively negligible associations between pornography consumption and attitudes toward transgender people, while finding highly significant and substantively large associations between shame about sexual attractions to transgender people and attitudes.

Though not hypothesized, these results do, however, offer evidence that among viewers of transgender pornography sexual shame is an important direct influence on attitudes toward transgender women.

The significance of the above findings remains unclear. As for ‘shame” two recent studies debunk an often repeated talking point that same induces porn addiction:

• The Moderating Influence of Self-Compassion on the Relationship Between Shame Tendency and Hypersexuality (2019): lower levels of shame correlated with higher levels of porn addiction.
• Do thinking styles play a role in whether people pathologise their pornography use? (2019): shame was unrelated to believing oneself to be a porn addict. In fact, the authors suggest that labeling oneself an addict may be reduce shame.

Like the other Alliance studies, this too falied to assess the effects of porn on the user.

McCormack, M., & Wignall, L. (2017).Enjoyment, exploration and education: Understanding the consumption of pornography among young men with non-exclusive sexual orientations. Sociology, 51(5), 975-991. Link to web

Analysis: More citation inflation as the study did not assess the effects of porn use .Only 35 subjects. Interviews, not quantitative. Abstract claimed that “pornography had educational benefits for these young men.” Not surprising, as most young men do get their sex education from porn. Citing Deniers Alliance member Alan Mckee, the authors admit they were uninterested in exploring the negative effects of porn use:

In order to move beyond the negative effects paradigm, McKee (2012) called for pornography to be conceived as a form of entertainment. He argued this would establish a different research agenda than one which is focused on potential negative effects.

Rather than focusing on the potential harms of pornography, we use an inductive analytic approach to explore the broader range of experiences that participants had, since the time they first consumed pornography.

The takeaway – most young men like porn.

Döring, N. (2000). Feminist views of cybersex: Victimization, liberation, and empowerment. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 3(5), 863-884. Link to web

Analysis: More citation inflation as it has nothing to do with this section’s theme or the effects of porn on the viewer. It’s nothing more than a random, 20 year-old opinion piece, claiming that:

“cybersex frees females to explore their sexualities more safely and to enjoy more sex, better sex, and different sex”

First, numerous other opinion pieces contradict this finding (a Google scholar search for pornography+feminism returns 57,000 citations). Second, the vast preponderance of studies link porn use to “un-egalitarian attitudes” toward women and sexist views.

Tolerance Section

Context/Reality: Tolerance or habituation is the need for higher doses of a drug or greater stimulation in an attempt to achieve the desired effect. Sometimes this phenomenon is called desensitization or habituation (less and less response to a drug or a stimulus). With porn users, tolerance/habituation leads to boredom with current genre or type of porn. Greater stimulation is often achieved by escalating to new or more extreme genres of porn.

Tolerance may be a sign of an addiction process or simply of physical dependence without addiction. Prause, Ley and other Deniers don’t appear to understand the difference. For example, millions of individuals take high levels of pharmaceuticals such as opioids for chronic pain, or prednisone for autoimmune conditions. Their brains and tissues have become dependent on them, and immediate cessation of use could cause severe withdrawal symptoms. However they are not necessarily addicted. Addiction involves multiple well-indentified brain changes that lead to what experts call the “addiction phenotype.” If the distinction is unclear, I recommend this simple explanation by NIDA.

The Alliance’s Tolerance Section was likely created as a vehicle for Deniers to claim that porn addiction doesn’t exist because tolerance has yet to be demonstrated (which is a lie). Several Alliance members (Prause, Janssen, Georgiadis, Finn, Klein and Kohut) have attempted this flawed strategy in two previous articles that YBOP dismantled:

• Analysis of “Data do not support sex as addictive” (Prause et al., 2017)
• Debunking “Why Are We Still So Worried About Wat­­ching Porn?”, by Marty Klein, Taylor Kohut, and Nicole Prause (2018).

The Deniers are wrong on two counts:

1. First, tolerance is not required to diagnose an addiction. You will find the language “neither tolerance nor withdrawal is necessary or sufficient for a diagnosis…” in both the DSM-IV-TR and DSM-5 where they address addiction.
2. That said, both internet porn research and numerous self-reports demonstrate that some porn users indeed experience withdrawal and/or tolerance. Employing various methodologies and approaches, the following diverse group of studies report habituation to “regular porn” along with escalation into more extreme and unusual genres. A few also report withdrawal symptoms: Over 40 studies reporting findings consistent with escalation of porn use (tolerance), habituation to porn, and even withdrawal symptoms

For internet porn users, tolerance leading to escalation has been reported both clinically and empirically for some time now. Norman Doidge MD wrote about this in his 2007 bestseller The Brain That Changes Itself:

The current porn epidemic gives a graphic demonstration that sexual tastes can be acquired. Pornography, delivered by high-speed Internet connections, satisfies every one of the prerequisites for neuroplastic change…. When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes, what they don’t say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content. The back pages of men’s risque magazines and Internet porn sites are filled with ads for Viagra-type drugs—medicine developed for older men with erectile problems related to aging and blocked blood vessels in the penis.

Today young men who surf porn are tremendously fearful of impotence, or “erectile dysfunction” as it is euphemistically called. The misleading term implies that these men have a problem in their penises, but the problem is in their heads, in their sexual brain maps. The penis works fine when they use pornography. It rarely occurs to them that there may be a relationship between the pornography they are consuming and their impotence.

In 2012 reddit/nofap produced a member survey, which found that over 60% of its members’ sexual tastes experienced significant escalation, through multiple porn genres.

Q: Did your tastes in pornography change?

