The Psychological Costs Of Consuming Porn When You Think It Is Immoral

Researcher K. Camille Hoagland provides a nuanced perspective on moral opposition to pornography and its psychological consequences.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | August 24, 2023

A new article published in Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy aimed to understand moral opposition to pornography and its psychological effects and identified 14 main reasons for moral opposition, with the dominant themes being religious values and concerns about abuse depicted in or resulting from pornography. Communication emerged as crucial in addressing conflicts stemming from diverse views on pornography in relationships.

I recently spoke to K. Camille Hoagland, M.A, Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University and the lead author of the study to discuss the paper in detail. Here is a summary of our conversation.

Could you tell us about the motivation behind conducting this study and why understanding the reasons for moral opposition to pornography was important to you?

Currently, I am a clinical psychology Ph.D. student working with Joshua Grubbs, Ph.D. as my research advisor. What drew me to his lab was his approach to understanding problematic pornography use, but with a particular focus on those who believe they are out of control in their pornography use or that they are addicted to pornography but do not use pornography beyond what would be considered within a normal range when compared to similar others.

In seeking to understand this self-perceived problematic pornography use, Dr. Grubbs has developed a body of work around moral incongruence over pornography use – that is, pornography use by someone who believes pornography is immoral.

Research has indicated that moral incongruence over pornography use often explains self-reported beliefs that one is addicted to pornography or struggling with excessive pornography use better than actual pornography use frequency, indicating that pornography use itself may not be the problem for many who struggle with these issues.

That being said, these individuals often still report experiencing high levels of psychological distress, it just seems more likely that this distress may be a result of their moral opposition to pornography than their pornography use habits in many cases.

Past research had shown that moral-based opposition to pornography (MBOP) is closely associated with religiousness, indicating that religion is one reason for this belief, but other reasons had not been extensively explored prior to this study.

Our motivation behind this study was to explore the reasons why people believe pornography is immoral so we can better understand what factors may contribute to moral incongruence over pornography use and associated distress.

What was the methodology of your study? What would you say was your most significant finding?

For this study, we used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Prior research seems to have primarily explored MBOP quantitatively using questionnaires with a forced-choice style format where participants could only respond using the answers provided. We wanted to more comprehensively understand why people who believe pornography is immoral have this belief, however, so we asked them to explain their reasoning in their own words.

We collected a U.S. nationally representative sample of 2,519 adults and asked participants to report the extent to which they believed pornography to be against or in line with their morals on a scale of −10 (morally wrong) to 10 (morally right). Participants who responded with −1 or below (i.e., those who reported some degree of MBOP) made up the sample for this study, which came to about 40% of the total sample, or 1,020 participants. These participants were then directed to the qualitative component of this study, which was a prompt asking for their reasons for holding this belief.

Next, themes were developed from the reasons reported. Two undergraduate research assistants, Halle Rotruck and Jace Moore, and I read through all the responses and developed themes based on the reasons reported with guidance from Dr. Grubbs. We then sorted the responses into non-mutually exclusive categories of themes.

So, a response like "porn is against my religion and promotes sexual violence" would be categorized into the themes of Religion and Abuse. We made sure that we agreed 100% on the categorization of each reason before moving forward to ensure we maintained as much integrity as possible between the reported reasons and our themes. We developed 14 general themes from these responses, plus two additional categories: Other (for responses that were valid but did not fit into another category) and Irrelevant (for responses that were unintelligible or otherwise seemed to miss the point of the question).

The goal of developing themes was to be able to better describe the themes through statistical analyses, which was the quantitative part of our study. We explored if and how each of the reasons provided for moral opposition to pornography related to various demographics, other themes (e.g., how Religion related to Abuse), degree of moral opposition to pornography (as indicated by the scale used to determine which participants were included in our subsample), and pornography use habits.

Regarding our most significant findings, I think the reasons we uncovered for moral-based opposition to pornography were the most novel and interesting, but I will elaborate about those more in the next question. We also found evidence supporting prior research that women were more likely than men to report some level of moral opposition to pornography.

However, in our subsample of folks that reported this belief, there was no significant difference between men and women in the level they morally disapproved of pornography, and neither men nor women from the subsample used much pornography.

This finding indicates that, although women may be more likely to morally disapprove of pornography than men, both sexes seem to agree on how immoral they believe pornography to be when they both hold this belief. We found additional support for prior research that people who morally disapprove of pornography were also more likely to be married, politically conservative, and religious.

