Commentary by insightful researcher Paul Wright. He proposes that scientists who study porn use and “moral incongruence” need to take content type into account as well. He asks if porn users’ distress is heightened by viewing less socially acceptable content. Excerpts below.
On Religion, Morals, and Problematic Pornography Use: The Potential Importance of Content Type
I read Engelhardt et al.’s (2026) recent study, titled “Religion, morals, and pornography: Risk or resource?” with great interest for many reasons.1 Using a US census-matched sample, Engelhardt et al. probed the possibility that religiosity induced moral disapproval of pornography is both a risk and protective factor for problematic pornography use. Religiosity was operationalized as belonging to a Judeo-Christian faith (e.g., Protestant, Catholic) versus no faith (e.g., atheists). Moral disapproval of pornography was measured via agreement–disagreement with the statement “I believe that pornography use is morally wrong.” Problematic pornography use was measured with the Brief Pornography Screen (Kraus et al., 2020). This screen assesses how often participants experience perceptions such as “You find yourself using pornography more than you want to” and “You continue to use pornography even though you feel guilty about it.”
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In sum, I propose that the cognitive dissonance experienced by pornography consumers who morally oppose pornography is heightened when they consume less socially acceptable content, increasing their likelihood of mental health problems as a result of their already morally incongruent pornography use. To state in statistical terms, I argue that pornography content type is a moderator of the relationship between moral disapproval of pornography and perceptions of problematic pornography use, with the moral disapproval—problematic pornography use association being stronger among those who consume less socially acceptable content and weaker among those who consume more socially acceptable content. If I am correct, pornography content type would be an important theoretical addition to the PPMI model. Such a dynamic would also suggest that clinicians be particularly attentive to clients who morally disapprove of pornography but consume pornography with socially unacceptable themes. Given the wide range of sexual acts and depictions in pornography (Hald & Štulhofer, 2016; Herbenick et al., 2020; Paul, 2009; Way et al., 2026), measuring pornography use and perceptions without reference to the types of content each person consumes could be obfuscating our accurate understanding of how pornography use and perceptions of problematic pornography use, particularly among the religious, occur. I encourage my fellow pornography scholars to put this hypothesis to the test and continue this scholarly discussion in the pages of Archives of Sexual Behavior.