• My tastes did not change significantly – 29%
• My tastes became increasingly extreme or deviant and this caused me to feel shame or stress – 36%
• My tastes became increasingly extreme or deviant and this did not cause me to feel shame or stress – 27%

And here’s the 2017 evidence from PornHub that real sex is decreasingly interesting to porn users. Porn isn’t enabling people to find their “real” tastes; it’s driving them beyond normal into urges to view extreme novelty and “unreal” genres:

It appears that the trend is moving more toward fantasy than reality. ‘Generic’ porn is being replaced with fantasy specific or scenario specific scenes. Is this as a result of boredom or curiosity? One thing is certain; the typical ‘in-out, in-out’ no longer satisfies the masses, who are clearly looking for something different” notes Dr Laurie Betito.

Below we provide a few examples of escalation and habituation/tolerance in porn viewers from this list of over 40 studies:

Here’s one of the first studies to ask porn users directly about escalation: Online sexual activities: An exploratory study of problematic and non-problematic usage patterns in a sample of men (2016). The study reports escalation, as 49% of the men reported viewing porn that was not previously interesting to them or that they once considered disgusting. An excerpt:

Forty-nine percent mentioned at least sometimes searching for sexual content or being involved in OSAs that were not previously interesting to them or that they considered disgusting.

The Dual Control Model: The Role Of Sexual Inhibition & Excitation In Sexual Arousal And Behavior, 2007. Indiana University Press, Editor: Erick Janssen, pp.197-222. In an experiment employing video porn (of the type used in previous experiments), 50% of the young men couldn’t become aroused or achieve erections with porn (average age was 29). The shocked researchers discovered that the men’s erectile dysfunction was,

related to high levels of exposure to and experience with sexually explicit materials.

The men experiencing erectile dysfunction had spent a considerable amount of time in bars and bathhouses where porn was “omnipresent,” and “continuously playing.” The researchers stated:

Conversations with the subjects reinforced our idea that in some of them a high exposure to erotica seemed to have resulted in a lower responsivity to “vanilla sex” erotica and an increased need for novelty and variation, in some cases combined with a need for very specific types of stimuli in order to get aroused.

A recent study directly addressed the tolerance question: Facets of impulsivity and related aspects differentiate among recreational and unregulated use of Internet pornography (2019) – Excerpt:

A further interesting result is that the effect size for post-hoc tests duration in minutes per session, when comparing unregulated [problematic] users with recreational–frequent users, was higher [in problematic users] in comparison to the frequency per week. This might indicate that individuals with unregulated IP [internet porn] use especially have difficulties to stop watching IP during a session or need longer time to achieve the desired reward, which might be comparable with a form of tolerance in substance use disorders.

How about about a longitudinal study? Exposure to online sexual materials in adolescence and desensitization to sexual content (2018)– Abstract:

The present study aimed to explore exposure to sexually explicit materials on the Internet and a possible desensitizing effect on the perception of online sexual content over time. The study design was longitudinal; data were collected in 3 waves at 6 months intervals starting in 2012. The sample included 1134 respondents (girls, 58.8%; mean age, 13.84 ± 1.94 years) from 55 schools.

The results showed that the respondents changed their perception of sexually explicit material on the Internet over time depending on age, frequency of exposure and whether exposure was intentional. They became desensitized in terms of being less bothered by the sexual content. The results may indicate a normalization of sexually explicit material on the Internet during adolescence.

Another adolecnt study: Effect of Pornography Exposure on Junior High School Teenagers of Pontianak in 2008 (2009) – Malaysian porn use study on junior high students. It’s unique in that this is the only study to report escalation into more extreme material, desensitization (tolerance), and porn addiction in a teen population. (It’s the only study to ask teens these questions.) Excerpts:

A total of 83.3% of junior high school adolescents in Pontianak City have exposed to pornography, and from being exposed as many as 79.5% experience the effects of exposure to pornography. Teenagers who experience the effects of exposure to pornography as much as 19.8% were in the addiction stage, [among the addicted] adolescents 69.2% is at the escalation stage, [among those who escalated] 61.1% is at the desensitization stage, and [among those who reported desensitization] 31.8% was at the stage of act out.

How about a brain scan study? Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption: The Brain on Porn (Kühn & Gallinat, 2014). This Max Planck Institute fMRI study found less grey matter in the reward system (dorsal striatum) correlating with the amount of porn consumed. It also found that more porn use correlated with less reward circuit activation while briefly viewing sexual photos. Researchers hypothesized that their findings indicated desensitization, and possibly tolerance, which is the need for greater stimulation to achieve the same level of arousal. Lead author Simone Kühn said the following about her study:

This could mean that regular consumption of pornography dulls the reward system. … We therefore assume that subjects with high pornography consumption require ever stronger stimuli to reach the same reward level …. This is consistent with the findings on the functional connectivity of the striatum to other brain areas: high pornography consumption was found to be associated with diminished communication between the reward area and the prefrontal cortex.

Another brain scan study Novelty, conditioning and attentional bias to sexual rewards (2015). Cambridge University fMRI study reporting greater habituation to sexual stimuli in compulsive porn users. An excerpt:

Online explicit stimuli are vast and expanding, and this feature may promote escalation of use in some individuals. For instance, healthy males viewing repeatedly the same explicit film have been found to habituate to the stimulus and find the explicit stimulus as progressively less sexually arousing, less appetitive and less absorbing (Koukounas and Over, 2000). … We show experimentally what is observed clinically that Compulsive Sexual Behavior is characterized by novelty-seeking, conditioning and habituation to sexual stimuli in males.

From the related press release:

This same habituation effect occurs in healthy males who are repeatedly shown the same porn video. But when they then view a new video, the level of interest and arousal goes back to the original level. This implies that, to prevent habituation, the sex addict would need to seek out a constant supply of new images. In other words, habituation could drive the search for novel images.

