359 - Porn, Health, and Relationships
Adult entertainment and why we consume it
The adult entertainment/pornography industry is a multi-billion dollar one, valued at about $100 billion. An estimated 90% of men report at least occasional use of porn, and about 50% of women are estimated to do the same, although researchers tend to view statistics from women to be less reliable because of stigma associated with sex and pornography.
According to studies, reasoning behind porn consumption varies. The most commonly reported reasons are:
Arousal and masturbation.
Relieving boredom.
Distracting oneself.
Regulating emotions.
Sex education or “how to” purposes.
Sex education
Sex education from pornography is an issue we’ve covered before, mainly arising when pornography becomes the ONLY sex education someone receives, since porn is performative rather than realistic. Additionally, a large amount of it focuses on male pleasure and much of it lacks the consent conversations that are essential in sex education. Of course, it’s not all negative. Studies have examined how pornography can provide exposure and normalization of certain kinks and fetishes, and there is evidence that suggests it may even increase tolerance for other people’s sexualities.
All in all, though, pornography isn’t the place to go to learn about sex, even though one might naturally think it is.
Porn addiction
Porn as an addiction started circulating around 2015 along with the term sex addiction, but in reality, there is no evidence that such a thing actually exists. Sex and porn as addictions don’t hold up when compared to other addictions and when studied, doesn’t share the same traits, like changes to the brain, increased tolerance, withdrawal, and other addiction-related symptoms.
As such, people who identify as porn or sex addicts do so not because there is some objective way of measuring how much porn is too much, but because they or someone/something in their life thinks it is wrong. This is very different from an actual compulsive disorder or addiction.
Additionally, sex addiction and porn addiction have historically been used in attempts to defend cases of sexual assault or abuse, as in the case with Harvey Weinstein.
Porn in relationships
Pornography is often a challenge in relationships, partly because it’s not something many people talk about openly. Some of the discussions around porn in relationships revolve around:
Infidelity. Some people feel as though pornography is infidelity, while others adamantly claim the opposite.
Issues when porn is being used to compensate for unmet desires in a relationship. If this is not addressed, it can lead to resentment.
Evidence suggests that porn use is much less likely to negatively affect non-monogamous people, perhaps because conversations about sex and sex with other people are usually already happening.
Some couples find watching porn together to be an enjoyable experience.
Knowing your partner watches porn can sometimes bring up jealousy.
At the end of the day, a lot of issues around pornography in relationships can be addressed and solved through proper communication.
Overall, the topic of pornography is still a very nuanced subject, and definitely not without its dark side. There are still issues with human trafficking across the world and porn producers who don’t treat their performers well. On the flip side, the increase in independent porn producers through websites like Patreon, OnlyFans, Fansly, etc., has given people more opportunities to support performers directly instead of relying on shady companies, and the companies and businesses are starting to follow suit. All signs point to destigmatizing sex work and supporting sex workers more, along with continuing to have more open and honest discussions about pornography and sex.
During this episode we drew from expertise from guests Nicoletta Heidegger and Sunny Megatron. Nicoletta is a licensed marriage and family therapist and sexologist. She can be found on the Sluts and Scholars podcast, or on Instagram at @slutsandscholars.
Sunny Megatron is an award-winning Certified Sexuality Educator and Relationship Coach. She’s the host and executive producer of the Showtime original television series, SEX with Sunny Megatron, and co-host for the American Sex Podcast and the Open Deeply Podcast. You can find more of her at sunnymegatron.com and @SunnyMegatron on all social media.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about relationships and pornography and relationships to pornography. This is something that we haven't covered on this show in quite a long time, but we decided it was high time we came back and looked at some of the information out there. It's fascinating stuff and what better way to celebrate Valentine's day week, then an episode talking all about porn and relationships.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: In researching this episode, it turns out that it's incredibly hard to find any unbiased articles or information about pornography. Like almost impossible. Just like the vast majority, even when you're trying to search very technical things, like just statistics about the adult film industry or something like that, I would say 95% of the results you're going to get are having a very strong opinion that they're backing up with a lot of facts, and I'm putting those in quotes because maybe some are maybe some aren't we're going to talk about that a little bit in the episode.
Very strong feelings that like right from the start you're like, "I don't trust this source to have any objective sense, even if maybe they're pulling their stats from some reputable places." In looking into this, I ended up having to find some articles on sites like psychology today that are going to write about it a little more objectively and then follow the thread of like different people mentioning other studies, mentioning other people writing about it, things like that to put this together so just to put that out there, that for each piece of information that we talk about in this episode, if you go and search this yourself, you'll probably find 10 other articles or maybe a hundred other articles vehemently contradicting it.
With this whole episode, just understand that take it with a grain of salt but hopefully, with this, we can challenge some of those things that you'll find out there otherwise. We did the work of digging through the internet, so you don't have to, that's what I'm trying to say,
Dedeker: That said, in the same landscape, of course, you're also going to find thousands of articles that still state that polyamorous relationships and relationships are wrong or on the opposite side that they're unequivocally always healthy and correct.
Jase: They're all going to back it up with research.
Dedeker: Yes, or that BDSM is harmful to society or that promoting transgender rights are hurting our children, or that asexual people need to be fixed. What all of the topics have in common is that there's some linkage to sex in some way and that digs at some really uncomfortable places in our culture and when we dig at uncomfortable places, that means that often there's an emotional charge. When there's an emotional charge, often, it means there's very strong opinions. I'm talking both for and against here.
Hopefully, all of us recording and all of you listening at home are able to keep an open mind, try to put aside some of our immediate reactions, and give some space to entertain some other ideas. I think that's really the main point of this episode is not about trying to convince people that porn is all wrong or that porn is all good and we should never be critical of it just to present a little bit more of just more information so that you can take that in and make some decisions for yourself and how it fits into your life.
