The American novelist Erika Jong said this about porn: “After the first 10 minutes of a porno, I want to go home and screw. After the first 20 minutes, I never want to screw again.”
That’s a witty little line, but it also describes our complex relationship with pornography. So, it’s no wonder why the question “Is porn good for my relationship?” is so common.
How Pornogarphy Influences Relationships
A 2014 study of more than 20,000 American couples who had watched porn alone in the last year were 12% were less likely to have a happy marriage and 10% more likely to cheat on their partner.
These findings were widely reported in the mainstream press and sounded very conclusive, but that study was done by the Journal of Family and Economic Issues, which some claim has a conservative reporting bias.
The majority of research about pornography skews very heavily towards its negative effects, and you can somtimes see a pre-existing prejudice in the researchers that conducted the research.
Opposing research will tell you, for example, that men who use higher levels of porn reported greater relationship satisfaction. When it comes to porn, the research findings are contradictory.
What’s the Point of Porn?
The primary point of porn is to stimulate and arouse the viewer. Unfortunately, the porn industry is lopsided, so when we say ‘viewer’, we should really say ‘male viewer.’ It’s only recently that society has accepted that women can enjoy sexual stimulation as much as men, so the vast majority of it is male-focused.
It’s existed almost as long as the film camera: the camera was released commercially in 1892, and the earliest film of people having sex is from 1899. The first actual porn film with a plot and actors, called A Free Ride, is from 1915.
Watching Porn as a Couple
Watched together, porn can help build bridges and open new channels of pleasure. You can share fantasies that you may be too uncomfortable to communicate verbally. Porn can be a positive force for couples with an open attitude to sex and masturbation.
It’s usually unproblematic for couples to use porn alone too. Pornography can offer an outlet for private sexual expression. It can be healthy to have a shared sex life, and a private, internal one. One that’s just for you. Fantasizing isn’t cheating, and if there were any trustworthy studies on the subject, it would probably show that having an inner sex life can only enhance the outer one.
As long as it’s used to supplement, not substitute, real intimacy and real sex, then porn can be good for a relationship.
For related topics, check out:
- Is Porn Addictive?
- Women’s Erotica & Women-Centred Porn
- Interview with Erotic Film & Feminist Porn Director Erika Lust
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