What porn use goes along with, in the person, the couple and toward others

Three reviews, one question

Three reviews asked what porn use travels with. One looked inside the person, at mood, loneliness and stress. One looked at the couple, at how satisfied people were with sex and with each other. One looked outward, at whether people had pressured or forced someone into sex. Each pooled more than 20 studies and tens of thousands of people¹²³.

All three report correlations. A correlation says two things rise together across a group of people. It does not say which one moved first, or whether something else moved both. The two older reviews use a yardstick where 0.1 counts as a small link and 0.3 as a medium one²³. The 2026 review sized its links by a different guide¹. Most of what follows sits between those two marks, and one of the results sits under the first.

In the person

The largest of the three, by Sheikhi, Mohammadkhani and Akbari, came out in 2026¹. It pooled 97 studies holding 111 samples and 121,728 people, published from 2012 to 2025 in English and Persian¹. It looked at problematic porn use, and set it beside other psychological traits¹.

Of the five traits in the chart below, depression came out on top, at 0.32 across 17 studies and 20,921 people¹. Trouble managing emotions followed at 0.29, and loneliness at 0.23 across 21 studies¹. Stress and anxiety came last, at 0.17 and 0.16¹. The authors group depression with stress and loneliness as the smaller links, and the 95% intervals for all five overlap¹.

Some of the larger results rest on fewer studies. Boredom avoidance linked to problem use at 0.37 across 5 studies, and craving at 0.54 across 4, tied with sexual shame at 0.54 across 5 for the strongest link in the review¹. Shame in general showed no significant link across 4 studies, and self-esteem showed none either¹. So shame about sex went with problem use, while shame in general did not reach significance¹.

There are good reasons to hold all of this loosely. Almost all the studies were snapshots taken at one moment, so they cannot say whether depression or problem use came first¹. The studies also disagreed widely. For depression the 95% interval for the average runs from 0.11 to 0.51, and the range a new study could land in runs from -0.79 to 0.93¹. Several of the traits rest on only 4 or 5 studies, and the paper's own tables disagree with each other in a few places¹.

In the relationship

If problem use travels with low mood and loneliness, the next question is what porn use travels with in a couple. An earlier review by Wright, Tokunaga, Kraus and Klann, from 2017, pooled 50 studies from 10 countries and more than 50,000 people². It asked about satisfaction with sex and satisfaction with the relationship.

The measure changes here. Wright and colleagues looked at how much porn people watched, where Sheikhi's review looked at whether use had become a problem¹². The two sets of numbers answer different questions and should not be lined up as if they were the same scale of harm.

Across everyone the link was 0.1, on 37 results and 46,524 people². That is right at the small mark. Split by sex, all of it came from men. Men showed 0.13, with a 95% interval of 0.10 to 0.16 across 29 results². Women showed 0.01 across 22 results, which was not significant².

Sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction gave about the same answer². So did the three kinds of study the review pooled, surveys, long-term studies and experiments². Satisfaction with yourself or your own body showed no link². That fits with the self-esteem result in the 2026 review, where problem use showed no significant link with self-esteem either¹.

A link of 0.13 is small². It leaves most of the difference between one relationship and the next unexplained². It also runs both ways. Unhappy men may turn to porn as well as porn leaving men unhappy, and the authors allow for both². We read it as a real but modest signal in men and no signal in women.

Toward others

The third review looked outward. Wright, Tokunaga and Kraus pooled 22 studies of 20,820 people in 7 countries, published from 1993 to 2014³. They kept only studies of the general population, leaving out offenders and patients. They also kept only studies that asked about actual acts of sexual aggression rather than attitudes³.

The number here is larger. Across all 22 studies, porn use went with sexual aggression at 0.28, with a 95% interval of 0.24 to 0.32³. The link was stronger for verbal coercion, which means pressuring talk without a threat of force, at 0.30 across 6 studies³. For physical force or its threat it was 0.20, also across 6³. Studies that asked specifically about violent porn found 0.37 across 8³.

Two details shrink the headline. The figures are corrected for measurement error, a step that raises them. Uncorrected, the overall link was 0.22³. And only 5 of the 22 studies followed people over time. In those 5, porn use measured first went with aggression measured later at 0.27³. That is a step closer to a test of order than a snapshot. It is still self-report from 5 studies, and it cannot show that porn causes aggression³.

A later review by other authors, Ferguson and Hartley in 2022, came to a harder conclusion⁴. They found no link for nonviolent porn and weak evidence from studies over time⁴. Of the three findings in this article, this is the one with the most open argument behind it. The 0.28 average mixes studies about violent porn with studies about porn in general, and the two reviews disagree most about the second kind³⁴.

Where men and women part

Read side by side, the reviews do not treat women the same way. In the couple review, the whole link came from men, and women showed none at 0.01². In the aggression review, men and women showed about the same link, 0.29 and 0.26³. Whatever sits behind the satisfaction result in men, it is not a general rule that porn use goes with the same things in everyone.

The 2026 review answers a different question from both. What it gives is a short list of feelings to watch for, with craving and sexual shame at the top, and boredom avoidance, low mood, trouble managing emotions and loneliness further down¹. None of the three reviews can say which came first for a given person. That question is answered one life at a time, by noticing which feeling turns up before the urge.

How they found it

• The 2026 review pooled studies that measured problematic porn use alongside another psychological trait, in English and Persian, published from 2012 to 2025.
• The strongest links in that review were with craving, 0.54 across 4 studies, and with sexual shame, 0.54 across 5. Boredom avoidance showed 0.37 across 5. Shame in general and self-esteem showed no significant link.
• The 2017 review pooled 50 studies from 10 countries, including surveys, long-term studies and experiments. Sexual and relationship satisfaction gave about the same result, and satisfaction with yourself or your body showed no link.
• The 2016 review took studies of the general population, not offenders or patients, that asked about actual acts of sexual aggression rather than attitudes.
• In that review, studies that asked specifically about violent porn showed a stronger link, 0.37 across 8 studies. Men and women showed about the same link, 0.29 and 0.26.

What it cannot tell you

• All three reviews report correlations, mostly from snapshots in time. Low mood or an unhappy relationship may lead to porn use as much as the other way round, and the 2017 authors allow both.
• Most links are small. A correlation of 0.13 leaves most of the difference between relationships unexplained.
• The 2026 studies disagreed widely. For depression, the range a new study could land in runs from -0.79 to 0.93.
• Several traits in the 2026 review rest on 4 or 5 studies, and the paper's own tables disagree in a few places.
• The aggression figures are self-reported and corrected for measurement error, which raises them. Uncorrected, the overall link was 0.22. Only 5 of the 22 studies followed people over time.
• A 2022 review by other authors found no link for nonviolent porn and weak evidence from studies over time.

In P-Minus

When you log an urge in P-Minus, you tag how you were feeling, so your own patterns show which feelings come first for you.

Sources

1. Sheikhi S, Mohammadkhani S, Akbari M. Psychological correlates of problematic pornography use: a systematic review and meta-analysis of measurement and conceptualization differences. Addict Behav Rep. 2026;24:100741.
2. Wright PJ, Tokunaga RS, Kraus A, Klann E. Pornography consumption and satisfaction: a meta-analysis. Hum Commun Res. 2017;43(3):315-43.
3. Wright PJ, Tokunaga RS, Kraus A. A meta-analysis of pornography consumption and actual acts of sexual aggression in general population studies. J Commun. 2016;66(1):183-205.
4. Ferguson CJ, Hartley RD. Pornography and sexual aggression: can meta-analysis find a link? Trauma Violence Abuse. 2022;23(1):278-87.

Sources checked October 2026.