The study identified 14 general themes for the reasons participants reported for their moral disapproval of pornography. Could you elaborate on some of the most prevalent themes and their significance in shaping individuals' moral opposition to pornography?

To elaborate on some significant themes, I want to discuss two primary themes as well as a broader theme that we identified after analyses were completed, which will include more information about some other themes.

Religion was the most reported theme, accounting for nearly 30% of the reasons reported.

As mentioned earlier, research has already consistently shown that religious individuals are more likely to morally disapprove of pornography than the non-religious, so it was no surprise to see this theme. We also collected demographic information about participants' religious identification and found that our sample was predominantly Christian, which may indicate that Christianity in particular is a strong indicator of moral-based opposition to pornography.

Our results also showed that those reporting that pornography was immoral because it was against their religious values also reported the highest level of moral-based opposition to pornography. This theme supports prior research that religion likely plays an important role in moral-based opposition to pornography, indicating that even when individuals can use their own words to describe why they morally disapprove of pornography, they reference religious reasons most.

The second most reported theme was Abuse, which about 27% of participants reported. In these responses, participants discussed abuse they perceived as either occurring in pornography or resulting from pornography use.

For example, some responses reported the belief that pornography depicts sexual assault and others said that people who use pornography may go on to commit sexual violence. These responses referenced several forms of abuse, including, but not not limited to, exploitation, sex trafficking, slavery, sexual assault, and/or violence, as well as references to pornography being demeaning, dehumanizing, and/or disrespectful.

This theme seems best explained by the Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM), which states that acts perceived as being harmful are often considered immoral, and immoral acts are often considered harmful (Gray et al., 2014; Schein & Gray, 2018). So, those who reported these harm-focused reasons may have perceived pornography as being harmful, so they may have conflated this perceived harm with immorality.

After exploring possible theoretical bases for the Abuse theme and coming across the theory of dyadic morality, we noticed that several themes seemed to fit within a more broad, meta-theme related to harm, which we explored in the paper not as one of the 14 themes but instead as a discussion point. The themes that we found were qualitatively harm-focused included Abuse, Paraphilias (responses stating concerns that pornography depicts or encourages paraphilic behaviors, such as pedophilia, incest, or zoophilia), Pornography Addiction, Unhealthy/Damaging (responses stating the belief that pornography is unhealthy or damaging to pornography users), and Effects on Child/Adolescent Viewers (responses expressing concerns about negative effects of viewing pornography for children and adolescents).

The theory of dyadic morality may also explain reasons for moral-based opposition to pornography related to violations of normative or socially appropriate behaviors, as the theory of dyadic morality suggests that norm violations may be considered harmful and thus immoral because of their negative influence on individuals and society. Possible themes that may be considered norm violations include Unnatural/Perverted (responses stating that pornography is perverted, deviant, unnatural, etc. or that it encourages such behaviors) and Privacy (responses concerning the lack of privacy of sex and/or nudity in pornography).

Additionally, the themes Relationships/Family (concerns about pornography having a negative impact on romantic relationships and/or families), Women/Feminism (feminist stances or concerns about women as consumers, performers, or potential victims of consumers), and Men (concerns about men as consumers and performers) could be considered from a harm-focused perspective as well, as these reasons often referenced pornography causing harm to the populations that served as the namesake for each theme. Women/Feminism and Men were also statistically significantly correlated to Abuse, further supporting that these themes may be related constructs.

This harm-focused meta-theme as well as the Abuse theme have some interesting implications for future research. Specifically, because research about moral incongruence over pornography use has primarily focused on religion as the source of moral-based opposition to pornography, it may be informative to explore this phenomenon with a focus on harm-based reasons to better understand moral incongruence over pornography use in those who are non-religious.

What are the practical implications of the study's findings? How might this research contribute to addressing concerns surrounding pornography use and moral opposition in society?

Our findings have practical implications in academic and clinical spheres as well as the general population by adding to a body of literature aimed at improving the understanding of how morality can contribute to beliefs about pornography. The themes we developed for the reported reasons for moral-based opposition to pornography were primarily exploratory in nature, so we hope to see these themes serve as a springboard for future research. For example, it may be informative to explore how these themes relate to problematic pornography use in a clinical sample, measures of wellbeing, and mental health outcomes.

