Fast Facts Archive

(International Andrology London, 2017)

A 2017 poll found that the more porn a man consumes, the more likely he is to be dissatisfied with his penis size. And the same goes for women with male partners— the more porn they consume, the less satisfied they are with their partner’s penis size.

Citations

International Andrology London. (2017). The porn hypothesis – findings prove porn consumption fuels the desire for penis enlargement surgery in the UK. Retrieved from https://london-andrology.co.uk/news/the-porn-hypothesis-findings-prove-porn-consumption-fuels-the-desire-for-penis-enlargement-surgery-in-the-uk/

How Porn Can Harm Consumers’ Sex Lives

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(Martellozzo, Monaghan, Adler, Davidson, Leyva, & Horvath, 2016)

Over half of 11 to 16-year-old boys (53%) and over a third of 11 to 16-year-old girls (39%) reported believing that pornography was a realistic depiction of sex, according to a 2016 report.

Citations

Martellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J.R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M.A.H. (2016). 'I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it'. A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. London: Middlesex University. NSPCC. Retrieved from https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/media/1187/mdx-nspcc-occ-pornography-report.pdf

How Porn Can Distort Consumers’ Understanding Of Healthy Sex

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(Banca, Morris, Mitchell, Harrison, Potenza, & Voon, 2016; Kühn & Gallinat, 2014)

Desensitization, or a numbed pleasure response, has been shown to happen in cases of pornography consumption.

Citations

Banca, P., Morris, L. S., Mitchell, S., Harrison, N. A., Potenza, M. N., & Voon, V. (2016). Novelty, conditioning and attentional bias to sexual rewards. Journal of psychiatric research, 72, 91–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2015.10.017
Kühn, S., & Gallinat, J. (2014). Brain structure and functional connectivity associated with pornography consumption: The brain on porn. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(7), 827-834. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93

How Porn Can Become An Escalating Behavior

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(Hilton, 2013; Goodwin, Browne, & Rockloff, 2015)

Porn is considered a supernormal stimulus.

Citations

Hilton D. L., Jr (2013). Pornography addiction - a supranormal stimulus considered in the context of neuroplasticity. Socioaffective neuroscience & psychology, 3, 20767. https://doi.org/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767
Goodwin, B. C., Browne, M., & Rockloff, M. (2015). Measuring Preference for Supernormal Over Natural Rewards: A Two-Dimensional Anticipatory Pleasure Scale. Evolutionary Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704915613914

How Porn Can Change The Brain

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(Wright, Tokunaga, Herbenick, & Paul, 2021)

Research suggests that pornography can make young people more sexually illiterate —in other words, it’s actively spreading harmful misinformation about sex.

Citations

Wright, P. J., Tokunaga, R. S., Herbenick, D., & Paul, B. (2021). Pornography vs. sexual science: The role of pornography use and dependency in U.S. teenagers’ sexual illiteracy. Communication Monographs, 1-22. doi:10.1080/03637751.2021.1987486

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(Internet Watch Foundation, 2021)

The Internet Watch Foundation recently reported that during 2020, approximately 44% of all child sexual abuse material reported to the IWF involved self-generated material. That’s a 16% increase from 2019 when only a third of reports involved self-generated imagery.

Citations

Internet Watch Foundation. (2021). The annual report 2020: Self-generated child sexual abuse. Retrieved from https://annualreport2020.iwf.org.uk/trends/international/selfgenerated

How The Porn Industry Profits From Nonconsensual Content And Abuse

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(Sun, Wright, & Steffen, 2017)

Research suggests that porn can influence women to be more submissive in sexual encounters.

Citations

Sun, C. F., Wright, P., & Steffen, N. (2017). German Heterosexual Women’s Pornography Consumption and Sexual Behavior. Sexualization, Media, & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2374623817698113

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(Martellozzo, Monaghan, Adler, Davidson, Leyva, & Horvath, 2016)

Of the adolescents who had been exposed to porn, 28% were first exposed by accident, 19% were unexpectedly shown pornography by someone else, and only 19% searched for it intentionally, according to research by the NSPCC.

Citations

Martellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J.R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M.A.H. (2016). 'I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it'. A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. London: Middlesex University. NSPCC. Retrieved from https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/media/1187/mdx-nspcc-occ-pornography-report.pdf

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(Thorn, 2020)

According to a 2020 report, approximately 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys aged 13-17 report sharing their own nudes, despite the fact that those images are legally considered “child pornography”.

Citations

Thorn. (2020). Thorn research: Understanding sexually explicit images, self-produced by children. Retrieved from https://www.thorn.org/blog/thorn-research-understanding-sexually-explicit-images-self-produced-by-children/

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(Brown, Durtschi, Carroll, & Willoughby, 2017)

People who use porn as a self-soothing technique tend to have some of the lowest reports of emotional and mental wellbeing according to a 2017 study.

