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Over 100 quick stats and findings from an ever-growing body of research that details the effects of porn for individuals, relationships, and society.
Increased pornography consumption is linked to men’s enjoyment of degrading, uncommon, or aggressive sexual behaviors.
Despite porn’s promise of improving consumers’ sex lives, research shows that consuming porn is associated with decreased sexual satisfaction.
Research has shown that those who don’t consume porn report higher relationship quality—on every measure— than those who viewed pornography alone.
In more committed relationships, only 46% of women accurately reported how much their partner consumed porn with nearly 40% of men reporting more consumption than their partners believed was occurring, according to a 2017 study.
Porn consumption is linked to poorer relationship quality.
Studies consistently show that porn is linked to lower relationship satisfaction and lower relationship quality.
Research shows that even individuals who are accepting of pornography tend to experience psychological distress when their own partners consume pornography.
Research has found that those who enjoy extreme porn tend to prefer porn to real-life sex as a way to achieve sexual arousal.
Research consistently shows that porn consumers are twice as likely to later experience a divorce or breakup —even after controlling for marital happiness, sexual satisfaction, and other relevant factors.
Some frequent porn consumers can become so accustomed to the exaggerated forms of sex they see in porn, that they may have a difficult time becoming aroused in real-life sexual encounters unless porn is also present.
One study that kept track of couples over time found that consuming porn was the second strongest predictor that a relationship would suffer.
Research shows that people who consume porn tend to later experience lower relationship satisfaction.
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.
According to a 2021 study, only 5.94% of porn-consuming respondents said that they watched porn because of a "lack of sexual satisfaction." In other words, the vast majority of porn consumers are watching porn for reasons other than their partner not being "enough."
Research suggests that pornography can make young people more sexually illiterate —in other words, it’s actively spreading harmful misinformation about sex.
According to a UK survey of over 22,000 adult women, 16% reported having been forced or coerced to perform sex acts the other person had seen in porn.
Research shows that those with an interest in extreme or degrading porn are more likely to reenact porn scenes during sex with a partner.
A study of women in relationships with men who consume porn found that the frequency of the man’s porn consumption was negatively correlated with the woman’s sense of self-esteem, level of relationship quality, and sexual satisfaction.
Porn consumers tend to be more accepting of cheating.
Research indicates that young people often feel pressured to imitate porn when having sex.
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