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Pornography Use And Sexual Satisfaction

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Brooklyn Craven
Human Sexuality Research
5/1/17
Pornography Use and Sexual Satisfaction in Exclusive Relationships
Pornography is commonly used in many cultures across the world. Within the United States, alone, roughly 40 million people regularly visit porn sites (Streep, 2014). And yet, despite its growing popularity, only a handful of studies have explored pornography’s potential effects on sexual satisfaction for those in exclusive relationships (Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Daneback et al., 2009; Maddox et al., 2011; Stewart & Szymanski, 2012; Stulhofer et al., 2010; Zillmann & Bryant, 1988). As using pornography can potentially have negative effects on both the user’s and their intimate partner’s sexual satisfaction, it is important to …show more content…

Though this decrease in sexual satisfaction was described as mild, it was noted as a significant difference. It is also interesting to consider that the type of pornography viewed moderated the decrease in sexual satisfaction that was observed. Specifically, only those men who viewed paraphilic pornography, as compared to those who viewed mainstream pornography, experienced decreased sexual satisfaction (Stulhofer et al., 2010). It may be that viewing paraphilic pornography, which is known to be more extreme in nature, permits users to develop more extreme fears and high expectations regarding later sexual experiences. Developing a fear towards sex may lead to anxiety while engaging in sexual behaviors, thus decreasing rewards experienced while engaging in such behaviors. On the other hand, having high expectations regarding sex may lead to disappointment when engaging in sexual behaviors; the rewards that were experienced may have been significant, yet much less than rewards that were expected. It is also important to note that Stulhofer and colleagues failed to examine the dynamic nature of sexual satisfaction when they failed to include measures of sexual satisfaction of their subjects’ intimate partners (Stulhofer et al., 2010). Understanding how intimate partners’ sexual satisfaction varied as a factor of pornography use would give better insight as to how

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