Sexual Desire and Subjective Distress among Pornography Consumers

Abstract

Clients are increasingly seeking professional help related to pornography viewing in the digital age. Given distress is a key reason clients seek help, the purpose of this study was to identify variables associated with it. Drawing from recent literature, we examined the roles of solitary sexual desire, moral incongruence, feelings of dysregulation, and shame-proneness in predicting subjective distress among consumers. Surveys were administered through Amazon Mechanical Turk to US adults (n = 559). Structural equation models supported moderated mediation, where the positive relationship between sexual desire and subjective distress was fully mediated by feelings of dysregulation, and the relationship between sexual desire and feelings of dysregulation was moderated by moral incongruence. Moral incongruence was the largest direct predictor of subjective distress, while shame-proneness was not significantly associated with it. This study points to targets for intervention research, reinforces findings that values play an integral role in how individuals interpret their viewing and whether they feel distressed, and suggests that values may impact how individuals interpret their sexual desire. Implications for practitioners are discussed, including the need for person-in-environment assessment and more holistic care than has traditionally been proposed in the sex addiction field.

Compliance with ethical standards

The authors affirm this manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.

Acknowledgments

This manuscript was derived from portions of the lead author’s dissertation research. The authors thank Christina Gringeri, Charlie Hoy-Ellis, Brad Lundahl, and Mary Jane Taylor for their earlier feedback on this project.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was granted by the University of Utah Institutional Review Board (ref. #00120625).

Author Note

Robert P. Butters is now Clinical Director at LifeMatters Counseling & Health Center in Salt Lake City, UT.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.