“Our findings are particularly relevant in the context of online pornography,” adds Dr Voon. “It’s not clear what triggers sex addiction in the first place and it is likely that some people are more pre-disposed to the addiction than others, but the seemingly endless supply of novel sexual images available online helps feed their addiction, making it more and more difficult to escape.”

How about Nicole Prause’s own EEG study, which itself actually found habituation? Modulation of Late Positive Potentials by Sexual Images in Problem Users and Controls Inconsistent with “Porn Addiction” (Prause et al., 2015). Compared to controls “individuals experiencing problems regulating their porn viewing” had lower brain responses to one-second exposure to photos of vanilla porn. The lead author claims these results “debunk porn addiction.” Incidentally, what legitimate scientist would claim that their lone anomalous study has debunked a well established field of study?

In reality, the findings of Prause et al. 2015 align perfectly with Kühn & Gallinat (2014), which found that more porn use correlated with less brain activation in response to pictures of vanilla porn. The Prause et al. findings also align with Banca et al. 2015, which reported that lower EEG readings meant that subjects were paying less attention to the pictures than controls. Put simply, frequent porn users were desensitized to static images of vanilla porn. They were bored (habituated or desensitized). Eight peer-reviewed papers agree that Prause et al. 2015 actually found desensitization/habituation in frequent porn users (consistent with addiction).

Here’s another study that reported both tolerance and withdrawal (two items Prause’s Lancet piece falsely claimed that no porn study had reported):The Development of the Problematic Pornography Consumption Scale (PPCS) (2017). This paper developed and tested a problematic porn use questionnaire that was modeled after substance addiction questionnaires. This 18-item questionnaire assessed tolerance and withdrawal with the following 6 questions:

———-

Each question was scored from one to seven on a Likert scale: 1- Never, 2- Rarely, 3- Occasionally, 4- Sometimes, 5- Often, 6- Very Often, 7- All the Time. The graph below grouped porn users into 3 categories based on their total scores: “Nonproblematic,” “Low risk,” and “At risk.” Results below show that many porn users experience both tolerance and withdrawal.

Put simply, this study actually asked about escalation (tolerance) and withdrawal – and both are reported by some porn users.

How about a study on men with porn-induced sexual dysfunctions? Pornography Induced Erectile Dysfunction Among Young Men (2019)– Study reveals tolerance (declining arousal) and escalation (needing more extreme material to be aroused) in such subjects. From the abstract:

This paper explores the phenomenon of pornography induced erectile dysfunction (PIED), meaning sexual potency problems in men due to Internet pornography consumption. Empirical data from men who suffer from this condition have been collected…. they report that an early introduction to pornography (usually during adolescence) is followed by daily consumption until a point is reached where extreme content (involving, for example, elements of violence) is needed to maintain arousal.

A critical stage is reached when sexual arousal is exclusively associated with extreme and fast-paced pornography, rendering physical intercourse bland and uninteresting. This results in an inability to maintain an erection with a real-life partner, at which point the men embark on a “re-boot” process, giving up pornography. This has helped some of the men to regain their ability to achieve and sustain an erection.

Having processed the data, I have noticed certain patterns and recurring themes, following a chronological narrative in all of the interviews. These are: Introduction. One is first introduced to pornography, usually before puberty. Building a habit. One begins to consume pornography regularly. Escalation. One turns to more “extreme” forms of pornography, content-wise, in order to achieve the same effects previously achieved through less “extreme” forms of pornography. Realization. One notices sexual potency problems believed to be caused by pornography use. “Re-boot” process. One tries to regulate pornography use or eliminate it completely in order to regain one’s sexual potency.

I could provide 35 more studies reporting or suggesting habituation to “regular porn” along with escalation into more extreme and unusual genres, but these are sufficient to reveal the Alliance’s unconscionable cherry-picking. On to their own two citations:

Alliance Studies:

Landripet, Busko, & Štulhofer (2019).Testing the content progression thesis: A longitudinal assessment of pornography use and preference for coercive and violent content among male adolescents. Social Science Research. Link to web

Analysis: By Alliance member Alexander Štulhofer. As with previous studies, Štulhofer limits his sample to Croatian high-school students (age 16; 58% females). Escalation often takes years to manifest, so high school students aren’t the obvious choice of subjects as they are (presumably) early in their porn-viewing careers.

Second, the study limited escalation inquiry specifically to porn that the teen judged as “coercive” or “painful.” This omits the majority of genres young people name when they describe their history of escalation (e.g. incest porn, hentai, TS porn, gang bang, bukake, MILF, FemDom, bestiality, you name it).

And to what degree are coercion and pain accurately perceived, as streaming hard-core videos shape teens’ perception of what constitutes “real sex”? A 2019 review (Viewing pornography through a children’s rights lens) comments on this question:

Research suggests that those who develop problems with pornography viewing show a stronger preference for novel imagery than healthy controls, as well as more rapid habituation to images, which in turn may increase the drive for even more novel imagery (Barron and Kimmel, 2000).

This may explain the documented trend towards more extreme pornography, which may include violence, choking, hitting, hair pulling, violent penetration by multiple men, gagging, force, male domination, non-consensual acts, female submission, female eagerness and willingness, degradation and name calling, ejaculating on a female face, anal intercourse, multiple partners, bondage, domination, sadism, masochism, racism, urination, defecation, bestiality, rape, and child abuse imagery (more commonly known as “child pornography”), which today constitutes approximately 20 percent of the pornography industry (Foley, 2006; Gorman, Monk-Turner, & Fish, 2010; “Harm being done to Australian children,” 2016; Hamilton-Giachritsis, Hanson, Whittle, & Beech, 2017).