Emily: All right, to start off with, let's talk a little bit about porn. Like, what is it? Why is it such a hot-button topic? Well, for your info, the adult entertainment industry as a whole is estimated to be worth somewhere around or a little bit over a hundred billion so for comparison, that's essentially similar to the video game industry. It's close in size. However, the overall entertainment industry is way, way bigger than that. When I hear the word billion now it's funny. I'm like, "Oh, that's not that much money." Because I think about things like Facebook or Apple that are valued at trillions of dollars now, but I understand that there are very few things on the planet that are valued at that much money.
Jase: Our human brains are bad at understanding orders of magnitude physically. That we're just not good at conceptualizing it. It's just too big.
Emily: No, a hundred billion is very big for sure. The podcast industry, for example, is around 11 billion so much smaller than the porn industry is what it's valued at.
Dedeker: Well, here's the little trick that can help with understanding orders of magnitude with millions, billions, and trillions so if we think about it, not in dollars, but in seconds ao a million seconds, that's 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years so that always--
Jase: Isn't that wild?
Dedeker: Yes. That makes my noodle a little bit because once we get to a million, it all turns the mush and we're just like uhhh, for sure, it's just roughly the same, but it's actually quite a lot of difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars and a million and a billionaire but anyway, that's tangential, but maybe gives you the relative sizes of these industries.
Emily: Absolutely and porn is huge. It's huge for so many people and according to various surveys, over 90% of men report, at least occasional use of porn, I'm surprised that it's only 90, but maybe-- that's a really high number so statistically speaking for sure.
Jase: This is self-reporting so there's also going to be some people who don't claim that they don't right?
Emily: Researchers tend to view statistics on women as being less reliable because there's a stigma out there just in general about porn use, but also estimates might go up to around 50% of watching porn at least occasionally. Honestly, I'm surprised that that number is so low, but maybe, yes I'm assuming--
Jase: Because of self-reporting.
Emily: It's self-reporting so perhaps people don't want to say for sure that they are or are not watching. There've also been some studies that showed porn watching has increased toward the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 when everyone was stuck at home. That surprises me not at all.
Jase: Yes. Right like of course.
Emily: Yes. Like what in the world else is there to do, especially when people were locked down and couldn't go to work and stuff like that.
Jase: Couldn't go out on dates, couldn't hook up with people. You're just like, well, yes so it's funny that there was this the researchers talked about there being this like noticeable uptick not like twice as much or anything, it was a smallish uptick, but noticeable at that changed right. At that point. Then the next question that researchers would try to ask in these surveys and these questionnaires is not just who's watching it how much are they watching, but also why, what are the reasons that people get, give for why they watch it? If we were playing Family Feud and you had to guess the most common answer it would probably be for getting off.
Emily: Definitely. I'm assuming.
Dedeker: First thing my family would say if we were a team.
Jase: Just what an episode of Family Feud this would be?
Dedeker: What an uncomfortable episode of Family Feud? I think all episodes of Family Feud are a little uncomfortable, but this one really takes the cake.
Jase: Fair enough. Yes, so around 85 to 95% of respondents stated that was one of their reasons and they could check multiple. That's why these numbers are not going to add up to a hundred. They're going to end up more than that but so the majority is for getting off, for arousal but another large portion said that it was about trying to regulate emotions or distract themselves or relieve boredom. As a way to self-medicate in a way, or self-treat some depression or boredom or anxiety or something like that. For example, 74% said it was about regulating emotions. 70% said relieving boredom was sometimes a reason.
Dedeker: Of that chunk that was not in the 85 to 95% range.
Jase: No of everyone. They could pick multiple. That's what I said. It's like, do you ever watch it for these reasons?
Dedeker: I see.
Jase: At least some of the time a large portion of people are saying, "Yes because I'm bored sometimes."
Dedeker: Or because I'm like upset.
Jase: They did specify exactly what that meant by regulate emotion but it seems like maybe I'm stressed out. I could see people being like, "Oh, I'm stressed and I need to relieve some pressure or whatever."
Dedeker: Yes. Fascinating.
Jase: Yes. Then this one I also thought was interesting is that in some of those studies, one of the answers that a smaller portion of people would give is for trying to learn, trying to like understand about sex and that lines up with something that so Pornhub, which is one of the largest sites of any kind in the world, it's the third-largest porn site in the world and the 10th, most visited website of any kind in the world, which is wild.
Every year for the last few years, they've released a bunch of statistics that they get from people using their site, which is actually been really cool and a lot of researchers have used that to help with their research but on their list of the top 10 most search terms in 2021, the 10th one, which they said surprised their analysts was how to something. How to give a blowjob, how to have an orgasm, how to make a woman squirt. Whatever it is, Like whatever is how to, so they're seeing people are actually trying to learn stuff from it.
Dedeker: That's really interesting because that brings us to the topic of the intersection of porn and sex education. I think that one of the big concerns that we've talked about on the show before is I know this is definitely a sticking point for me is when there's a trend of a person's primary sex education. Sometimes they're only sex education coming from porn, especially if we're in a context where the sex education are getting in school is not accurate, is not up to date is not relevant to you, and the sex that you're going to be having that all that our culture leaves you with is pornographic material to turn to for any other examples of how sex is done. There's a number of different facets to this issue so we can explore it a little bit.
On I guess the naysay side, as far as using porn as your sex education, that its porn is designed to be performative rather than realistic. Often porn and especially most mainstream porn is not showing you sex as it tends to happen in real life. It's not showing you what average sex is like and so that can create some weird expectations at the very least, most mainstream porn also tends to show a very male pleasure-oriented, a very objectification focused version of sex, which isn't always realistic, which leaves a lot of people out of the equation, which leaves a lot of people unseen and also can create some weird expectations around what sex is supposed to be.
