Can Porn Make Your Wife Unattractive?

Research shows that men in relationships who spend time looking at other attractive women tend to become less satisfied with their partners over time ("Attending to Temptation: The Operation (and Perils) of Attention to Alternatives in Close Relationships" Presentation at 10th Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology:Social Relationships: Cognitive, Affective and Motivational Processes, by Rowland S. Miller). Although this loss of satisfaction may be due to various factors, there are at least four ways that looking at sexy pictures of other women can make your wife less attractive to you. First, the pictures can leave you less satisfied with your wife's beauty because of the "contrast effect." Second they can distort your tastes in feminine beauty by perceived associations of sexiness. Third, they can dull your ability to feel sensual pleasure. Fourth, they can decrease your wife's desire to make herself beautiful for you. There are scientific studies that support some of these ideas, though solid research on others seems to be lacking.

The contrast effect. Have you ever noticed that after you have eaten a piece of candy, an orange tastes sour, and an apple tastes bland? If you hadn't just eaten the candy, both would have been perfectly enjoyable. The way we perceive something depends on what else we have to compare it with. The models and actresses who appear in sexy pictures tend to be unnaturally attractive because they are selected from a pool of highly attractive women and made to look even more attractive with makeup, surgery, soft lighting, flattering poses, photo touch-up etc. Their attractiveness may also be enhanced because of the seductive way they dress or behave. Because these women appear unusually attractive (even in a non-sexual way), the viewer becomes subject to a contrast effect. This means that, after viewing such artificially enhanced beauties, a man will perceive the real women in his life to be relatively unattractive. Research has shown this effect to be real. For example, in a study called "Influence of popular erotica on judgments of strangers and mates" (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 25: 159-167 [1989]) in which men rated the attractiveness of average-looking women (in photographs), those women were rated significantly lower for attractiveness by men who had previously looked at pictures of unclothed women from a popular magazine, than by men who had not. In a similar study called "Contrast effects and judgments of physical attractiveness: When beauty becomes a social problem" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38:131-140 [1980]) women rated for attractiveness received lower ratings from men who had just watched Charlie's Angels than from men who had watched a different television show.

On a practical level, the results of these experiments suggest that the less time you spend looking at women (in photos, film, paintings, or life) who are made to look unnaturally attractive, the more attractive your wife will appear to you. Your wife is a real flesh-and-blood woman. She is uniquely beautiful, but her particular beauty will be less apparent to you if you are subconsciously contrasting her with artificially enhanced images of other women. Your wife is like a naturally delicious fruit. She has natural beauty that could be perfectly enjoyable if not for the sensory dulling effects of eye candy.

Competing sexual associations. Sexy images of women are frequently used in product advertisements. For example, many beer commercials exhibit scantily clad flirting women. The advertisers hope that the particular brand of beer will be perceived as "sexy" and desirable by its association with such images.

Just as sexy pictures can influence how you feel about different brands of beer, they can also influence how you feel about different features or behaviors of women. Just as a brand of beer can come to seem sexy to you because of its association with sexual images, female features or behaviors depicted in the same advertisement may also begin to seem sexy. For example, suppose you see a beer commercial in which an overtly sexy woman with green eyes and braided hair, wearing a lacy white top and sitting on a buckskin horse, blows a kiss at a man holding a can of Brand X beer. The advertiser hopes that Brand X beer will now seem sexy to you by association with this sexual image. What may actually happen, however, is that lacy white tops, braided hair, blown kisses, or even buckskin horses may suddenly seem more desirable to you. You may wish your wife had green eyes, or that she would wear such clothing, blow kisses at you or get into riding horses, etc. Since she does not, you feel frustrated with her.

Dulled sensitivity to sexual stimuli. Erotic images can decrease your ability to feel sexual pleasure while simultaneously increasing your desire for it. This causes a process called "escalation" in which you search out images or situations that are even more arousing in an attempt to "feel something . . . anything." You may require increasingly novel or even violent situations to feel any excitement, given your increasingly dulled sexual senses. Even relatively mild images such as pictures of sexy models in clothing or beer advertisements can affect you this way. For example, after enjoying pictures of starlets in party dress in a popular entertainment magazine, you may head home feeling strong desires for sexual excitement. Upon arriving home, however, you find that your wife's appearance and behavior seem boring due to your dulled senses. Still desirous, but frustrated, you are tempted to look elsewhere for excitement.

This process of sensual dulling and escalation is destructive when erotic images of other women are involved, but it has a natural and beneficial counterpart within properly functioning marriage. For example, coming home to find your wife dressed seductively and smiling is like looking at a sexy picture. You enjoy the view for a few minutes, but then the novelty and excitement of it begins to fade. You revive the feeling by stealing a kiss, and then another. She responds in kind. The kissing satisfies for a few more minutes, but then you need something a little stronger to keep the thrill going. This is what brings a man and woman together with enough force to propagate the human species. Without the process of sensual dulling and escalation, you might be satisfied with just looking at her all evening. On the other hand, when the thrill of looking at a sexy picture in a magazine begins to fade, there is nothing more that picture can give you to keep the feeling going, so you look for other, more arousing, pictures to meet your need. When the most arousing picture leaves you unsatisfied, you are left with cravings for more, but no good options.

A discouraged wife. Your wife probably knows that she could never compete with the pornography that is available to you. If you look at it, she can likely sense at some level that she is appearing less attractive to you as a result. If you are finding her less exciting, you are probably not being as affectionate with her as you would have otherwise. All of this can be quite discouraging to her, and she may not see value in putting so much effort into making herself attractive for you, if you are not going to appreciate it.

The following is a simple story to illustrate how these principles might play out in a marriage.

You and your friend are walking down a street when you both see a glossy magazine that someone has discarded. Your friend picks it up and flips through it, drinking in the pictures of scantily dressed women. You, meanwhile, hang back and avoid looking because you know the long-term effects the pictures can have. Now fast-forward a few years. You have now both married equally attractive women. Your friend still has the habit of enjoying whatever sexually exciting material he comes upon, while you do your best to avoid it. You are at home, just finishing a pleasant meal with your wife as you gaze lovingly at her. She has never looked better to you than she does now at 45. The way you treat her and look at her makes her feel cared for and attractive, so she takes good care of herself and of you. You are looking forward to spending the rest of the evening with her. Your friend and his wife are at their home, having just eaten some leftover pizza while watching television. They glance at each other only when necessary, and speak in guarded tones. She feels unattractive and unloved, so she is emotionally distant and doesn't put much effort into making herself look attractive for him. Being with her depresses him, so he is leaving to play cards with some friends. She plans to find pleasure and comfort with a bowl of ice cream and a romance novel.