Indeed, one controversial study found that 88 percent of pornography includes acts of violence (Bridges, Wosnitzer, Scharrer, Sun, & Liberman, 2010; Foubert, Brosi, & Bannon, 2011), while others place it at a much lower percentage (McKee, 2005). McKee arrives at the especially low percentage of two percent by excluding all violence that is deemed to be consensual, but in the case of children watching pornography, they may not understand the difference between consensual violence and nonconsensual violence and there is no evidence that the former is less impactful than the latter on a child viewer. Regardless of which line of research is correct, almost all of the violence that does exist in pornography today is directed towards women (Barron & Kimmel, 2000, p. 164; Hamilton-Giachritsis, et al., 2017).

Third, the study did not directly ask the students if their porn use had escalated into genres they considered to be extreme, or not in alignment with their original sexual tastes. Thus, the Štulhofer study could not accurately assess tolerance or escalation.

In fact, Štulhofer’s actual findings (omitted from the abstract, but included in the paper) link higher porn use to viewing a greater variety of porn genres:

Interestingly, our analysis pointed to a significant association between higher baseline frequency of pornography use and less pronounced decline in the preference for coercive/violent contents over time. Although this finding neither supports nor falsifies the CPT, it suggests that higher pornography use is linked to more diverse content (i.e., more heterogeneous interest) in adolescence. This may be relevant for subsequent dynamics of pornography use and should be further investigated.

Translation: greater porn use was related to teens seeking out novel and stranger genres of porn (escalation). This is not surprising as chronic porn users often describe escalation in their porn use that takes the form of greater time viewing or seeking out new genres of porn. New genres that induce shock, surprise, violation of expectations or even anxiety can function to increase sexual arousal, and in porn users whose response to stimuli is growing blunted due to overuse, this phenomenon is extremely common.

Shor, E., & Seida, K. (2019).“Harder and harder”? Is mainstream pornography becoming increasingly violent and do viewers prefer violent content?. The Journal of Sex Research, 56(1), 16-28. Link to web

Analysis: This study did not assess porn use in any subjects so it can tell us nothing about tolerance or escalation. Nor is the Alliance summary accurate. This paper is a misleading, irresponsible attempt to counter the 2010 Ana Bridges study on aggression in porn (“Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography videos: A content analysis update”), which found that 88% of the most popular porn films featured physical aggression against women.

However, Shor & Seida 2019 is not comparable to the Bridges study, which chose the most popular videos. This newer study can tell us nothing about trends of aggression in the most popular videos between 2008-2016, as it claims to do. Why? Because the study did not assess videos based only on popularity, as this excerpt from the “Sample and Data Section” reveals:

In our initial sampling strategy, we sought to increase representation for both women and men from multiple ethnic and racial groups. Accordingly, we employed a purposive sampling technique, including in the initial sample the most watched videos from the following PornHub categories: “All” (70 videos), “Interracial” (25 videos), “Ebony” (52 videos), “Asian/Japanese” (35 videos), “Latina” (19 videos), and “Gay” (25 videos)

Choosing videos by predetermined categories, while omitting most other categories (there are probably hundreds of categories), means the researchers did not choose the most popular videos by views.

It gets worse. In the “Dependent variables to assess video popularity” section the researchers say they added in several random videos with relatively few views:

Our initial sample included only the most highly watched videos, leading to relatively low heterogeneity on this measure. We therefore added an additional random sample of videos that received fewer views. The final sample thus includes a substantial variety of videos, ranging from about 11,000 views to more than 116 million views.

In short, the researchers appear to have kept one foot on the scales until they produced the trend they were seeking. This paper looks more like attempted propaganda than serious scholarship. Had it been reviewed by serious academic scholars, such shoddy, biased work would never have passed peer review.

Our impression that their work is both biased and unscientific is bolstered by the unsupported remarks that the authors of the paper then made to mainstream reporters. The researchers implied that their artfully produced results had not only proved that porn was becoming less violent (flying in the face of nearly every other account anywhere), but that these results also somehow disproved the “addictiveness of pornography” – presumably based on their unconvincing claim that porn is becoming “softer.” Balderdash. Below are a few studies countering this study’s spurious claims (in chronological order):

Dominance and Inequality in X-Rated Videocassettes (1988) – Excerpt:

Feminists have been concerned about the debasement of women in sexually explicit material. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of domination and sexual inequality in x-rated videocassettes through a content analysis of 45 widely available x-rated videocassettes. The sample was randomly drawn from a list of 121 adult movie titles widely available in family videocassette rental stores in southern California. Over half of the explicitly sexual scenes were coded as predominantly concerned with domination or exploitation. Most of the domination and exploitation was directed by men toward women. Specific indicators of domination and sexual inequality, including physical violence, occurred frequently. The growth of the videocassette rental industry and the popularity of x-rated films, coupled with the messages these films convey, is a cause for concern.

Violence and degradation as themes in “adult” videos (1991) – Excerpt:

Videocassettes have become the dominant medium for pornography. One previous content analysis examined the prevalence of violence in such videos. The Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography (1986) has asserted that nonviolent pornography depicting degradation produces harm similar to that from violent pornography. Content analysis of a 10% random sample (n = 50) of the videos displayed in the “adult” section of a video store showed that 13.6% of the scenes in the videos contained violent acts and 18.2% contained degrading acts.

