According to the findings of a new study published in the journal Psychological Medicine, pornography use by young men and young women has different sexual consequences.
According to study authors Nicolas Sommet and Jacques Berent, research on the impact of pornography on young women’s and men’s sexuality is largely divided into two camps. Some scholars argue that pornography creates anxiety about one’s sexual performance by setting unattainable standards of sexual comparison; other scholars argue that pornography can serve as a source of sexual inspiration and can even be used to improve one’s sexual performance.
It’s difficult to tell the difference between these two opposing viewpoints because many existing studies have small sample sizes and cross-sectional designs, making accurate conclusions from the study literature impossible. After being intrigued by the idea of explaining the association between pornographic use and sexual performance in both men and women, the researchers embarked on a large-scale study that followed tens of thousands of people over the course of three years.
The researchers carried out a three-wave longitudinal study, with each wave lasting three years and measuring pornographic use, sexual self-competence, and sexual functioning on an annual basis. Through a collaboration with one of the most popular French YouTubers at the time of the study, Sommet and Berent were able to collect responses from over 100,000 young men and women. The study’s first wave included 101,572 French-speaking men and women from five countries, including 8,608 heterosexual couples. 218 people completed all three waves, bringing the total to 21 818 people.
According to the researchers, increased pornographic use was associated with lower sexual performance in men, but increased sexual performance in women was associated with lower sexual performance in both men and women.
Sommet and Berent discovered that the more men watch porn, the more they have doubts about their sexual performance, the more they have sexual problems (such as sexual drive, erection, and biological functioning), and the more sexual dissatisfaction their female partner expresses in heterosexual relationships.
The researchers also found that the more pornographic content women consume, the more confident they feel about their sexual competence, the fewer sexual problems they experience, and — in heterosexual couples — the more satisfied their male partner is with certain aspects of their sexuality (such as the quality of sexual exchanges).”
Even after controlling for age, education, nationality, sexual orientation, previous sexual partners, relationship status, relationship length, masturbation frequency, sexual intercourse frequency, sexual knowledge, and social desirability, the researchers’ findings held true.
The most interesting finding was that these gender differences were detected over time (i.e., an increase in porn use over time was associated with a drop in sexual performance for men and an increase in sexual performance for women).
Females who participate in pornography have higher sexual performance, according to the findings of a previous study conducted the same year with 2,433 women from the United States and Hungary. Sommet and Berent, on the other hand, cautioned against exaggerating the impact.
While there were ‘robust’ correlations between pornographic use and sexual performance (meaning they were consistently in the same direction for both men and women), the total amount of these associations was often minor, according to the findings. As a result, contrary to popular belief, pornography cannot be blamed for men’s sexual problems, nor can it be considered a cure-all for female sexual problems.
The average age of the participants was 21.45 years, and the vast majority identified as heterosexual in sexual orientation. It should be noted that the researchers’ study focused on the effects of heteronormative porn on heterosexual men and women; as a result, they believe that more research is needed to assess the effects of non-heteronormative porn on non-cisgender and/or non-heterosexual people.
According to Sommet and Berent, the findings highlight the irony that pornography — a male-dominated industry catering to a male-dominated audience — is linked to the degradation of men’s sex lives while simultaneously improving the quality of women’s sex lives.
Story Source: Original story written by Eric W. Dolan at PsyPost. Note: Content may be edited for style and length by Scible News.
Reference
Sommet, N., & Berent, J. (2022). Porn use and men’s and women’s sexual performance: Evidence from a large longitudinal sample. Psychological Medicine, 1-10. doi:10.1017/S003329172100516X