On the positive side, it can provide exposure, it can normalize certain fetishes, certain kinks, certain preferences. There may be a particular kink that you've only heard about in the ether. It sounds weird or it's hard to understand, but then when you're actually presented with it in a pornographic context, then maybe it's intriguing or arousing or that's the way that you discover, "Oh, wow. Actually, I think I can't get into this kink or into this particular fetish."
Jase: I suppose also you've just come across something and it's like, "I didn't know that was the thing I would think was hot and there it is."
Dedeker: Here I am.
Jase: Which it's funny because we've listed this as a potential benefit of getting some of your sex education from porn, which I could see a lot of the sites that I came across stating this as exactly why it's a problem because it's making people into deviants and whatever, but clearly we have a different view on kink.
Emily: Indeed.
Dedeker: Well, what is interesting is I do think that this calls up a discussion around sometimes you can be very aroused by something, but not necessarily want to do it in real life. For some people that disconnect is uncomfortable and a problem and for some people, that's great because porn provides this other world to be able to scratch that itch and explore that arousal without needing to automatically translate it to real life or pitch a partner on this particular kink or things like that.
Of course, on the negative side of things, often porn leaves out the consent conversations and potentially can also set people up for harm when they try to pursue kinks. If the only way that they're learning about this particular kink is through porn, which not only is not having the consent conversation, but maybe isn't talking about safety, how to perform this think safely, how to distinguish what looks good on the camera versus what's going to feel good to you or to your partner, or what's a best practice that's going to look good when it's photographed versus what's a best practice in real life that often is left out.
Jase: My favorite analogy is if you try to imagine learning how to drive by watching the Fast and the Furious movies.
Dedeker: Yes, definitely. There are some concerns that men, in particular, I think especially men in boys whose only sex education and exposure to female pleasure is through mainstream pornography. There may be essentially this association with seeing women who are performing and sometimes not always performing consensually because that's a bigger part of the context that then the images of female pleasure that they're presented with don't actually match real experiences of pleasure and so those micro facial expressions that someone may be giving that maybe implies that they are in pain or this isn't the thing that they're super excited about doing that particular moment, that all gets blended together into, "Oh, this is just what pleasure looks like in my partner." It becomes harder to distinguish those social cues of is my partner actually enjoying this? Or are they not, or are they putting on an act? There are some studies that seem to show that this may be debatable, but it's something to consider.
Then on a positive side, porn may actually increase tolerance for other people's sexualities. That's according to a study that was published in the Australian Journal of Communication. Again, it can provide that sense of exposure and normalization of other sexualities or other kinks or other interests that are different from your own.
I think the main takeaway that we can get from all this though, is that porn's probably not the number one place to go if learning is what you actually want. It is so fascinating that they're starting to see more people who are searching for how do I do this? How do that, how do I do this? It does seem to imply that there's a certain extent where people want to learn how to be good lovers or good partners, or to get good sexual techniques. This is literally the only resource that we give people.
Maybe there are some books that you can pick up in a sex shop, but that's not always necessarily accessible to people. This is the best that you got, and you're a little bit at the mercy of what pops up in your search results, whether it's going to be accurate and educational and well researched, or if it's going to be something that's just performed.
Emily: Yes, but what about the children?
Dedeker: Always. We always got to ask about the children.
Emily: What about the children? As a young person growing up, a lot of the narratives that are put out there are that kids are going to get into porn and then a variety of things may ensue like you are, I don't know, that's all that you're going to believe that sex is, or it's going to turn you into a deviant like Jase said it or something along those lines and just to point out like the differentiation between multiple studies that exist out there in the world. A few episodes ago, we mentioned a 2018 study of young adults that showed more frequent porn viewing was associated with a lower sexual satisfaction.
However, when we looked into research for this episode, there are a number of studies that seem to refute that claim. It's not as simple as just saying like if you watch porn as a young person, that means that you're going to have less sexual satisfaction. To help unpack all of this, we asked one of our fellow podcasters from the Pleasure Podcast Network, Nicoletta Heidegger from the Sluts and Scholars Podcast to give us some insights based on her experience as an educator, a sexologist, and a therapist. This is what she had to say.
Nicoletta: The research on how much sex teens are having did not have an objective definition of what is sex. I think the way that people are having sex and defining sex is changing. Research, especially research on sex needs to be looked at with a detailed and discerning lens, especially if it's used to create media articles with grabby titles. Porn can impact one's view on their body and skew perceptions of how sex is supposed to look. Especially if porn is the only sex education outlet.
This is not the fault of porn as a whole, but a greater systemic issue regarding a lack of comprehensive sex education. Because of the lack of sex ed, young people and even some to times adults see porn as an educational tool, which it can sometimes be, but more often it is entertainment done by sexual professionals and sexual athletes.
Emily: Sexual athletes, yes.
Dedeker: What sexual athletes. I like that. That's a good way of thinking about it.
Nicoletta: What Is a problematic search? For me, problematic is something that is illegal and, or non-consensual. Fantasies, however, in my opinion, are not problematic, and labeling them as such may further push people into the shadows and feel ashamed about their desires. When shame is involved, there's usually a backfire effect. Making that person engage more in the shameful desire or behavior. In addition, certain sites like Pornhub are starting to block popular search terms such as daddy Dom little girl, which involves consenting adults and can be really shaming to folks in the kink and BDSM communities. If you need sex education, try some other resources, including the Pleasure Mechanics, Beducated, Scarleteen, O.school, or Sex Positive Families. There are so many great educational resources out there for different prices and for different themes.
Dedeker: Yes, I really appreciate that perspective. We also have some findings from some various studies. I think that there's been a lot of studies on porn, but these are things that we found. Contrary to what a lot of critics will claim porn and watching porn doesn't necessarily sexualize young people earlier on. The reality is that most young people engage in some form of childhood sex play long before encountering porn. I think that's been true for a long time, obviously before super accessible internet porn became a thing that the sexual awakening was a thing for many, many people and that looked many, many different ways. Others say that porn also can ruin teens for relationships later in life but to look at that divorce rates are significantly lower for the generations that grew up with internet porn than those that didn't.