Racism and sexism in interracial pornography (1994) – Excerpt:

Racism and sexism were examined in interracial (Black/White) X‐rated pornography videocassettes. Sexism was demonstrated in the unidirectional aggression by men toward women. Racism was demonstrated in the lower status of Black actors and the presence of racial stereotypes. Racism appeared to be expressed somewhat differently by sex, and sexism somewhat differently by race. For example, Black women were the targets of more acts of aggression than were White women, and Black men showed fewer intimate behaviors than did White men. More aggression was found in cross‐race sexual interactions than in same‐race sexual interactions. These findings suggest that pornography is racist as well as sexist.

Sexual violence in three pornographic media: Toward a sociological explanation (2000) – Excerpt:

This study measures the sexually violent content in magazine, video, and Usenet (Internet newsgroup) pornography. Specifically, the level of violence, the amount of consensual and nonconsensual violence, and the gender of both victim and victimizer are compared. A consistent increase in the amount of violence from one medium to the next is found, although the increase between magazines and videos is not statistically significant. Further, both magazines and videos portray the violence as consensual, while the Usenet portrays it as nonconsensual. Third, magazines portray women as the victimizers more often than men, while the Usenet differs sharply and portrays men as the victimizers far more often.

Free Adult Internet Web Sites: How Prevalent Are Degrading Acts? (2010) – Excerpt:

Russell (Dangerous relationships: Pornography, misogyny, and rape, 1988) argued that essential features of pornography were the inclusion of more female than male nakedness and the portrayal of men in dominant roles. Utilizing a sample of 45 Internet adult web sites, a content analysis was conducted to see if free and easily available Internet adult videos may generally be described as pornography in line with Russell’s (1988) work…. More than half of the videos in our sample (55% of all videos with two actors present) were more likely to show naked women than men and 55% of all videos had a main theme of either exploitation or domination where the male actor wasportrayed as being in control. Therefore, a majority of the free internet videos in our sample may generally be described as degrading pornography in line with Russell’s [34] work.

Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography videos: a content analysis update (2010) – Excerpt:

This current study analyzes the content of popular pornographic videos with the objectives of updating depictions of aggression, degradation, and sexual practices and comparing the study’s results to previous content analysis studies. Findings indicate high levels of aggression in pornography in both verbal and physical forms. Of the 304 scenes analyzed, 88.2% contained physical aggression, principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7% of scenes contained verbal aggression, primarily name–calling. Perpetrators of aggression were usually male, whereas targets of aggression were overwhelmingly female. Targets most often showed pleasure or responded neutrally to the aggression.

Gender (In)equality in Internet Pornography: A Content Analysis of Popular Pornographic Internet Videos (2015) – Excerpt:

Although Internet pornography is widely consumed and researchers have started to investigate its effects, we still know little about its content. This has resulted in contrasting claims about whether Internet pornography depicts gender (in)equality and whether this depiction differs between amateur and professional pornography. We conducted a content analysis of three main dimensions of gender (in)equality (i.e., objectification, power, and violence) in 400 popular pornographic Internet videos from the most visited pornographic Web sites.

Objectification was depicted more often for women through instrumentality, but men were more frequently objectified through dehumanization. Regarding power, men and women did not differ in social or professional status, but men were more often shown as dominant and women as submissive during sexual activities.

What Behaviors Do Young Heterosexual Australians See in Pornography? A Cross-Sectional Study (2018) – Excerpt:

This study investigated how frequently a group of young heterosexual Australians (ages 15 to 29) saw a range of behaviors represented in pornography over the previous 12 months…. Men’s pleasure (83%) was seen frequently by the highest proportion of young people surveyed, followed by a man being portrayed as dominant (70%). Women were more likely to report frequently seeing violence toward a woman.

Age, Aggression, and Pleasure in Popular Online Pornographic Videos (2019) – Excerpt:

This article analyzes the content of 172 popular videos from the pornographic website PornHub.com . Although I found no difference between the levels of aggression in videos featuring teenage performers and those featuring adult performers, the former were more likely to have a title that suggests aggression and to include anal penetration and facial ejaculation. In addition, although all female performers were more likely to express pleasure following aggression, this association was stronger in videos featuring teenage performers. These videos portray aggression and degradation as both consensual- i.e., men dominating willing women-and sensual– i.e., producing pleasure for both men and women.

Body Image Section

Context/Reality: This Alliance section contains no reviews of the literature or meta-analyses. Rather, it contains only a solitary study on porn users, and it reported only an indirect effect. In reality, the vast preponderance of studies link porn viewing to negative body image, greater objectification and greater dissatisfaction. Let’s begin with the meta-analyses and reviews the Deniers Alliance omitted:

Media and Sexualization: State of Empirical Research, 1995–2015 – Excerpt:

The goal of this review was to synthesize empirical investigations testing effects of media sexualization. The focus was on research published in peer-reviewed, English-language journals between 1995 and 2015. A total of 109 publications that contained 135 studies were reviewed. The findings provided consistent evidence that both laboratory exposure and regular, everyday exposure to this content are directly associated with a range of consequences, including higher levels of body dissatisfaction, greater self-objectification, greater support of sexist beliefs and of adversarial sexual beliefs, and greater tolerance of sexual violence toward women. Moreover, experimental exposure to this content leads both women and men to have a diminished view of women’s competence, morality, and humanity.

The Alliance also omitted this 2017 meta-analysis of quantitative studies – Women’s perceptions of their male partners’ pornography consumption and relational, sexual, self, and body satisfaction: toward a theoretical model.– Excerpts:

This paper’s meta-analysis of quantitative studies conducted to date primarily supports the hypothesis that the majority of women are negatively impacted by the perception that their partner is a pornography consumer. In main analyses including all of the available studies, perceiving partners as pornography consumers was significantly associated with less relational, sexual, and body satisfaction. The association for self satisfaction was also negative. The results also suggested that women’s satisfaction will generally decrease in correspondence with the perception that their partners are consuming pornography more frequently.

