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Do You Feel in Control? Sexual Desire, Sexual Passion Expression, and Associations with Perceived Compulsivity to Pornography and Pornography Use Frequency

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Abstract

Previous scholars have found that when individuals feel that pornography use is uncontrollable, it is linked to more extreme negative outcomes than frequency of use. With a Mechanical Turk sample of 1421 individuals, we used structural equation modeling to evaluate how multiple aspects of sexual desire (sexual drive and dyadic desire) and multiple aspects of sexual passion expression (harmonious, obsessive, and inhibited) were associated with both pornography use frequency and perceived compulsivity to pornography. In general, sexual desire was more connected to pornography use and sexual passion was more connected to perceived compulsivity. Specifically, sexual drive was associated with higher pornography use, whereas both obsessive and inhibited sexual passion were associated with higher perceived compulsivity. The study should help scholars, clinicians, and policy makers to identify factors that can help to overcome potentially problematic pornography use and approach this subject with more nuance.

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Notes

  1. We recognize that a variety of sexual content may be perceived as pornographic (Willoughby & Busby, 2016). For the purposes of our study, we define pornography as sexually explicit material intended to arouse the viewer. For a more detailed discussion of how pornography should be defined and measured, see Kohut et al., 2019

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Sarah Coyne and Dr. Jeremy Yorgason for the helpful review of earlier drafts.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, L5L 1C6, Canada

    Nathan D. Leonhardt

  2. School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    Dean M. Busby & Brian J. Willoughby

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  1. Nathan D. Leonhardt
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Leonhardt, N.D., Busby, D.M. & Willoughby, B.J. Do You Feel in Control? Sexual Desire, Sexual Passion Expression, and Associations with Perceived Compulsivity to Pornography and Pornography Use Frequency. Sex Res Soc Policy 18, 377–389 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-020-00465-7

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