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Pornography use is becoming more commonplace and may be a modality by which individuals receive sex education. This survey study assessed pornography consumption, perceptions of pornography as a source of sexual information, and condom use in a heterosexual sample of 200 sexually active German adults who were not in monogamous relationships. At the bivariate, overall sample level, there was only a modest association between consuming pornography and a decreased frequency of condom use. However, consistent with the sexual script acquisition, activation, application model (AM) of sexual media socialization, this association was moderated by differential perceptions of pornography as a source of sexual information. Interaction decomposition revealed that there was no association between pornography consumption and condom use among participants who disagreed that pornography is a source of sexual information. Conversely, pornography consumption was associated with a lower frequency of condom use among participants who agreed that pornography is a source of sexual information. As the perception that pornography is a source of sexual information strengthened, the relationship between pornography consumption and less frequent condom use increased. Gender did not moderate these associations. These findings point toward the importance of fostering a critical reading of pornography through media literacy education.

This study found that German heterosexual women's personal and partnered consumption of pornography were positively correlated with their desire to engage in or having previously engaged in submissive (but not dominant) sexual behaviors such as having their hair pulled, having their face ejaculated on, being spanked, choked, called names, slapped, and gagged. The association between women's partnered pornography consumption and submissive sexual behavior was strongest for women whose first exposure to pornography was at a young age. The findings also indicated that women's personal and partnered pornography consumption were uniquely related to their engagement in submissive sexual behavior. Public Health Significance Statement: This study suggests that greater exposure to pornography among heterosexual German women is associated with their desire to engage in or having previously engaged in submissive sexual behaviors but not dominant behaviors. This pattern of correlations aligns with sexual script theory and content analyses of dominance and submission and gender in pornography. It does not align with the perspective that measures of pornography consumption are simply proxies for factors such as a high sex drive or an adventurous approach to sex.

Several studies using different methods have found that pornography consumption is associated with lower sexual satisfaction. The language used by media-effects scholars in discussions of this association implies an expectation that lowered satisfaction is primarily due to frequent-but not infrequent-consumption. Actual analyses, however, have assumed linearity. Linear analyses presuppose that for each increase in the frequency of pornography consumption there is a correspondingly equivalent decrease in sexual satisfaction. The present brief report explored the possibility that the association is curvilinear. Survey data from two studies of heterosexual adults, one conducted in England and the other in Germany, were employed. Results were parallel in each country and were not moderated by gender. Quadratic analysis indicated a curvilinear relationship, in the form of a predominantly negative, concave downward curve. Simple slope analyses suggested that when the frequency of consumption reaches once a month, sexual satisfaction begins to decrease, and that the magnitude of the decrease becomes larger with each increase in the frequency of consumption. The observational nature of the data employed precludes any causal inferences. However, if an effects perspective was adopted, these results would suggest that low rates of pornography consumption have no impact on sexual satisfaction and that adverse effects initiate only after consumption reaches a certain frequency.