The Alliance omitted this 2017 review of longitudinal studies as well – Longitudinal associations between the use of sexually explicit material and adolescents’ attitudes and behaviors: A narrative review of studies. – Excerpts:

The reviewed studies found that the use of sexually explicit material may affect a range of adolescents’ attitudes and beliefs, such as sexual preoccupancy (Peter & Valkenburg, 2008b), sexual uncertainty (Peter & Valkenburg, 2010a; van Oosten, 2015), the sexual objectification of women (Peter & Valkenburg, 2009a), sexual satisfaction (Peter & Valkenburg, 2009b), recreational and permissive sex attitudes (Baams et al., 2014; Brown & L’Engle, 2009; Peter & Valkenburg, 2010b), egalitarian gender role attitudes (Brown & L’Engle, 2009) and body surveillance (Doornwaard et al., 2014).

And the Alliance omitted this 2019 review on adolescents and porn use – Consumption of sexually explicit internet material and its effects on minors’ health: latest evidence from the literature. – From abstract:

According to selected studies (n = 19), an association between consumption of online pornography and several behavioral, psychophysical and social outcomes – earlier sexual debut, engaging with multiple and/or occasional partners, emulating risky sexual behaviors, assimilating distorted gender roles, dysfunctional body perception, aggressiveness, anxious or depressive symptoms, compulsive pornography use – is confirmed.

The impact of online pornography on minors’ health appears to be relevant. The issue can no longer be neglected and must be targeted by global and multidisciplinary interventions. Empowering parents, teachers and healthcare professionals by means of educational programs targeting this issue will allow them to assist minors in developing critical thinking skills about pornography, decreasing its use and obtaining an affective and sex education that is more suitable for their developmental needs.

Alliance Studies:

Vogels, E. A. (2018).Loving oneself: The associations among sexually explicit media, body image, and perceived realism. The Journal of Sex Research, 1-13. Link to web

Analysis: Cherry-picked outlier study with only an indirect effect (i.e. statistical manipulation) in a non-representative sample.

Borgogna, N. C., Lathan, E. C., & Mitchell, A. (2019). Is Women’s Problematic Pornography Viewing Related to Body Image or Relationship Satisfaction?. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 1-22. Link to web

Analysis: The Alliance summary is only partially accurate and omits important findings (“pornography viewing frequency, perceptions of excessive use, and control difficulties were unrelated to body image”). First, no correlations between some aspects (not all) of problematic porn use and body image must be viewed as an outlier result. Second, the Alliance omitted that some aspects of problematic porn use were correlated to poorer body image. Excerpt from the study:

The findings from this study support the need for evidence-based interventions for women experiencing problematic viewing. Particularly, our findings indicate that women who use pornography to escape mental/emotional problems also demonstrate poor body image and relationship satisfaction.

Third, and most importantly, the study’s abstract incorrectly stated that frequency or porn use was unrelated to relationship satisfaction. In reality, more porn use, and problematic porn use, were correlated with poorer relationship satisfaction. From the study: RAS (#6) = “relationship satisfaction”:

Excerpt from the body of the study:

We specifically examined the relationships between viewing frequency and problematic viewing constructs on body image and relationship satisfaction in women….. Also regarding H1, viewing frequency was significantly negatively associated with women’s relationship satisfaction at the bivariate level.

The Deniers omitted this key finding.

Laan, E., Martoredjo, D. K., Hesselink, S., Snijders, N., & van Lunsen, R. H. (2017). Young women’s genital self-image and effects of exposure to pictures of natural vulvas. Journal of psychosomatic obstetrics & gynecology, 38(4), 249-255. Link to web

Analysis: More citation inflation – as this study has nothing to do with porn viewing. Excerpts from the study:

Forty-three women were either shown pictures of natural vulvas (N = 29) or pictures of neutral objects (N = 14). Genital self-image was measured before and after exposure to the pictures and two weeks later.

Results: A majority of the participants felt generally positively about their genitals. Having been exposed to pictures of natural vulvas resulted in an even more positive genital self-image, irrespective of levels of sexual function, sexual distress, self-esteem and trait anxiety. In the women who had seen the vulva pictures, the positive effect on genital self-image was still present after two weeks.

News flash: You can learn anatomy without visiting Pornhub.

To expose the Alliance’s irresponsible cherry-picking we provide numerous studies linking porn use to poorer self-image and body dissatisfaction, which they purposely omitted:

Effect of Erotica on Young Men’s Aesthetic Perception of Their Female Sexual Partners (1984) – Excerpt:

After exposure to beautiful females, mates’ aesthetic value fell significantly below assessments made after exposure to unattractive females; this value assumed an intermediate position after control exposure.

Pornography’s Impact on Sexual Satisfaction (1988) – Excerpt:

Male and female students and nonstudents were exposed to videotapes featuring common, nonviolent pornography or innocuous content. Exposure was in hourly sessions in six consecutive weeks. In the seventh week, subjects participated in an ostensibly unrelated study on societal institutions and personal gratifications. [Porn use] strongly impacted self-assessment of sexual experience. After consumption of pornography, subjects reported less satisfaction with their intimate partners—specifically, with these partners’ affection, physical appearance, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance proper.

Influence of popular erotica on judgments of strangers and mates (1989) – Excerpt:

In Experiment 2, male and female subjects were exposed to opposite sex erotica. In the second study, there was an interaction of subject sex with stimulus condition upon sexual attraction ratings. Decremental effects of centerfold exposure were found only for male subjects exposed to female nudes. Males who found the Playboy-type centerfolds more pleasant rated themselves as less in love with their wives.