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: Yes. We have to give the caveat that this isn't necessarily a causal link, doesn't necessarily mean that if you grew up watching porn, you're less likely to get divorced, but there's a correlative link here.
Jase: It doesn't indicate the other way either. Right?
Emily: Sure.
Jase: It's not like, "Oh, everyone's failing at relationships now."
Nicoletta: Yes, and similarly, kids that were raised during the time of free-internet porn have turned out to be less sexually active, more likely to use birth control, less likely to have sex while drunk than people who grew up before the internet. There are several studies that have shown that viewing porn specifically doesn't make men any more likely to commit sex crimes.
In fact, there was a UCLA study on adolescent pedophiles showed that the sex offenders that they interviewed watched significantly less porn than non-offenders, which is interesting. There's a small study of 131 college-aged men who even showed that as their self-reported porn consumption increased their sexism decreased. I would have to dive more into that study to see how they measured their sexism. It was probably based on survey statements and things like that.
Jase: Yes, answers to questions. I'm sure. Yes.
Dedeker: Yes, and then there have been some studies that have looked at countries who have relaxed their anti-pornography laws and looked at crime statistics before and after making porn more legal and more accessible, specifically Japan, Denmark, and the Czech Republic. They found that after relaxing these laws, sex crimes and sexual child abuse decreased, even while the general crime rate stayed the same, which it is interesting. I know, especially with Japan, I'm a part of that conversation often since going there so much, that that is a conversation that porn laws in Japan are really interesting.
They allow a very wide variety of porn, like very, very off the wall stuff, stuff that even here in the States we might categorize as illegal, and yet it was very much a thing that they found after these porn laws were loosened that sexual crimes decreased. It is just a curious thing to think about of like, if there's a space again for fantasy that you don't necessarily want to have in reality, or is essentially anti-social to have in reality that maybe that's a good thing or an adaptive thing.
Jase: Yes. To go back to some of what we're talking about with, what about the kids? Is that in a lot of those studies and the stuff I was reading, one of the things that the researchers are pointing out is they're like, even though a lot of young people are learning about sex from these things, they also have identified that you do know the difference? They know that this is fantasy. Even if it's like, I'm going to learn something from it, but I also know it's not real. I think that plays into that conversation as well, where it's like, well maybe if there is an outlet for someone who knows that the thing they like is something they wouldn't want to do in real life. I don't know. It's a very hot-button topic clearly.
Dedeker: I think that I think that also gets harder when what you're being presented with is less and less extreme and is being presented closer to "real life" as though it's real life. It's less about I'm watching this wild fantasy of someone strung up from the chandelier and in the middle of a gang bang and I realize that's not real life everyday sex, but I think it gets harder if you're educated more on the, oh, this is being presented as everyday sex when maybe it's not. I think that's where it starts to get a little bit trickier and may be trickier to tell the difference if you're only exposure to real sex education has been that.
Emily: Sure. Okay. If we, as adults and we, as a group of young people, aren't going to porn to get our sexual education, then where should we go? As we mentioned before, even though the evidence seems to suggest that porn is not destroying society and ruining youths and all of those things, it's still not necessarily the best way to get sex education though clearly, it is definitely used for that by many people. Some Scandinavian studies did show that most teens do look to porn for education about the mechanics of sex. That goes back to the how-to being the 10th most searched thing on Pornhub. That same study also pointed out that teens do clearly recognize that porn is not reality, but fantasy basically what you just said. In response to the growing searches for educational content, Pornhub started an official sexual wellness page with questions and articles about sexual health in addition to a channel on their site for educational videos.
I appreciate that. They're seeing the issue here and potentially people just going to their website for fantasy-related things and perhaps that search term seeing that, that search term was such a prevalently searched thing that perhaps they were like, "Screw it, we're going to just add this to it." I think that's pretty cool.
Jase: Yes. There's not a lot of videos on it. I checked it out. There's like 12 videos on that channel.
Emily: Oh, wow.
Jase: It's not a lot.
Dedeker: They're still working on that.
Jase: All the videos were posted like a year ago, so it doesn't seem like they really kept up on that, unfortunately, but I did find it really interesting to look at a video whose subject is like the types of questions that you do want to know like, is my penis normal basically, right? Is my size normal? Is it shaped the right way? That kind of stuff or am I experiencing pelvic pain that's bad, or is this normal? Very real questions, but the thumbnails, it's there's a picture of a penis in the thumbnail for that video about penises or there's a picture of a vagina, or there's a picture of people having sex in this one. It was this interesting, like, "Huh."
Emily: We got to still make it titillating.
Jase: Well, no, but I think it's great in a way. It's like, we've wrestled so long with people, you can't even put photos in sex-ed classes because they're in a school. It's like, "Well, what if, what if the porn sites were actually doing a good job of this, what different world that would be?" Anyway, that's fantasy land.
Emily: Yes. That's an interesting point. Well, considering that there's only 12 videos up, this is probably not the best place to go for your adult sex education. Just putting that out there, there are other places to go that we're going to talk about momentarily and in terms of kids for sex education for kids, you should definitely check out episode 337 with Ms. Ashley. That was a great episode. A lot of people really loved that. Check that one out.
Jase: Yes. As far as online resources for sex education there were some that ni Nicoletta mentioned earlier, such as the Pleasure Mechanics, O.school, Sex Positive Families, Scarleteen is more geared for teens but another one is Beducated that she also mentioned who's also one of our sponsors for this episode. That's cool. If you're going to check that out, use our promo code Multi of course, and stay tuned for the ad break to get more details about what all that involves.
