The knowledge that porn harms individuals, relationships, and society is no longer a secret. For anyone paying attention to recent research findings and current events, a quick Google search will bring up multiple articles reporting on the considerable negative effects that can come from watching porn or porn culture in our society, including on our sexual health.
For every groundbreaking study and heartbreaking personal experience showing how porn is unhealthy, a common belief persists. Many still think porn is ultimately healthy, safe, and empowering to consume.
However convincing these arguments sound, there is solid research to illustrate the opposite. So, what’s the best way to deal with these misconceptions? Confront them with quality information.
We’ll provide you with the research, and ultimately, you decide.
Here are three common claims about how porn can be beneficial, countered with information worth considering.
1. Common claim: “Watching porn is a natural and important part of having your sexual needs met.”
The facts: This is not a black-and-white issue, and we’re certainly not here to control anyone’s sex life. That being said, consider the idea that sex is natural, but porn is a produced product. It is possible to be both pro-sex and anti-porn.
The fact is research shows how pornography distorts people’s perceptions of sex, intimacy, body image, sexual performance, and much more. The research on how porn affects how you view yourself, your partner, and your relationships in general is contrary to the idea that porn “helps” your sex life or sexual health.
It hurts it in a big way. Consider a few research studies.
This study, published in January 2021, evaluated over 14,000 participants. Its findings confirm that frequent, problematic porn consumption can cause poor sexual functioning. This issue affects both men and women and can worsen over time.Bőthe, B., Tóth-Király, I., Griffiths, M. D., Potenza, M. N., Orosz, G., & Demetrovics, Z. (2021). Are sexual functioning problems associated with frequent pornography use and/or problematic pornography use? Results from a large community survey including males and females. Addictive Behaviors, 112, 106603. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106603Copy
But that’s not the only one. Study after study has shown that contrary to popular belief, porn itself is bad news for long-term relationships and healthy, satisfactory sexuality.Minarcik, J., Wetterneck, C. T., & Short, M. B. (2016). The effects of sexually explicit material use on romantic relationship dynamics. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 5(4) 700-707. doi:10.1556/2006.5.2016.078Copy Park, B. Y., et al. (2016). Is internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysunction? A Review with Clinical Reports, Behavioral Sciences, 6, 17. doi:10.3390/bs6030017Copy Not an unsupportive and porn-disapproving partner, not too-little porn consumption, but the porn itself. The majority of research reflects that porn negatively affects satisfaction within the relationship and ultimately can lead a person to withdraw from a loved one and/or be unsatisfied with sex.Wright, P. J., & Tokunaga, R. S. (2018). Women's perceptions of their male partners’ pornography consumption and relational, sexual, self, and body satisfaction: Toward a theoretical model.42(1), 55-73. doi:10.1080/23808985.2017.1412802Copy Stewart, D. N., & Szymanski, D. M. (2012). 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. Sex Roles, 67(5), 257-271. doi:10.1007/s11199-012-0164-0Copy
As porn becomes more normalized, we want to be a source of information pointing out that porn is not harmless. This isn’t a moral argument. This comes down to you and your personal relationships and your own sexuality and the opportunity to make an informed decision about what will make them indefinitely thrive.
2. The claim: “Porn allows you to explore different aspects of sexuality that you may not be comfortable trying out in real life.”
The facts: Porn is made for entertainment, not education. And, consider that the majority of porn available on mainstream sites heavily features violence. So while someone might go to porn sites looking for diverse sexual expression, they’ll likely be confronted with a common theme: sexual violence, especially against women.
The largest study of online pornography to date was published in The British Journal of Criminology in April 2021, and it raises urgent questions about the extent of sexually violent, nonconsensual, and even criminal material easily and freely available on mainstream porn websites. Over a six-month period, researchers analyzed the homepages of the three most popular porn websites—Pornhub, XVideos, and XHamster. The study surveyed 131,738 videos, the largest sample used to date.Vera-Gray, F., McGlynn, C., Kureshi, I., & Butterby, K. (2021). Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography. The British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azab035Copy
The study concluded that 1 in 8 video titles alone shown to first-time users on the homepages was labeled with text describing sexually violent acts.
The porn industry increasingly capitalizes on content that deviates from what more tame, “conventional” sex entails. In porn, violent images aren’t a passive byproduct. They’re the goal. Let’s look at more evidence.
