Why sexual satisfaction matters for problematic pornography consumption: indirect effects via pornography use motives and moral disapproval. implications for assessment and intervention

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the role of motives for pornography use and moraldisapproval of pornography in the association between sexual satisfaction and problematicpornography consumption. Method: The sample included 933 Romanian adults, aged 18–75 years (M ¼ 29.22; SD ¼ 10.07), most of whom were female (69.1%). Participants completedmeasures of sexual satisfaction, problematic pornography consumption, motives for pornog-raphy use, moral disapproval of pornography, and socio-demographic data. Results: Using aconditional process approach, we found that sexual satisfaction was indirectly associatedwith problematic pornography consumption through pornography use motives related tofantasy, lack of sexual satisfaction, emotional distraction/suppression, and stress reduction.Several conditional indirect effects appeared stronger at lower levels of moral disapproval ofpornography and weakened as moral disapproval increased, although formal evidence ofmoderated mediation was observed only for the lack of sexual satisfaction motive. In con-trast, sexual pleasure and boredom avoidance motives did not yield significant conditionalindirect effects. Conclusions: Overall, the findings highlight the role of pornography usemotives and moral disapproval in understanding the association between sexual satisfactionand problematic pornography consumption, with implications for theory as well as assess-ment and intervention in therapeutic practice.