Another resource I wanted to put out there is that is kink specific. If it's your wanting more in-depth education about kink, it's called kinkacademy.com has tons and tons and tons of videos and video courses on specifics of how to do certain fetishes safely, lessons, some more general on just consent, somewhere about starting and ending a scene of any type and about sexual health, pelvic health, all sorts of things like that and features some videos featuring our friend, Sunny Megatron from the American Sex Podcast, who you will hear from later on in this episode. For an overview of sexual health, just about STIs and that kind of stuff, I definitely recommend our free two-part series on episodes 350 and 352 about STIs and safer sex, where we tried to destigmatize and talk about all that in just a real matter-of-fact way.
Before we go on to the second half we're going to talk about porn addiction, the research on that, as well as talking about ethical porn, and then how porn shows up and affects people's relationships. We're going to take a quick break to talk about our sponsors. We love making this show available and these resources available to everyone out there for free, and you taking the time to listen to our advertisers and check them out if they sound interesting and supporting us on Patreon are how we do that. We really appreciate your time for that. We will see you after the break.
Emily: We're back and we're hopping straight into yet another hot-button topic, which is the topic of porn addiction. This topic blew up around 2015, probably a similar time that sex addiction was also cropping up as a topic. I think sex addiction started taking off earlier than that. I feel like I remember when did Tiger Woods have his whole scandal? I feel like in my understanding that was the first time in my memory where there was a celebrity who I think got caught in an infidelity and then the story was, oh, I'm a sex addict. That's what the story is, and so going to go to rehab
Emily: November 2009.
Jase: I was going to guess 2010. I wasn't too far.
Dedeker: Yes. Since then a really large industry has risen up offering treatments therapy for porn addiction. To start this discussion, we're going to bring back Nicoletta from Sluts and Scholars to give us some more insights right off the bat.
Nicoletta: In short porn and sex addiction are not real mental health diagnoses. There are folks who practice from an addiction standpoint, but that approach is not informed by research or approved by global mental health organizations, such as the diagnostic and statistical manual or DSM. That being said, folks can have porn viewing that feels out of control for them, based on how it's affecting their life and/or their sense of self. Usually, there's something going on underneath the porn watching that is the true issue that needs addressing. This could include not having other coping tools or resources, a shame cycle, not feeling content with one's self or one's relationship, anxiety, depression, or trauma. Sometimes the issue is not about the watching of porn itself, but more how someone feels about their porn-watching habits.
Dedeker: I think that's an analysis that makes a lot of sense. It is that weird thing where again, I think sometimes our language fails us in the sense that when we talk about addiction from a technical sense, we're referring to literal changes in the brain, having increased tolerance of whatever the substance is, going through withdrawal if you can't get the substance and then other symptoms. The way that porn works in the brain, it's not quite that, there's parts of it that could be similar to that, but it's not exactly that same mechanism and that's why it gets a little bit confusing. I think that's why we've seen also a trend of not only talking about sex addiction, but food addiction, video game addiction, these things where it could be a problem, like Nicoletta says, they could feel out of control, but it's not technically really an addiction, like in the traditional sense that we understand it. I think because there's that disconnect, it becomes hard to understand how to actually respond to that or to get help for that, or to even evaluate if you actually do need help or not.
Jase: We're going to talk about some more information about that, but I'd say maybe the short takeaway is everyone should stop using the word sex addiction or porn addiction. It's not an addiction, it just period is not, there's no debate there. Stop calling it that. If you want to talk about it as being a problem for you or a compulsion or something like that, that's a different conversation, but it is not an addiction. That's just scientific fact right there.
Dedeker: There's a meta-analysis of 15 different studies on pornography, which incorporated almost 7,000 participants. The analysis showed that there isn't any correlation between the amount of porn that someone consumes and how likely they are to identify as a porn addict. Rather, the highest correlation that they found was between being more religious. That meant that it was correlated with being more likely to identify as a porn addict, regardless of how much porn they actually watched, which this tracks a lot of anecdotal evidence and a lot of so worries that I've heard, especially because I grew up in very intense evangelical purity culture, hearing a lot of stories, usually from boys and men about, I keep wanting to masturbate, I must be a sex addict.
Even I heard a story once of someone who went to sex addicts anonymous and when he was explaining, oh, I've actually never had sex, it's just that I have sexual fantasies and I want to masturbate sometimes and having that rude awakening moment of, oh my God, like my sense of what actually counts as too much sexual composure or sexual interest is really, really skewed because of the religious upbringing and the religious identity, which I think is really fascinating.
Jase: This is known as PPMI or Pornography Problems due to Moral Incongruence. Researchers, they have clarified that moral opposition to porn, despite using it, that moral opposition doesn't have to be religious, but that the correlation on their studies between people identifying as religious and having this problem, that they may self-identify as porn addiction or otherwise just thinking they have a problem with it, that that correlation was so high that they're basically like if a patient comes to you saying, I think I might be a porn addict, that's a place to start is, are you religious? If they say "Yes," 90% of the way to a diagnosis of here's where the actual problem is. It's about the shame and feeling one way about something, but doing it anyway, that moral incongruence. This means that the people then who are reporting struggling with watching too much porn or with their self-control over watching porn, according to the studies, they're not actually watching more of it than other people. They just feel worse about it. That feeling worse does have very negative health effects such as stress and anxiety, depression, decreased sexual wellbeing because of that shame that keeps coming up of, Nicoletta mentioned that a little bit earlier too. That's the actual health problem there, is that incongruence.
Emily: People who come in for porn addiction to a doctor or to a psychiatrist or whomever, a counselor, they're not doing that, they're not there because of this objective measure, that's somewhere out there saying, you're watching too much porn, but instead they're doing it because they themselves think that it's wrong or their partner thinks that it's or the church or something along those lines, some outside force, which is very different than an actual compulsive disorder or an addiction or something along those lines. Again, Jase said this before, but sex addiction and porn addiction, those words, those terms have been used in an attempt to defend people who are accused of sexual assault or abuse, like Harvey Weinstein, for example. Yet another reason to stop using those terms in general because it's bullshit.