A study done a few years ago analyzed 304 popular porn films and found that 88% of them contained physical violence and 49% of them included verbal aggression. The films depicted the women, most of whom received abuse, as either neutral or enjoying the abuse.Bridges, A. J., Wosnitzer, R., Scharrer, E., Sun, C., & Liberman, R. (2010). Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography videos: a content analysis update. Violence against women, 16(10), 1065–1085. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801210382866Copy
Or, look at this 2020 study that entailed a large-scale content analysis and coding of a sample of 7,430 pornographic videos taken from the two most popular free porn sites, Pornhub and XVideos. The study found physical aggression against women present in 44.3% of Pornhub and 33.9% of Xvideos scenes. The study found that physical aggression was substantially more common in online pornographic videos than verbal aggression.Fritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy
Specifically, women were the target of nearly 97% of all physically aggressive acts in the samples from both sites.Fritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy
And check out this study published in 2021 that involved researchers analyzing the homepages of the three most popular porn websites—Pornhub, XVideos, and XHamster. 131,738 videos were surveyed, making it the largest study of online pornography to date. Recently published in The British Journal of Criminology, the study raises urgent questions. It examines the extent of sexually violent, nonconsensual, and even criminal material on mainstream porn websites. Material that is easily and freely available.Vera-Gray, F., McGlynn, C., Kureshi, I., & Butterby, K. (2021). Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography. The British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azab035Copy
Violence in porn isn’t an exception. It embodies entire genres on porn sites.
Porn companies may sell the idea that they’re about sexual exploration. However, the reality shows the opposite. The industry significantly fuels and capitalizes on sexual violence. The porn industry exploits the issues of sexual assault, abuse, and nonconsensual sexual encounters for entertainment and profit.
So if you’re looking for healthy models of sexual expression and different aspects of sexuality, you are not likely to find it on a porn site. Not to mention that for an industry that often markets itself as being LGBTQ+ friendly, the porn industry exploits and fetishizes LGBTQ+ relationships endlessly. How is that acceptable?
3. The claim: “Porn is empowering because it allows performers and consumers to express their sexuality freely.”
The facts: It’s no secret that child exploitation, rape, trafficking, and even nonconsensual content have ended up on popular porn tube sites.
Sometimes, porn and trafficking are one and the same—videos of trafficking victims end up on porn sites more often than you’d expect. One of the most disturbing realities of the porn industry’s ecosystem is the abuse that performers face. Even professional performers are not exempt from this abuse. Unfortunately, it’s pervasive. When you look closely, you find no formal system for reporting abuse. There is also no system for addressing it while keeping the performer safe.
What’s worse? Reporting abuse publicly often results in blacklisting.
Some content on porn sites is absolutely nonconsensual. We are not claiming that all porn is nonconsensual, but rather, raising awareness that there is often no way to tell if the porn a consumer views is completely consensual or produced with coercion.
We can say that porn does not empower either the performer or the consumer.
Story after story arises of abuse on set, and consumers would be none the wiser (especially with the prevalence of violent porn on porn sites). Check out these ex-performers who tell about the horrors they faced while filming. Other online platforms have written exposés on the terrible abuse that is not being systematically addressed.
Or if that isn’t convincing, just read this Jezebel.com story, this story on Daily Beast, this story on Complex.com, this Rolling Stone story, this Daily Beast story, this Bustle.com story, this story on CNN, this NY Post story, this Gizmodo.com story, this BBC report, this Florida Sun-Sentinel report, this Daily Wire story, this Buzzfeed News profile, and this UK Independent story for further evidence that the mainstream porn industry features nonconsensual videos and videos of trafficked individuals. And yes, this includes videos on Pornhub and other mainstream porn sites.
Is this truly empowering for anyone on either side of the screen?
Still, we’d like to set the record straight: Even if performers accept pay for work that abused them, it’s still unacceptable abuse. And no matter a person’s work, this kind of abuse should never be tolerated and is never deserved.
For each of us, this is a reminder that consent is tricky in porn. It’s elusive, maybe near impossible to confirm. Even if something was filmed consensually at one time, performers can later regret signing away their consent.
Aside from that, performers face various pressures to smile and tell the camera everything is okay—financial pressure, career pressure, and survival mode pressure, to name a few—but that’s clearly not always the case.
So, is porn always a harmless personal fantasy that allows for free sexual expression? Or is it often an edited, abusive nightmare?
The trouble is, if you’re on the other side of the screen, there’s no way to tell. This is why we are exposing the industry for what it is: a facilitator of abuse and the epicenter of exploitation.
Not always, no. But far more often than we could even know, abusive content is sold on the same shelf as exploitative content with no clear way of how to tell the difference.
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