Adolescents’ Preferences for Mainstream and Paraphilic Pornography and Sexual Health Components: Attention to Within-And Between-Person Dynamics Over Time

ABSTRACT

Health communication scholars are becoming increasingly cognizant of the potential health implications of youths’ pornography consumption. However, while research on pornography viewing and adolescent health and development has become increasingly common, the possible importance of distinguishing between mainstream and paraphilic consumption and within-and-between person dynamics has been underemphasized. Accordingly, the present study explored relations between adolescents’ preferences for mainstream and paraphilic pornography and their sexual satisfaction and sexual arousability in three-wave panel data using random intercept cross-lagged panel models. At a between-person level, only mainstream pornography viewing was positively related to adolescents’ sexual arousability. No relations were found between mainstream and paraphilic pornography viewing and sexual satisfaction at a between-person level. Results further revealed that an increased exposure to mainstream pornography and paraphilic pornography was not associated with sexual arousability and sexual satisfaction at the individual level. Null findings regarding paraphilic pornography viewing may be explained by the presence of a floor effect. Further, no differences in the investigated relations were found between sexually inexperienced and experienced adolescents, and between single adolescents and adolescents in a relationship. The findings are discussed in light of recent commentary on the uses of random-intercept cross-lagged panel models in the communication discipline.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2024.2335691.

Notes

1. The remaining 9% (W1), 7.9% (W2), and 34.4% (W3) represent respondents who did not respond to pornography viewing items and are, thus, missing values.

2. The remaining 11.3% (W1), 6.1% (W2), and 30.8% (W3) represent respondents who did not fill in the relationship items and are, thus, missing values.

3. The model adjusted for demographic variability also showed an excellent model fit, χ² (3) = 4.43, p > .05, RMSEA = .03 (90% CI = [.00; .09]), CFI = 1. Similar results as in the parsimonious model emerged.

4. The model with focal predictors only showed an excellent model fit, χ² (3) = 4.06, RMSEA = .00 (90% CI = [.00; .08]), CFI = 1. Similar results as in the model adjusted for demographic variability emerged.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds under grant number [C14/18/017].