Thanks to the flood of science and research that has come out on the topic of porn in our digital age, our society is seeing that there are legitimately harmful effects of porn consumption.
But what about porn that isn’t mainstream, live, hardcore video content? There are many different forms of pornography, such as softcore, hentai, animated, erotica, and audio porn, just to name a few.
So what are the harms of these? Are there any?
Let’s focus on erotica—written explicit content—for a minute.
Erotica, simply put, is literature that describes sex in graphic detail, often to arouse the reader. Many romance novels contain sexually explicit language, and there are countless websites online dedicated to telling explicit stories about sexual encounters, real and fictional.
We’ve received many questions about this type of material from people who want to know if reading these highly exciting stories can be as unhealthy as watching porn.
Is erotica as harmful as internet porn?
So what’s the answer? Is reading erotica equally as harmful as watching pornography?
As it stands right now, there’s very little research on erotica and how it may affect consumers. While one study suggests that reading erotica may have a negative impact on attitudes toward women,Harris, E. A., Thai, M., & Barlow, F. K. (2017). Fifty shades flipped: Effects of reading erotica depicting a sexually dominant woman compared to a sexually dominant man. 54(3), 386-397. doi:10.1080/00224499.2015.1131227Copy there is not enough research on the topic to show an established pattern of erotica’s potential effects.
Every once in a while, however, we’ll receive a story from someone who is compulsively hooked to reading what they call “written porn,” similar to someone who can’t seem to stop watching porn.
The following message is one we received from a woman who fell into a struggle with erotica.
One takeaway: while reading is definitely not the same as watching, written porn could possibly have some negative effects on readers. Reading exaggerated descriptions of sex could give the reader unrealistic expectations for sex, and if it fetishizes abuse, could normalize abusive behavior that is harmful in reality.
It all depends on the individual, and it depends on the content.
One person’s personal experience with “written porn”
“Dear FTND,
Someone I know once told me that boys look at porn, girls read porn.
While this isn’t a solid rule, I feel that it is a fairly accurate generalization. I am living proof of that.
For me, it’s very easy to avoid looking at porn—watching a porn video makes me feel uncomfortable. I feel acute shame. Hentai is easier because it doesn’t feel as uncomfortable when it’s anime (something else I didn’t find any reference to).
But, my compulsion to porn happened because of written porn; and it is just as easy to find as video porn.
The beginning of an obsession
I had a passing introduction to porn in a couple of books I read as a teenager, but they were “softcore” and didn’t lead to anything more. It was when I read the Fifty Shades of Grey series that my porn obsession began.
I read the series out of curiosity, something I have negative feelings about now. The fact that the series was loosely based on bondage and discipline (B&D), dominance and submission (D&S), and sadism & masochism (S&M) practices, or BDSM for short, just made it worse for me.
I went searching for more information on BDSM after reading E.L. James’ twisted version of it out of curiosity and soon found sites where I could read porn of any genre. And there is a wide array.
“Softcore” love-story type sex, incest or pseudo-incest, bestiality, threesomes or group sex, mind control and behavior modification, lots of anal, crazy kinky sex…even kidnapping, rape, and murder. These were all “genres” that anyone could read.
Cruelty, horror, and humiliation are each distinct genres. For me, sticking to one genre and avoiding the things that seem abhorrent doesn’t always work since a story picked for one genre may introduce new elements in a way that makes them seem normal.
My obsession grew and began affecting my body image, my relationship with my husband in and out of the bedroom—my entire view on sex changed. I developed several porn-induced fetishes and found that I had to think about the things that I read about in order to be turned on for sex or achieve an orgasm.
Trying to find a way out
I finally reached the point where I had to think: What do the things I read say about me? Do I want to be controlled? Do I want my husband to control my life choices or even what we do in the bedroom?
I married him because he made me feel like I could do anything I set my mind to. He married me because he wanted an equal partner to support and be supported by. He doesn’t want the responsibility and burden of making all of the choices in our marriage or in the bedroom.
I knew what I was doing was harmful to me and my relationship, so I made the decision to stop visiting online pornographic story sites. But that didn’t end my obsession. I stopped reading “hardcore” porn and instead found the world of “softcore” porn published literature, what is sometimes referred to as “mommy porn.” My Kindle Unlimited subscription soon came to be my biggest enabler.
Later, in struggling to cut the porn out of my reading, I decided to simply skip the sex scenes in my books. This sometimes worked but usually didn’t. I would go through cycles of more porn or less porn and sometimes no porn in my reading. But reading a romance story without explicit, arousing scenes now felt lacking.
Still working to overcome
I am still working on overcoming my porn compulsion. I’ve had to think seriously about what I want in life, the person I want to be, and the wife I want to be. I have thought back to the early stages of my relationship with my husband, when sex was about the love we felt for each other, and experiencing that with him was exciting and everything I needed for our sex life to be fulfilling.
I decided to only think about my husband during sex and focus on my love for him and my attraction to him, and being present in the moment.
My porn-induced BDSM fetish damaged our sex life because it wasn’t mutually agreed upon and made me want to be controlled during sex and be told what to do and when to do it…even though it wasn’t as fulfilling in real life as it seemed when I read about it.
Now, because of my phase with it, my husband is used to calling the shots in our sex life when that doesn’t actually satisfy either of us and giving up that control is difficult. Changing the way I think, feel, and act is difficult, and I know that I will never be able to get back to the place where I was before my obsession and feeling completely comfortable with myself as I am.
“Mommy porn” literature is seen as being innocent and not harmful in the ways that video porn is, but it really feels just the same to me. It affected my brain and relationships in similar ways by introducing unrealistic and violent fantasies.
Please encourage research for written porn and other types of pornography in the same way that you do video porn. Help people to see that just because it’s a book or a cartoon and not real performers doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have the potential to hurt someone with unrealistic expectations or lead to harmful habits and obsessions.
Please include information and help specifically for written porn on your site.
– E.”
So is erotica porn?
Research on the effects of erotica is lacking. However, anecdotal evidence suggests it may negatively affect many consumers’ lives. This is something to consider.
Regardless, it’s time to prioritize healthy portrayals of sexuality and relationships. Too often, the exaggerated, toxic portrayals in pornographic content break the focus on real, healthy relationships. So, let’s refocus on love.
Need help?
For those reading this who feel they are struggling with pornography, you are not alone. Check out Fortify, a science-based recovery platform dedicated to helping you find lasting freedom from pornography. Fortify now offers a free experience for both teens and adults. Connect with others, learn about your unwanted porn habit, and track your recovery journey. There is hope—sign up today.
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Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, 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. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, 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 Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
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