The Global Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Individuals' and Couples' Sexuality

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related restrictions significantly impacted individuals' health, wellbeing, and security. Isolation, limitation of movement, social distancing, and forced cohabiting have had a strong influence on all areas of people's lives as well as on their sexuality. Investigating how the COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences impacted people's sexuality was the primary aim of this review. Particularly, we focused on: (1) the variables associated with the improvement or the deterioration of individuals' and couples' lives during the pandemic; (2) the use of sex as a coping strategy; (3) the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on LGBT people. Results have shown that the worsening of sexual life seems to be related to couples' conflict, emotions and psychological difficulties, being female, being single or away from the partner, being a health care worker, and having children. Moreover, a detrimental effect on sexuality was associated with stress, forced cohabitation, routine, anxiety and worry about the job and the pandemic, feeling partner distance, being unhappy with their partner, and lack of privacy. On the other hand, improvements in sexuality were associated with living happily with a partner, being happy and satisfied with a partner, feeling less stressed and more bored, having more free time, having fewer recreation opportunities, and having minor workload. During the pandemic, there was an increase in using sex toys, pornography consumption, masturbating, and trying sexual experimentations. Among LGBT people, an increase was found in the number of casual sexual partners potentially due to the perceived lower likelihood of transmission through sex. Moreover, the increase in sexual activity may have represented a coping strategy to quarantine-related distress.

Associations Between Pornography Consumption, Sexual Flexibility, and Sexual Functioning Among Austrian Adults

To date, only a few studies have examined the associations between pornography consumption and sexual functioning. The Acquisition, Activation, Application Model (3AM) indicates that the frequency of pornography consumption and the perceived realism of pornography may influence whether sexual scripts are acquired from viewed pornography. Having sexual scripts that are alternative to their preferred sexual behaviors may help people switch to alternative sexual behavior when sexual problems arise. The current study analyzed whether frequent pornography consumption was associated with greater sexual flexibility and greater sexual functioning. Additionally, the perceived realism of pornography consumption was tested as a moderator of those associations. At an Austrian medical university, an online cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted among 644 medical students (54% women and 46% men; Mage = 24.1 years, SD = 3.8). The participants were asked about their pornography consumption, partnered sexual activity, sexual flexibility, perceived realism of pornography, and sexual functioning. Manifest path analyses revealed direct and indirect associations between frequent pornography consumption and greater sexual functioning through greater sexual flexibility in women but not in men. Perceived realism did not moderate those associations. In conclusion, our study was in line with previous studies that found no significant associations between men’s pornography consumption and sexual functioning in men. However, some women may expand their sexual scripts and learn new sexual behaviors from pornography consumption, which may help with their sexual functioning.

Pornography Use Profiles and the Emergence of Sexual Behaviors in Adolescence

This research longitudinally explored adolescent pornography (porn) consumption and its association with sexual development in early and middle adolescence. A four-wave design with half-year intervals investigated pornography consumption and different (sexual) activities, such as masturbation, French kissing, petting, giving/receiving manual and oral sex, and intercourse, among 630 respondents (47.9% female, mean age 13.7 years; SD = 0.48) years at T1). A latent growth mixture analysis of pornography consumption revealed two groups with relatively low pornography (LP; 51.8% of the boys, 91.4% of the girls) versus high pornography (HP; 48.2% of the boys; 8.6% of the girls) consumption across time. At T1, HP boys on average watched pornography less than once a month, but more than once a year at T1. At T4, their average pornography use had increased to almost one to two times a week. LP boys never watched pornography at T1. At T4, their average pornography use was still less than once a year. At T1, HP girls never watched pornography, but consumption increased to almost one to three times a month at T4. Across waves of the study, LP girls (almost) never watched pornography. A discrete-time survival mixture analysis of sexual developmental patterning indicated that, compared to their LP peers, both girls and boys in the HP groups showed accelerated development of masturbation, petting, and receiving manual sex. Girls in the HP group were also more inclined to receive oral sex, whereas boys in the HP group also showed earlier and more frequent manual sex and intercourse. Thus, whereas the HP group of boys was substantially larger compared to that of girls, pornography consumption was related to accelerated development of sexual activities for both genders across early and middle adolescence. The discussion deliberates on pornography as a driving force in adolescent sexual development versus pornography as a medium of choice for sexually advanced adolescents.