Adolescents’ Exposure to a Sexualized Media Environment and Their Notions of Women as Sex Objects (2007) – Excerpt:

Exposure to sexually explicit material in on-line movies was the only exposure measure significantly related to beliefs that women are sex objects in the final regression model, in which exposure to other forms of sexual content was controlled.

Exposure to Sexually Explicit Material and Variations in Body Esteem, Genital Attitudes, and Sexual Esteem among a Sample of Canadian Men (2007) – Excerpt:

As predicted, significant negative correlations were obtained between exposure to pornographic imagery on the Internet and levels of genital and sexual esteem.

Sex in America Online: An Exploration of Sex, Marital Status, and Sexual Identity in Internet Sex Seeking and Its Impacts (2008)– Excerpt:

This was an exploratory study of sex and relationship seeking on the Internet, based on a survey of 15,246 respondents in the United States Seventy-five percent of men and 41% of women had intentionally viewed or downloaded porn. Men and gays/lesbians were more likely to access porn or engage in other sex-seeking behaviors online compared with straights or women.

A symmetrical relationship was revealed between men and women as a result of viewing pornography, with women reporting more negative consequences, including lowered body image, partner critical of their body, increased pressure to perform acts seen in pornographic films, and less actual sex, while men reported being more critical of their partners’ body and less interested in actual sex.

Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Notions of Women as Sex Objects: Assessing Causality and Underlying Processes (2009)– Excerpt:

However, the direct influence of notions of women as sex objects on exposure to SEIM was only significant for male adolescents. Further analyses showed that, regardless of adolescents’ gender, liking of SEIM mediated the influence of exposure to SEIM on their beliefs that women are sex objects, as well as the impact of these beliefs on exposure to SEIM.

Pornography and the Male Sexual Script: An Analysis of Consumption and Sexual Relations (2014)– Excerpt:

We argue pornography creates a sexual script that then guides sexual experiences. To test this, we surveyed 487 college men (ages 18-29 years) in the United States to compare their rate of pornography use with sexual preferences and concerns. Results showed the more pornography a man watches, the more likely he was to use it during sex, request particular pornographic sex acts of his partner, deliberately conjure images of pornography during sex to maintain arousal, and have concerns over his own sexual performance and body image. Further, higher pornography use was negatively associated with enjoying sexually intimate behaviors with a partner.

Sex-related online behaviors and adolescents’ body and sexual self-perceptions (2014)– Excerpt:

Four-wave longitudinal data among 1132 seventh- to 10th-grade Dutch adolescents (mean age at wave 1: 13.95 years; 52.7% boys) were collected. Self-perception outcomes at wave 4 and parental strategies predicting online behaviors were investigated by adding regression paths to growth models.

Higher initial levels and/or faster increases in sex-related online behaviors generally predicted less physical self-esteem (girls’ SNS use only), more body surveillance, and less satisfaction with sexual experience. Private Internet access and less parental rule setting regarding Internet use predicted greater engagement in sex-related online behaviors. Although most sex-related online behaviors are not widespread among youth, adolescents who engage in such behaviors are at increased risk for developing negative body and sexual self-perceptions

No Harm in Looking, Right? Men’s Pornography Consumption, Body Image, and Well-Being (2014) – Excerpt:

Path analyses revealed that men’s frequency of pornography use was (a) positively linked to muscularity and body fat dissatisfaction indirectly through internalization of the mesomorphic ideal, (b) negatively linked to body appreciation directly and indirectly through body monitoring…

Does exposure to sexually explicit Internet material increase body dissatisfaction? A longitudinal study (2014)

Based on a two-wave panel survey held among a nationally representative sample of 1879 Dutch respondents we found that more frequent exposure to SEIM increased males’ dissatisfaction with their body in general and their stomach in particular.

Internet Pornography Use and Sexual Body Image in a Dutch Sample (2016)– Excerpt:

Penis size dissatisfaction is associated with pornography use… These results support prior speculation and self-reports about the relationship between pornography use and sexual body image among men.

Viewing Sexually Explicit Media and Its Association with Mental Health Among Gay and Bisexual Men Across the U.S. (2017) – Excerpts

Gay and bisexual men (GBM) have reported viewing significantly more sexually explicit media (SEM) than heterosexual men. There is evidence that viewing greater amounts of SEM may result in more negative body attitude and negative affect. However, no studies have examined these variables within the same model.

Greater consumption of SEM was directly related to more negative body attitude and both depressive and anxious symptomology. There was also a significant indirect effect of SEM consumption on depressive and anxious symptomology through body attitude. These findings highlight the relevance of both SEM on body image and negative affect along with the role body image plays in anxiety and depression outcomes for GBM.

Pornography use in sexual minority males: Associations with body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms, thoughts about using anabolic steroids and quality of life (2017) – Excerpts:

A sample of 2733 sexual minority males living in Australia and New Zealand completed an online survey that contained measures of pornography use, body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms, thoughts about using anabolic steroids and quality of life. Almost all (98.2%) participants reported pornography use with a median use of 5.33 hours per month.

Multivariate analyses revealed that increased pornography use was associated with greater dissatisfaction with muscularity, body fat and height; greater eating disorder symptoms; more frequent thoughts about using anabolic steroids; and lower quality of life.

Sexually Explicit Online Media, Body Satisfaction, and Partner Expectations Among Men who have Sex with Men: a Qualitative Study (2017)– Excerpt:

Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 MSM, covering the perceived influence of MSM-specific SEOM. All nine men who broached the topics of body satisfaction and partner expectations reported that MSM-specific SEOM set unreasonably high physical appearance expectations for themselves and/or their potential partners.