Additionally, our findings may help inform treatment options for people who struggle with problematic pornography use. A diagnosis was recently developed, called Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder, which includes excessive pornography use in its diagnostic criteria. The criteria also explicitly state that those who only believe their pornography use is problematic because it is immoral but do not engage in excessive pornography use do not meet criteria for the diagnosis.

We have also found that there is a lack of empirically supported treatment options for those who struggle with either objective or perceived problematic psychosexual functioning (meaning that which is psychological rather than physical, like excessive pornography use versus erectile dysfunction). Ideally, then, this research may contribute to the development of these treatment protocols.

In society broadly, there seems to be misconceptions surrounding problematic pornography use and subsequently, fear about pornography's effects. When doing a quick search on Google for the "effects of pornography use," most articles that immediately pop up discuss "pornography addiction" and use definitive language.

However, research has been inconclusive on pornography's potential to be addictive in the same manner as a substance, like alcohol. That is, despite the term "pornography addiction" being used colloquially, it actually is not clinically recognized as a diagnosis.

Thus, regarding your question about how this work might help to address concerns surrounding pornography use and moral opposition in society, my hope is that the continued growth of this specific area of work that explores alternatives to the addictive model of pornography use will aid in distributing this research to a broader audience. For example, having this interview may help disseminate this information to folks who otherwise would have never seen it, which may help the general population be better informed about problematic pornography use and maybe even better understand their own distress about pornography.

From your research, what are the potential psychological or social impacts of moral opposition to pornography on individuals and relationships? What advice would you give to individuals who experience conflicts in their personal relationships due to differing views on pornography?

As we discussed earlier, if an individual morally disapproves of pornography and continues to engage in pornography use, they may experience psychological distress likely related to the misalignment between their morals and behaviors. That being said, if someone has a moral opposition to pornography but does not have the desire to engage with it, they may still experience distress related to their feelings about others' pornography use.

The concept of moral harm posits that an individual may feel distressed when their value system is violated either by their own actions, like the distress related to moral incongruence over pornography use, or the actions of others who are either relationally close, such as romantic partners, or distal, such as society broadly. Research about the distress an individual might experience due to pornography use occurring in society is limited, but pornography use in romantic relationships is a more well-developed area of research.

From our study specifically, we found support that people who were married were more likely to report higher moral-based opposition to pornography, and one of the themes we developed from participants' responses was Relationships/Family, which referenced how participants believed that pornography violated of the parameters of a committed romantic relationship in several ways, such as pornography being akin to or causing infidelity and the belief that admiring other attractive individuals outside of one's relationship is morally reprehensible.

As mentioned earlier, we also found that women were overrepresented in our subsample of participants who morally disapproved of pornography compared to the total sample, and that those who reported some level of moral-based opposition to pornography used less pornography than those who did not. This is important because prior studies have shown that couples that have a mismatch in pornography use habits and values around pornography, both of which seem relatively common in heterosexual relationships, can contribute to relationship dissatisfaction.

If we take our findings from this study together with those from past research, it seems that your question about addressing the issue of relationship conflicts that result from differing views on pornography between partners is particularly salient.

Unfortunately, research on treatment options for pornography related sexual issues is very limited, so addressing your question about my advice for couples who struggle with this issue is challenging.

That said, a systematic review that looked at research between 2000-2016 about the potential impacts of pornography on romantic relationships found mixed results, indicating that some studies showed that pornography may have a detrimental impact on relationships while other studies showed beneficial or neutral outcomes, however, the results from the systematic review indicated that communication largely mediated these effects. This means that communication between partners about pornography use in their relationship may help facilitate more favorable outcomes for relationships.

Communication tends to be important in relationships generally, however, it may be especially important around a topic like pornography use, where perceptions are so subjective and variable. With 14 themes of reasons for moral-based opposition to pornography revealed by our study, there seems to be quite a few reasons for people to morally disapprove of pornography, so people from a variety of different backgrounds and belief systems may benefit from having a conversation with their romantic partners about pornography use in their relationship.

We also found that about 40% of our sample reported some degree of moral-based opposition to pornography, leaving 60% that reported believing that it is a neutral or moral activity, underscoring the amount of variability in peoples' perceptions of pornography use and subsequently, the importance of having open communication and being clear about boundaries around pornography use in relationships.