WAVES OF PORNOGRAPHY CONSUMPTION ILLNESS: A SIMPLE IDENTIFICATION IN GRADUATE STUDENTS

This study aims to identify waves of pornography consumption illness in graduate students of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems, Islamic University, Kushtia, Bangladesh. Data have been collected from 53 recent students using five points Likert Scale to assess the agreed level of the respondents from August 2020 to October, 2020. For analyzing data, different statistical tools namely mode, correlation analysis, regression analysis, factor analysis, Mann-Whitney U- Test, Kruskal Wallis Test etc. are applied. The value of Cronbach's Alpha is 0.74 indicating acceptable position in measurement of the degree of internal consistency and the included variables of the study have a suitable reliability for analysis of the undertaken study. The total variance of the dependent variable is explained by the identified dependent variable is amounted by 76 percent with three factors as Factor-1: Identification of social disorder; Factor-2: Identification of sleeping disorder; Factor-3: Identification of friendship disorder to be the most influential factors which actually reflect key factors of pornography consumption illness. The study suggests that the effective actions should be taken to learn and maintain the habitual facts of the recent graduate students to confirm the effective human resources to fulfill the requirements of providing the better service to the family, society and state.

Supply, Demand, and Production Harms

The chapter analytically reviews research findings on pornography consumption and the harms inflicted during its production. Most men are found to use pornography, especially young men, while few women do. The multibillion-dollar pornography industry’s considerable and expanding size is noted. Empirical findings showing consumers’ desensitization and increased demand for more aggressive, subordinating, and degrading content are discussed, as is the producers’ adaptation to this popular market. Evidence of exploitation and abuse during production is considered in light of documented links and similarities between populations used in pornography and populations generally used in prostitution. Multiple disadvantages such as poverty, childhood sexual abuse and neglect, racial disparities, and lack of alternatives in these groups are assessed. Mental health sequelae (e.g., PTSD) due to abuse in pornography production is considered. Similar (but more limited) findings on gay male pornography and male performers are discussed. Contending views in the literature are addressed.

Harm Caused by Consumers

The chapter analytically reviews research on the associations between, on the one hand, pornography consumption and, on the other, sexual aggression, attitudes promoting or trivializing violence against women, and sex purchasing. A positive association is found. The complementary methods used to draw causal inferences are illuminated: experiments, naturalistic observations (longitudinal and cross-sectional), and qualitative studies. Mechanisms that explain the effects of nonviolent pornography include subordination and dehumanization of women, targeting of perceived promiscuity, and imitation with unwilling partners. Results are corroborated across studies with samples drawn from the general population, youth, battered women, sex purchasers, and prostituted persons. It is shown how studies that control for variables and moderators such as hostility and promiscuity, which are not independent of the causal variable, likely underestimate pornography’s effects (a problem called post-treatment bias). Additionally, causal overdetermination and other problems in aggregated crime report studies are addressed (e.g., trivialization caused by pornography).

The relationship between consumption of pornography and consensual sexual practice: Results of a mixed method systematic review

This article reports on the findings of a systematic review of literature on pornography use and sexual consent published between January 2000 and December 2017. The review found that there exists little research explicitly addressing consent. There exists an extensive literature on the relationship between the consumption of pornography and sexual aggression/violence; however, this work fails to distinguish between consensual (kink, spanking, BDSM) and nonconsensual acts (sexual harassment and rape). Our thematic analysis found that there is no agreement in the literature reviewed as to whether consumption of pornography is correlated with better or worse understandings or practices of sexual consent. The majority of articles that identified correlations between aspects of sexual health and pornography consumption incorrectly assigned causality to pornography consumption.