Let's move on to ethical porn. This term, this is an interesting term. We've used it on the show before. It's become a big buzzword in the last few years and it has become harder and harder to sort out what it exactly means. We called upon another expert to help us with this question. We asked our friend and fellow pleasure podcast host Sunny Megatron from the American Sex Podcast to lend her expertise. Sunny is an amazing sex educator and a fantastic public speaker and we'll hopefully be doing a full episode with her in the future.
Sunny: Jase asked me the question, "What is ethical porn and how do we know if we're watching it?" There was some chit-chat about ethical porn being a real buzzword in the sex educator world. I could not agree more with that sentiment, and it bugs me. We as a society, make rules based on the assumptions and the stereotypes that are inspired by the experiences of the majority of people. What that does is it ends up shutting down the examination of nuance, the fact that because we're coming from different places with very different experiences, we need to adjust those one true way rules that fit all to actually really fit us. Kink is customizable, it's also the subject of the book that I'm working on right now. Polyamory is customizable, sexuality is customizable and so many other things.
Let's get to the ethical porn. I want to clarify something real quick when I'm saying ethical porn, I'm now talking about ethical porn as a genre, I'm talking about ethical in a human sense. The question, "What is ethical porn?" Porn is subjective. In an ideal world, I would love to reframe and rephrase that question to what is ethical porn consumption? In my opinion, that involves the intent in which we consume that media. We hear a lot about porn literacy and the importance of being able to critically evaluate the adult media that we're consuming. In my opinion, that's really what we should be focusing on. In order to consume this content with intent and thoughtfulness, that requires us to truly understand the psychology of desire to overcome our own shame and our own baggage and the myths and the stereotypes we believe. Our fantasies, when it comes to sex are often not, I hate this term, but politically correct, they're not ethical, they can be the exact opposite of our default world morals, values, and beliefs. It's that concept of, "Oh my goodness, it is so wrong." That it is so right.
We all have things in our porn search history that we would never want another human being to see. The reasons that we like those things are really complex. Sometimes those, also wrong fantasies, are used as a very healthy outlet, and sometimes they're not. That's the nuance. There's a great book called The Erotic Mind by Jack Morin. In it, he refers to this concept of the paradoxical perspective, which means we often eroticize things that in a nonsexual context would be unpleasant, or gross, or disgusting, or morally wrong, but it's very normal in human sexuality to then eroticize those things we think are so wrong.
If porn is really catering to our fantasies and playing those out in a visual sense, well, then some of it's going to be pretty fucked up, right? When it comes to porn, unless we can recognize all of that stuff at play and then recognize how it plays within ourselves, we can't critically analyze our own situations to see if we're using that porn in a healthy way, or we're using it in a way that can be harmful and feed into thoughts and traits that are abusive or unethical and reinforce those things.
Different people with different identities and experiences, et cetera, could be watching the same porn, and some people can watch that and find it really empowering and healing and a great fantasy. Other people can watch that and it could reinforce really awful beliefs and behaviors. How do we know the difference? Utilitarianism, maybe we're doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people by restricting violent porn because we know that our society's fucked up and there's a lot of people that look at this really demeaning porn and they don't understand the psychology behind it and they're abusing it.
Then there's a problem, that restriction for the greatest good for the greatest number of people might work for those who are very normative in their sexual expression, relationship, orientations, et cetera, but then it hurts people who have non-normative proclivities. It slippery slopes us into stigma, into not trying to overcome our shame, but instead burying it and giving it more power. That can lead not only to abuse of people in mistreatment of people in our own lives, but also to systemic abuse in oppression, transphobia, homophobia, racism, misogyny, oppression, and stigmatization of kinksters and polyamorous people, and the list goes on.
It's big, y'all. It doesn't just exist in our sex lives. Restriction to keep people safe from the evil, horrible abuse of porn, doesn't end up being empowering or protecting. It ends up being damaging. Really, it subtly tells you that certain things are shameful and not allowed, and certain people are not good. That's a butterfly effect with ripples that touch so many things and negatively affect so many people that have nothing to do with sex. Another consideration, how are the people who are making these films being exploited?
That contributes to whether porn is ethical or the fact that a large percentage of this porn is still being produced by some pretty fucked up people that are perpetuating some really unhealthy ideas to the public. Again, there's no easy answer to any of this stuff, but I really feel that the crux of a lot of this lies within all of us to become more literate and thoughtful in our consumption, the market follows what the people want. If we each do our part to change what the people want collectively, those porn producers and companies are going to have to follow suit if they want our money.
When it comes to ethical porn as a genre or a brand, I am a huge fan of queer feminist porn. First of all, I like the down and dirty, like this is oh so wrong kind of content. That gives it to me. Secondly, I love the focus on the ethical treatment and payment of actors and those involved in production. Thirdly, queer porn often recognizes that the average person doesn't know the difference between fantasy and reality. They include conversations about consent and they emphasize that. In a subtle way, they're helping change the culture and educate the public.
Queer feminist porn is great for me, but I know it's not for everyone, and those people still need to learn about the ethics of consumption, the ethics of production, and the importance of doing the self-work. There's many valid ways to change and subvert the culture from the inside out. The more, the merrier. I truly believe the end goal is achieving ethical consumption in a way that everyone can determine that for themselves because there is no one ethical product or medium or genre that's going to fit everybody.
Dedeker: Gosh, I feel like we all just lucked out in getting that wonderful Ted talk.
Emily: Yes, seriously.
Dedeker: Like for free. Folks, we realized that was a long clip, but she said all of that in a way that was way better than how we could have said it. She's just so smart and so wonderful with these things. I think it makes a lot of sense. Like Sunny was saying, introducing more nuance into this conversation means it breaks out of which, for me even, it's very easy to think about ethical porn as, "Oh, it's this handful of websites. That charge this amount of money."
"Oh, it's this particular genre of porn." "Oh, it's this particular porn that tends to use these kind of performers," when the question is goes beyond just the product, but also how you're consuming it, how you're using it, and like you said, the intention behind it as well.
