Porn ‘Habit’ vs. Partner’s Self Esteem

In a study that was conducted by researcher Destin Stewart, a clinical psychology intern at the University of Florida, recently made conclusions about how women understood their boyfriend’s viewing of porn, and how the women regarded themselves. The conclusions in the article written about the study seem unfinished at best, and at worst, the conclusions are definitely sex-negative.

My initial hesitations with this study were with the population that the researcher focused on.

She recruited 308 college women, ages 18 to 29 years old, to fill out online questionnaires about their current partner’s porn use as well as their relationship quality, sexual satisfaction and self-esteem. All of the women were heterosexual and most were white.

Having such a small age range, as well as really no diversity in terms of race or sexuality raises a red flag for me.

The conclusions seemed to be that for the women that stated their male significant others watched porn more than ‘normal’ or were even a ‘porn addict’, the women also disclosed that they had lower satisfaction within their relationship, and lower self esteem. The researcher seemed to take these connotations at face value, and drew conclusions such as:

Women whose partners watch a lot of porn might begin to feel more insecure. Or women who feel bad about themselves might seek out or stay with porn-loving guys more often than secure women.

I think this study is interesting, because it does allow for a discussion of porn-viewing within the context of relationship health and the self-esteem for the heterosexual woman partner in the relationship. Obviously, for this to have significant value, a more in-depth study needs to be done, with broader populations (even maintaining the heterosexual dynamic) and including the heterosexual male perspective to this.

What do you think about this study, and article?