What motivates men to not consume pornography? Moving beyond themes of addiction and abstinence

This article presents a thematic analysis of responses from an international qualitative survey of men who do not consume pornography. We find the two most common reasons given by respondents relate to sexism, misogyny and violence against women, and varied conceptualisations of harm to the self. A significant minority of responses contained interrelated or overlapping themes, attesting to the complex thinking and multiple factors that many men detailed around their decision to stop using pornography. This empirical contribution builds on limited, extant work considering particular cohorts of men who wish to ‘quit’ pornography (for example, Burke and Haltom, 2020; Fernandez et al, 2021; Jovanovski and Tyler, 2023) and seeks to expand discussions about men’s motivations to end their ‘commitment’ to pornography (Garner, 2016) beyond notions of addiction and abstinence. While not all respondents gave feminist or pro-feminist reasoning for their non-consumption of pornography, that some men clearly did consider issues of violence against women in their decision-making should be of particular interest to researchers and practitioners focused on gender-based violence. In an era of ubiquitous pornography consumption, these men’s experiences show an alternative path which might help to open further discussions around gender equality and sexuality.