Jase: That segues us into porn and relationships, and how this affects our relationships. In relationships, porn can be a challenge. All of us have either experienced ourselves or know someone who has had some kind of small or large drama in a relationship because of porn. A lot of this is due just to the fact that we're not used to talking openly about it, and because it lives in this weird gray area between something that on the one hand, it is private, like Sunny mentioned, there's stuff in your search history you don't want other people to know about, even the people that you love.
Then on the other hand, it's harmful to keep it a secret completely. It lives somewhere in the middle there. We're just going to cover some of the things that come up with porn in relationships and talk about those a little. The first one that comes up is this concept of infidelity. I'm sure we're familiar that there are some people out there who feel that watching porn when you're in a monogamous relationship is infidelity. That it's cheating. Others adamantly claim, "No, it's not. That's totally different."
One interesting take that I found from Dr. David Ley is that, he suggests that watching porn is infidelity if you keep that fact secret from your partner or you lie to them about it. That doesn't mean you need to show them everything or always watch it with them or something, but being honest about the fact that you watch it is the important part. I don't know if I 100% agree with him, but I do think that's an interesting angle to take. It's like, if it's about lying in secrecy, whether or not we put the infidelity label on it, it's not great though. Secrets aren't great.
Emily: If both of you have wildly different opinions about the consumption of porn in relationships, then yes, you should probably discuss that at some point.
Dedeker: But that falls into, I think the same category of, and we've talked about on the show many times about incompatibilities, about differences between partners. I think that falls into the same genre of you and your partner can be on different pages about how much porn you consume, what kind of porn you consume, if you consume it at all. That's okay, you don't have to be a united front in that necessarily, but it does come down to, can you still respect, love, and appreciate each other in that difference? Or does it cause tension and friction? That's not a right or wrong binary.
If it causes tension and friction, that's something to look at and to examine. Then also, maybe that's not the right partnership for you if it causes that much friction as well. You may realize that it's more important to me to have a partner where we're more aligned in that than different or you may be okay with it being different.
Jase: Right. If you are finding that you are keeping that secret from a partner, the important question is why. It's to just examine that and start to have those conversations about why you're keeping it secret and really do that hard work that Dedeker was just talking about of deciding if this is something we can live with, that we think different about or maybe don't think differently about it. You both just never talk about it. That's also possible. Another challenge spot that can come up with porn in relationships is if porn is being used to compensate for unmet desires sexually in a relationship.
This is actually pretty common in marriages like where one partner wants less sex than the other, but where it can become a problem is if that dynamic isn't being discussed. If it's being used for that but secretly, there's this like resentment building up about that mismatch. Again, as long as this is something that you're communicating and talking about, it's not necessarily a problem but it is if it's just as a way to foster more resentment. Some fun news from some studies.
Dedeker: Is that the fun news noise? I think that more as like breaking news. I think we need something for fun news.
Jase: Fun news. Para-papa-paw.
Dedeker: Yes, there you go.
Emily: Beautiful. Lovely.
Jase: Fun news for non-monogamous people is that the evidence is in, studies suggest that porn use is very unlikely to cause negative effects for non-monogamous people in relationships. That researchers theorize it's because they're probably already having conversations about sex because they're having sex with other people. They both know about it. Those porn conversations are probably easier and there's less of that an unpacked baggage. Still packed baggage. That's what I was looking for.
Emily: Something that some people do in relationships and not everybody but some couples will watch porn together. It can be a way for someone to feel like they're not separated by this thing or something is coming in between them perhaps. It's bringing them together maybe. This isn't for everyone. Not everyone is going to want to watch porn together but it is a potential out there that maybe you could try.
Also, you could share links to porn videos especially if you share a particular kink or fantasy with a partner and it can be another way of making it feel more like the two of you are on a team or you're having a team activity. Even if you don't necessarily watch it together.
Dedeker: Feel like you're training to be sexual athletes.
Emily: Yes, there you go. I know, I love that.
Jase: That's our new goal for everyone.
Emily: In this context, we are sure that you talk about it first. Don't just send a random link to your partner and surprise them. That might be a little weird especially if you're on two different wavelengths about porn in general, perhaps like have that conversation first and then say, "Hey, can I send you a link or two of something that's sexy to me? Maybe I think you might find sexy, that would be fun." Also, knowing your partner watches porn, it can bring up some jealousy.
That's a hot button item that we like to talk about on the show once in a while because it tends to be the low-hanging fruit for non-monogamy but a variety of things can cause a partner to be jealous and porn might be one of those things. The more you're confronted with it, sometimes that exacerbates that jealousy especially if you happen to get in a situation where you walk in on them or you see it in their history of that's something that you two do. Looking through each other's history on your phone or I guess laptop device or something along those lines.
Dedeker: I think this is just another opportunity. I love reminding people. Even though I know it's hard, sometimes in the moment, but reminding people that jealousy is something that's often trying to protect you and is pointing to something. Often, it's pointing to maybe an area where you feel frustrated, or where you don't feel seen, or where you're feeling some lack, or maybe there's some really deep ancient insecurities there and it's a really good opportunity to just examine that.
I think what I've noticed particularly in the non-monogamy scene, people have sometimes expressed feeling this weird jealousy or weird envy about their partner's porn watching habits but then feel bad that they feel that way because they think that they should be enlightened and sex-positive and their partner can do whatever they want and it's okay, but I still feel this weird feeling. I just want to tell people that that's okay. The feeling is okay. It's a good thing to look at and get curious about what's there for you.
It may be something that you bring up to your partner or it may not be. It may be something that you work on by yourself or with a therapist or a friend or something like that. I think the important step is just taking the time to actually look and get curious about what's underneath that and what's your jealousy trying to make you aware of.
