(PS4-D89) The Porn Talk: Is Discussing Pornography with One’s Romantic Partner Associated with Greater Relationship Quality?

A bevy of research has found that pornography viewing behaviors are frequent among U.S. adults (e.g., Regnerus et al., 2016) and are associated with relationship quality for adults in romantic relationships (e.g., Minarcik et al., 2016; Willoughby & Leonhardt, 2020), but scholars have only just begun to look in earnest at potential “process” variables that may explain these associations (e.g., Campbell & Kohut, 2017; Huntington et al., 2021). One such potential process variable is communication about pornography (Willoughby et al., 2020). Effective communication is central to relationship wellbeing (Baucom & Baucom, 2022) and communication about sex is associated with positive relationship outcomes (Jones et al., 2018; Mallory et al., 2019). To date, only an unpublished doctoral dissertation has related a direct measure of communication about pornography to relationship quality, finding a positive association between the two (Augustus, 2022). Thus, basic questions about the nature of couple’s communication about pornography and its associations with relationship quality remain.

The current study utilized an online sample (N = 616) to report on the prevalence of conversations about pornography in romantic relationships, the frequency of negative and positive outcomes, and associations between having had “the porn talk” and a variety of relationship characteristics. Just over half of participants (53.9%) reported having discussed pornography with their partner. Of those who had discussed pornography, 51.9% said the discussions had positively impacted their relationship, while 10.2% reported a negative impact and 38.0% reported no impact. In independent samples t-tests, relative to participants who had not discussed pornography with their partners, participants who had reported having more frequent sex, greater sexual intimacy, better sexual communication, and watching pornography together more often (p < .05). They also reported more solitary pornography viewing and were more likely to be cohabiting than those who hadn’t talked about pornography. In one-way ANOVAs, participants who reported the conversations had positive impacts scored higher on numerous measures of sexual and relational quality than those reported the conversations had negative impacts (p < .05).

These results represent a useful next step in attempting to understand the prevalence of communication about pornography and how it is related to romantic relationship processes. Considering the frequency with which adults report watching pornography together or alone, it seems likely that pornography viewing is present in nearly all adult romantic relationships, but as our results would suggest, this viewing goes undiscussed by a substantial minority of those couples. Results also suggest, in line with previous (albeit unpublished) research (Augustus, 2022), that couples who have had the porn talk may have higher relationship quality, although this association may be dependent on the nature and quality of the conversation. Nonetheless, this study highlights the possibility that conversations about pornography may be generally beneficial to adult romantic relationships.