Can Porn Make Marital Sex Boring?

Is porn sexy?

In a classic study called "Pornography’s impact on sexual satisfaction" (Journal of Applied Social Psychology 18:438–453 [1988]), participants who were subjected to common pornography became less satisfied with the affection, physical appearance, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance of their intimate partners. Additional studies, including one called "Effect of cybersex addiction on the family" (Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity 7:31–58 [2000]), one called "The new 'elephant in the living room': Effects of compulsive cybersex behaviors on the spouse" (CyberPsychology & Behavior 1:178 [1988]), and one called "The significance of heavy pornography involvement for romantic partners: research and clinical implications" (Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 28:193–206 [2002]), have also supported a tendency of decreased sexual satisfaction in the viewer of pornography and/or his or her intimate partner. I suspect that the principles involved here are some of the same ones discussed in Can Porn Make Your Wife Unattractive?

Your enjoyment of the sexual affection that your wife gives you depends not only on her actions, but even more on your sexual expectations and preferences, and on the competing thoughts and memories that may come into your mind during lovemaking. Pornography can influence each of these things.

In fact, it seems that pornography not only puts a damper on one's marital sex life, but also makes sex in general less exciting. As evidence of this, consider that typical commercial pornography, in order to sell, has to be spiked with some rather bizarre additives. It can't just be a normal attractive couple having sex. These additives commonly include activities that, in real life, would be impossible, painful or very uncomfortable (and not particularly sexual or exciting to those who have not acquired a taste for them); bodies with rather distorted proportions; and piercings in rather inconvenient places. The reason the pornographer has to include these artificial additives is that his customers are no longer interested in real, natural sex due to the unnatural effects of pornography on their tastes and preferences. These customers are no longer able to fully enjoy a real sexual relationship, so they are forced to retreat further into a world of fantasy in order to feel the thrill they crave.

Rather than being sexy, pornography is more likely to inhibit a man's ability to enjoy a real sexual relationship. He becomes sexually frustrated because he is conditioned by the porn to crave certain situations, but is unable to find or reproduce them in his real life relationships. Sexual situations that would be exciting to people who don't use porn become boring to the porn user. When a man uses pornography, he becomes, in a way, less of a sexual being.

You can find more research on the effects of pornography on marriage reviewed in "The impact of internet pornography on marriage and the family: a review of the research" (Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity 13:131-165 [2006]).