Emily: Bottom line with all of this just experiment with your partner about how much you want to divulge about the porn that you're watching or how much you watch it or if it's happening at all. Experiment how much to share and then how private to keep it as well. For many people out there knowing that their partner watches porn, that's totally fine, but it may be easier for everyone if you agree to do it while you're alone, for example.
Perhaps it's not something that the two of you are going to want to watch together. Bottom line, just experiment and discuss. Meta communicate, discuss all of these things. That's what we like to do here on this show.
Dedeker: If you're trying to be more ethical in your consumption and let's say you're actually paying for your porn and supporting creators, you may try out some different ways to make that more or less apparent to your partner. If your partner is someone again who is close enough up in your business that this might be apparent, this is inspired by a particular email that we got about someone's situation.
For instance, if you share a bank account, you might look into using separate accounts for those particular purchases if it feels uncomfortable for the two of you, for each of you to see what exact porn transactions you're taking part in.
Jase: It's a funny thing where it's like, "I'm fine with my partner watching porn in the abstract but if I know every time they're doing it, sometimes that could feel weird because I just might not be in the right mood for that at that time or in the right headspace for that when I come across it." Like Emily mentioned walking in on someone or finding it in, you type the letter P into the search bar and your browser on the computer you share and it auto-fills with some porn URL. In any of these cases, you're getting presented with it when you weren't ready for it or thinking about it. Maybe that's something that you could find some ways to avoid.
Dedeker: For instance, if you're let's say you're cohabiting, maybe you share a computer or you share a device, you can discuss options like using different web browsers, using separate profiles, agreeing to always use incognito mode so that maybe you want to just completely remove the opportunity that either of you have to snoop through the history and see what your partner is watching or maybe y'all love that. Again, just have a conversation like, "Maybe that's hot to you."
There isn't necessarily a right or wrong here. What makes it right is if both of you are consenting and feel pretty comfortable about that. I do think these days-- I think I did see some statistics that porn watching is increasingly moving more onto mobile devices which makes sense, which is easier.
Jase: Probably for that reason, yes.
Dedeker: Yes, probably for that reason. Maybe this might be a less relevant tip to people but still. Again, at the end of the day, communicate and experiment. Communicate first about how much you want to know, how much you feel comfortable sharing, and then just do your best to be honest with each other after that. You can run some experiments with how much you share, how much you watch together, or don't watch together. Don't be afraid to admit that something doesn't feel right to you or something isn't working.
You can try something else. You can realize it may change over time, it may change depending on the season of life that you're in or what's going on, on your particular day. That's okay. I do think that one of the drawbacks of the sex-positive movement is that it puts a lot of pressure on us to feel okay with all forms of sex all of the time. There can be this pressure of, "Oh my God, if I'm not down to watch to porn with my partner, I'm a bad partner," or, "If I don't watch as much porn as my partner does, I'm a bad partner."
Or, "If I feel a little bit weird and squeaky about my partner's porn-watching habits, that means I'm a bad partner," and that's not necessarily the case. The whole foundation of sex positivity is consent and it being you developing a relationship to sex that you want to have.
Jase: To wrap this episode up, we're just going to do a quick little review here, a little takeaway section. In this episode, we focused mostly on contradicting some of the mainstream misinformation about pornography or porn addiction or sex addiction and its effects on society. It is still a nuanced topic and it isn't without its dark side. There is still a problem in the world with sex trafficking and some of that is connected to the porn industry.
Aside from that, there are still porn producers like Sunny Megatron mentioned who are just shitty to their performers and perpetuating awful ideas or abusive, things like that. That is a reality and we can't just ignore that that's true.
Dedeker: On the other hand, there has been this rise of truly independent porn producers which has been made possible by any number of sites. Sites like Patreon, OnlyFans, Fansly, many others. I know all of those sites have their own history of being really kind to porn, like independent performers, and then suddenly switching tactics, and wanting to scrub all sexual content from their site, and then going back and forth. I realize none of those platforms are perfect, but the trend that we're seeing is that people are getting more and more opportunities to support performers directly and creators directly and not have to rely on publishers and studios.
Again, like Sunny Megatron was saying, as businesses see that people value more ethically and mindfully created content, they're following suit, they're following the trend. In 2020, Pornhub removed almost 80% of their total videos, and that's 10 million videos. That's a lot of videos. 80% of their content, in an effort to combat abusive and non-consensually posted videos by requiring users to verify their identity before uploading. Sometimes, this change can be slow-going, but definitely, as people--
The word that came to mind was vote with their dicks. I know not everyone who watches porn has a dick, but vote with your clicks. That's what I'm going to say. People vote with their clicks. Businesses--
Emily: I thought you said clit but you said click.
Dedeker: Their dicks, their clits, their whatever it is they have down there.
Jase: Your clicks, dicks, and clits. Vote with all those.
Emily: Yes, there you go.
Jase: That's great. It's like the old vote-with-your-dollars thing, but given the modern-day of the internet, your clicks are actually what matters because money isn't always passing in a clear I-hand-you-dollars kind of a way.
Emily: Indeed. There's a lot of feelings out there in regards to the porn industry. It's not everyone's cup of tea, it's not a gorgeous paradise that everyone flocks to and loves all the time. Some of it isn't the best, but we should be destigmatizing it. We should be creating more support for sex workers and talking more openly about sex and pornography because ultimately, this will lead us to a healthier, more consensual, and less dangerous world.
One more time, we just want to give a special thank you to our amazing guests who helped us out with this show today. Nicoletta Heidegger is a licensed marriage and family therapist and sexologist. All you all out there can find her on the Sluts and Scholars podcast or on Instagram at @slutsandscholars. Sunny Megatron is an award-winning, certified sexuality educator and relationship coach.
She's the host and executive producer of the Showtime originals television series Sex with Sunny Megatron, and she co-hosts the American Sex podcast and the Open Deeply podcast. You can find more of her at sunnymegatron.com and @sunnymegatron on all social media platforms.