Scientists Reveal Three Types of Porn Watchers, Find Out Where You Belong

A team of scientists from Canada revealed that not all porn viewers are the same and they can be classified into three distinct types.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, showed that porn watchers can be grouped into three kinds: the recreational, the compulsive and the distressed.

For the study, the researchers surveyed 830 participants from the university lists, web classifieds and social networks. The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that measures their tendency to avoid sex, sexual dysfunction and overall sexual satisfaction. The questionnaires also include a three-part porn-use scale that asked how compulsive their porn use, how hard they try to access porn and their level of emotional distress.

Recreational Porn User

Among the three types of porn users, only the recreational group is deemed to be healthy. This group account for 75 percent of all the participants. Participants in this group got low scores on all the porn use dimensions and were averaging 24 minutes of porn viewing per week.

"Pornography use seems to be problematic for sexual well-being in two groups of users: a group of high-frequency compulsive users and a group of low frequency users who report significant emotional distress mostly expressed through shame and self-disgust," said lead author Marie-Pier Vaillancourt-Morel, of the University of Montreal, in an interview with Psypost.

Distressed Porn User

The second type of porn users, which accounts for 12.7 percent of the participants, is distressed group.

Despite averaging only 17 minutes of porn viewing per week, this group has lots of emotional distress. They also got low compulsivity and intensity scores.

Compulsive Porn User

The compulsive group accounts for the remaining 11.8 percent of the participants. In this group, participants got high scores on intensity and compulsivity and moderate scores on distress. Participants in this group spend an average of 110 minutes a week watching porn.

Most of the participants in the study were women, 71.8 percent. About 81.8 percent self-identified as heterosexuals, while 5.8 percent and 11.6 percent identified themselves as homosexuals and bisexuals, respectively. Among the participants, 35 percent were married, 36 percent were single and 29 percent were dating.