Internet Pornography Use Among Collegiate Women: Gender Attitudes, Body Monitoring, and Sexual Behavior (2018) – Excerpt:

Women who use Internet pornography had a higher endorsement of rape myths, a higher number of sexual partners, and engaged in more body monitoring.

Major Motivators and Sociodemographic Features of Women Undergoing Labiaplasty (2018)– Excerpts:

Half of the patients reported that they had an idea about the female genitalia (50.7%) and they were influenced through the media (47.9%). The majority of those (71.8%) stated that they did not have normal genitalia and considered labiaplasty more than 6 months ago (88.7%). The pornography consumption rate in the last month was 19.7% and was significantly related with lower genital self-image and self-esteem.

Perceptions of male partner pressure to be thin and pornography use: Associations with eating disorder symptomatology in a community sample of adult women (2019) – Study on porn’s effects on the female partner of a porn user. Excerpt:

The present study examined two partner-specific variables that were hypothesized to be linked to women’s ED symptoms: perceived male partner thinness-related pressures and pornography use.

Current and previous partner pornography use were related to higher ED symptomatology, adjusting for age and women’s reports of being bothered by this use. Partner thinness-related pressure and previous partner pornography use were associated with ED symptomatology both directly and through thin-ideal internalization, whereas current partner pornography use was directly associated with ED symptomatology.

Pornography and Heterosexual Women’s Intimate Experiences with a Partner (2019) – Excerpts:

Among female consumers who were sexually active, higher rates of consumption for masturbation were associated with increased mental activation of the pornographic script during sex-heightened recall of pornographic images during sex with a partner, heightened reliance on pornography for achieving and maintaining arousal, and a preference for pornography consumption over sex with a partner. Furthermore, higher activation of the pornographic script during sex, rather than simply viewing pornographic material, was also associated with higher rates of insecurities about their appearance and diminished enjoyment of intimate acts such as kissing or caressing during sex with a partner.

Sociocultural Influences on Men’s Penis Size Perceptions and Decisions to Undergo Penile Augmentation: A Qualitative Study (2019) – Excerpts:

An increasing number of men are dissatisfied with their penis size and are seeking cosmetic procedures to enhance their penis size. However, less is known about the social and cultural factors that influence men to consider these procedures….. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with 6 adult men who had previously undergone a penile augmentation.

Three main themes emerged from the interviews, namely “influence of pornography”, “comparison with peers” and “indirect appearance-related teasing”. The men noted that the large penises of male actors in pornography had skewed their perception of normal penis size. All men had compared their penis size with their peers, usually in the locker room, and often felt their own penis was smaller as a result.

Size Matters After All: Experimental Evidence that SEM Consumption Influences Genital and Body Esteem in Men (2019) – Excerpts:

Previous research has found that images depicted in the mainstream media have a negative influence on self-esteem, particularly among women. With the ease of accessibility and distribution of sexually explicit material (SEM) in recent years, due largely to the rise of the Internet, it has been postulated that consumers of SEM may experience reduced self-esteem in an effect similar to that found in research on exposure to mainstream media imagery.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to directly examine the effect of SEM exposure on state-specific self-esteem in comparison with media advertisements utilizing both genders in an experimental design. As hypothesized, men exposed to SEM reported statistically significant reduced satisfaction with the appearance of their genitalia compared with those who viewed media images or no images at all.

Our results do suggest, then, that exposure to SEM has a negative impact on the state self-esteem of some male consumers, specifically about the size and appearance of their genitals, lending credence to theories of social comparison. Previous research on this topic has been largely based on self-report; our methodology explicitly exposed participants to SEM during data collection.

Performers Section

Context/Reality: None of the Alliance members has authored a study on porn performers. Moreover, the Alliance’s site claims to be concerned with “the effects of sex films” on viewers. So why has the Alliance thrown in a section with two cherry-picked studies reporting positive news about female porn performers? The answer is painfully obvious: the Alliance functions to promote porn use and support the porn industry’s agenda (as needed). If you think we are exaggerating check out what the “experts” post on their collective Twitter account.

Alliance Studies:

Griffith, J. D., Mitchell, S., Hart, C. L., Adams, L. T., & Gu, L. L. (2013). Pornography actresses: An assessment of the damaged goods hypothesis. Journal of Sex Research, 50(7), 621-632. Link to web

Analysis: Another example of Alliance cherry-picking. Why did the Deniers’ Alliance omit the following studies on adult film performers?

Dubin, J. M., Greer, A. B., Valentine, C., O’Brien, I. T., Leue, E. P., Paz, L., … & Ramasamy, R. (2019). Evaluation of Indicators of Female Sexual Dysfunction in Adult Entertainers. The journal of sexual medicine. Link to web

Analysis: The finding is not surprising as most everyone would expect female porn performers to experience lower rates of sexual dysfunction than reported in the general population. First, the general population includes a large portion of individuals with chronic physical or mental conditions that affect both sexual and general health (diabetes, psychiatric illness, depression, autoimmune disease, chronic pain, etc.) Moreover, porn stars tend to be physically fit, attractive, sexual athletes, and often report an earlier onset of sexual activity. That said, lower rates of sexual dysfunction do not equate with greater well-being.

Nonetheless, this citation is a perfect example of the Deniers’ cherry-picking: the Alliance omitted a study by the same research group. It reported ED rates in male performers that are significantly higher than in the general population. The research survey of male adult film actors, published in 2018, reported that 37% of male porn stars (ages 20-29) had moderate to severe erectile dysfunction. (The study employed the IIEF, which measures function during partnered sex, the standard urology test for erectile function.)

Here are some examples of the Alliance’s Twitter account promoting the female performer study (yet not the male study):

Once again, promoting the study on female performers only: