Mental Health
Problematic pornography use and novel patterns of escalating use: A cross-sectional network analysis with two independent samples.
Open Access: No.
Abstract
Modern internet pornography allows users to harness sexual novelty in numerous ways, which can be used to overcome desensitisation through increasing volume of use (quantitative tolerance), progressing to more stimulating genres (qualitative escalation), skipping between stimuli (tab-jumping), delaying orgasm (‘edging’), and engaging in pornographic binges. However, existing research has not yet evaluated how these potentially reciprocal consumption patterns relate to problematic pornography use (PPU). To this end, we recruited two independent samples of male pornography users (N1 = 1,356, Mage = 36.86, SD = 11.26; N2 = 944, Mage = 38.69, SD = 12.26) and examined the relationships between these behavioural dimensions and self-reported difficulties in controlling one’s pornography use. Data were analysed through the network analysis approach (using Gaussian graphical models). As hypothesised, i) quantitative tolerance was centrally placed within the overall network, and ii) acted as a statistical bridge node between other patterns of pornography use (e.g., pornographic binges), and all measured facets of PPU. Our results are consistent with other emerging literature suggesting that tolerance, pornographic binges, tab-jumping, and edging behaviours as relevant features of PPU, and that upscaling overall usage may connect broader patterns of use with problematic engagement. Clinical and theoretical implications, as well as future research directions, are discussed..
Relevance
The study found evidence that PPU [problematic pornography use] was especially connected to “quantitative tolerance” (“escalating time required to reach sexual satisfaction”) but also increasing the number of different pornographic genres viewed, pornographic binges, edging, and tab-jumping.
“Escalating engagement, alongside diminished pleasure, may be an important PPU characteristic.”
The study demonstrated that “binge frequency was primarily (but not exclusively) linked to PPU through tolerance…We also found direct links between binge frequency and PPU-related dimensions, like using pornography for mood management and difficulties resisting pornographic urges. On balance, these binge-related observations are broadly consistent with the literature on substance abuse” and other “dysregulated behaviours ” such as binge eating.
Citation
Ince, C., Albertella, L., Liu, C., Tiego, J., Fontenelle, L. F., Chamberlain, S. R., Yücel, M., & Rotaru, K. (2024). Problematic pornography use and novel patterns of escalating use: A cross-sectional network analysis with two independent samples. Addictive behaviors, 156, 108048. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2024.108048
