Annals of the International Communication Association
Paul J. Wright & Robert S. Tokunaga
Pages 1-19 | Received 21 Aug 2017, Accepted 27 Nov 2017, Published online: 08 Dec 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2017.1412802
ABSTRACT
Are the relational, sexual, body, and self satisfaction of heterosexual women affected by their partners’ pornography consumption? And if so, how? These questions have been asked of women in smaller-scale, qualitative investigations for some time, and are being asked increasingly in larger-scale, quantitative studies. Mirroring the general trend in the pornography effects literature, early papers tended to anticipate negative effects, while more recent papers have often argued for positive effects. The goals of the present paper were to narratively synthesize findings from relevant qualitative reports, meta-analyze the quantitative literature, and provide a forward thinking set of possibilities for future studies. Toward the latter goal, the Partners’ Pornography Use and Personal Satisfaction Model (3PSM) is proposed.
KEYWORDS: Pornography, sexually explicit media, satisfaction, meta-analysis
FINDINGS – EXCERPTS;
This paper’s meta-analysis of quantitative studies conducted to date primarily supports the hypothesis that the majority of women are negatively impacted by the perception that their partner is a pornography consumer. In main analyses including all of the available studies, perceiving partners as pornography consumers was significantly associated with less relational, sexual, and body satisfaction. The association for self satisfaction was also negative.
Perceiving male partners as more frequent consumers of pornography was significantly associated with less relational and sexual satisfaction.
Finally, the possibility of a publication bias was also explored. Taken in totality, the results did not suggest that publication bias is a significant concern in this literature.
The meta-analytic results presented here suggested that most women’s relational, sexual, body, and self satisfaction will be adversely affected by the perception that their partner is a consumer of pornography. The results also suggested that women’s satisfaction will generally decrease in correspondence with the perception that their partners are consuming pornography more frequently.
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