Abertay University: Abertay study reveals porn may not have ‘universally negative’ effect on how men view other women

Abertay researchers have found evidence to suggest that watching pornography may not be as detrimental to how men view romantic partners as widely believed.

Contradicting widespread claims that pornography usage can impact men’s ability to form or sustain relationships, the team from Abertay’s Division of Psychology and Forensic Sciences found that much greater nuance is required when considering the real effect on relationships, and also the extent to which heterosexual men find other women attractive.

Researchers set out to test the ‘Coolidge effect’ – a theory that states the introduction of potential new mates increases arousal in males. A well-known and controversial TEDx talk on this subject by blogger and teacher Gary Wilson – ‘The great porn experiment’ – has been viewed over 14 million times.

Participants in the Abertay study viewed a series of images of pornographic actresses, either clothed, nude or engaged in sex, and were then subsequently asked to rate the attractiveness of other women from a series of stock images, including ‘new’ images they hadn’t seen before and ‘familiar’ images that they had seen at the beginning of the experiment.

The findings showed that viewing pornographic actresses reduced the attractiveness of ‘familiar’ women’s bodies but not their faces.

Importantly, the same body judgement effect was found in both heterosexual and homosexual participants, suggesting sexual arousal wasn’t the main reason for the change in rating.

Lead author Dr Christopher Watkins, Head of Division of Psychology and Forensic Sciences, said:

What these findings suggest is that while sexual arousal induced via pornography plays some role in men’s attractiveness judgements of women, it is far from a simple ‘stimulus-response’ relationship where some would suggest that watching porn has a universally negative impact on how men view other women. Future research could explore these same effects in women and how porn consumption may influence attractiveness judgements over a long time period, and how the personality traits of the person viewing pornography also matter.