Citations

Brown, C. C., Durtschi, J. A., Carroll, J. S., & Willoughby, B. J. (2017). Understanding and predicting classes of college students who use pornography. Computers in Human Behavior, 66, 114-121. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.09.008

How Porn Can Impact Mental Health and Fuel Loneliness

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(Carroll, Busby, Willoughby, & Brown, 2017)

Only 4% of women who were casually dating men reported that their partner regularly consumed porn, when in reality, 50% of the men who were casually dating reported that they regularly consumed porn.

Citations

Carroll, J. S., Busby, D. M., Willoughby, B. J., & Brown, C. C. (2017). The porn gap: Differences in men's and women's pornography patterns in couple relationships. 16(2), 146-163. doi:10.1080/15332691.2016.1238796

How Porn Can Hurt A Consumer’s Partner

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(Ruvalcaba & Eaton, 2020)

1 in 12 U.S. adults report that they have been victims of image-based abuse —sometimes called “revenge porn—and 1 in 20 report that they have been perpetrators of image-based abuse.

Citations

Ruvalcaba, Y., & Eaton, A. A. (2020). Nonconsensual pornography among U.S. adults: A sexual scripts framework on victimization, perpetration, and health correlates for women and men. Psychology of Violence, 10(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000233

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(Vera-Gray, McGlynn, Kureshi, & Butterby, 2021)

Researchers have found that representations of step-relationships in porn titles were actually less common than depictions of blood relationships, with the majority of incest-themed titles describing sexual activity between immediate family members.

Citations

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/azab035

How Porn Can Promote Sexual Violence

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(Fritz, Malic, Paul, & Zhou, 2021; Zhou & Paul, 2016)

Research shows that mainstream porn featuring people of color often promotes racism by focusing on degrading stereotypes.

Citations

Fritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2021). Worse than objects: The depiction of Black women and men and their sexual relationship in pornography. Gender Issues, 38(1), 100-120. doi:10.1007/s12147-020-09255-2
Zhou, Y., & Paul, B. (2016). Lotus blossom or dragon lady: A content analysis of “Asian women” online pornography. Sexuality & Culture, 20(4), 1083-1100. doi:10.1007/s12119-016-9375-9

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(Tollini & Diamond-Welch, 2021)

While most porn consumers are generally unconcerned about the potential mistreatment of porn performers, about 70% of porn consumers who do learn about mistreatment in the porn industry take some form of action to combat it, including changing their porn habits.

Citations

Tollini, C., & Diamond-Welch, B. (2021). American adult pornography consumers’ beliefs and behaviors related to pornography studios mistreating their performers. Sexuality & Culture, doi:10.1007/s12119-021-09872-3

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(Carroll, Busby, Willoughby, & Brown, 2017)

In a study of casually dating adults, zero women reported that their partner consumed pornography daily or every other day. But in reality, 43% of casually dating men in the study reported this level of heavy porn consumption.

Citations

Carroll, J. S., Busby, D. M., Willoughby, B. J., & Brown, C. C. (2017). The porn gap: Differences in men's and women's pornography patterns in couple relationships. 16(2), 146-163. doi:10.1080/15332691.2016.1238796

How Porn Can Hurt A Consumer’s Partner

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(Bridges, Wosnitzer, Scharrer, Sun, & Liberman, 2010)

Researchers have found that approximately 95% of the targets of violence or aggression in porn appeared either neutral to the abuse, or were depicted as responding with pleasure.

Citations

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/10.1177/1077801210382866

How Porn Can Promote Sexual Violence

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(Harvey, 2020)

While many LGBTQ+ youth turn to porn to learn more about their own sexuality, porn often fetishizes, misrepresents, and exploits LGBTQ+ people in damaging ways.

Citations

Harvey, P. (2020). Let’s talk about porn: The perceived effect of online mainstream pornography on LGBTQ youth. In D. N. Farris, D. R. Compton & A. P. Herrera (Eds.), Gender, sexuality and race in the digital age (pp. 31-52). Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-29855-5_3 Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29855-5_3

How Porn Can Fuel Sex Trafficking

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(Fernandez, Kuss, & Griffiths, 2020)

Even quitting porn for a short time can lessen its negative effects and have positive effects on consumers' lives and relationships.

Citations

Fernandez, D. P., Kuss, D. J., & Griffiths, M. D. (2020). Short-term abstinence effects across potential behavioral addictions: A systematic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 76, 101828. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2020.101828

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(End Revenge Porn, 2014)

According to one survey of nonconsensual pornography victims, 51% reported having suicidal thoughts due to the image-based abuse, and 93% reported experiencing severe emotional distress.

Citations

End Revenge Porn (2014). Revenge porn statistics. Civil Cyber Rights Initiative. Retrieved from https://www.cybercivilrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/RPStatistics.pdf

How The Porn Industry Profits From Nonconsensual Content And Abuse

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