Til Porn Do Us Part – Does Pornography Influence Divorce?
Does Pornography Influence Divorce?
As someone who works with individuals who struggle with problematic pornography use, I see firsthand how this can cause disruption in relationships. Therapists have much anecdotal evidence but does pornography influence divorce? There is not a lot of scientific research that backs up the exact influence of use of pornography use on relationships.
The Study
There are some studies, mostly looking at marital satisfaction, associated with pornography use or religiosity and pornography use. This study, published by Perry and Schleifer in 2017 specifically looked at the relationship between pornography use and divorce. Their data comes from a national survey called the General Social Survey (GSS) that is a face-to-face survey of English and Spanish speaking American adults that follows people through “waves” every two years from 2006 to 2014. The survey collects data related to, among other things, marital status, marital happiness, pornography use, and religiosity. Since the survey asks the same people over time, the authors can see both changes in marital status and whether the participant has started or stopped viewing pornography.
Based on previous research, the authors hypothesized that starting to look at pornography would be associated with an increase in the probability of divorce. They thought this association would be more prevalent for men than for women. They also thought that it would be more prevalent for younger people than for older Americans. The final hypothesis was that the association between pornography use, and divorce would be stronger for religious people than for those who do not actively practice a religion.
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The Results
The survey results indicated that if a person started to watch pornography between survey waves, they were nearly twice as likely to be divorced by the next wave of the survey. This increase in likelihood of divorce was not different for men versus women.
As for age, the association with pornography use and divorce decreases with increases in age, with younger people being more likely to divorce than older individuals. Contrary to the prediction, being more religious did not increase the probability of divorce and the positive association between divorce and pornography use was only for those individuals who did not attend weekly church services.
Ultimately, it was found that the strongest positive association between starting pornography use, and divorce was in younger Americans who were initially very happy in their marriages and who were not very religious.
The Realities of Pornography’s Influence on Divorce
While this study does show that there is an association between pornography use, divorce and these factors, it should be noted that this data is looking at associations. It is not causal. There is no way to actually know if the pornography use was instrumental in the decision of the couple to get a divorce. It is also possible that starting to look at pornography was influenced by unhappiness in the marriage.
Reference: Perry, S.L. & Schleifer, C. (2017). Til Porn Do Us Part? A longitudinal examination of pornography use and divorce. The Journal of Sex Research, doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1317709
Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Consult with a professional.
Are you looking for more reputable, data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.
