The Impact of Internet Pornography on Married Women: A Psychodyna ...

Often women defend against any knowledge of their husband’s behaviors by using the defense of denial. Others disavow their husband’s Internet behaviors, which allow them to tolerate their husband’s activity and manage the marital relationship. Other responses to husbands include ignoring the behavior, detective work to uncover the use, arguments about the material, bargaining with their husbands, using detective software to reveal cybersex activities, deleting Web sites, controlling computer access, increasing sexual activity and repertory of sexual activities, retaliating by spending money or engaging in extramarital affairs, and withdrawing from the relationship. Some women generate conflict about issues seemingly unrelated to their husbands’ Internet activity. Many women confront their husbands directly only after the children are exposed to the material. Rarely do women confide in others due to intense shame about their spouse’s use of pornography. Women’s awareness level is not reflective in their coping strategies.

The relationships women have with their husbands are complex and complicated. Although they claim to find the Internet behavior reprehensible, some women rationalize an inability to make spouses relinquish this activity. All wives struggle internally and externally with this issue. It impacts their spiritual, emotional, sexual, intellectual, and relational lives. There are underlying psychological reasons that explain the difficulty of establishing firm, clear boundaries. How do women manage in the relationship? How are some women able to establish and maintain boundaries while other women feel powerless? Why is it that some women participate in the activity and other women withdraw? How do the psychosexual development, socio-educational background, and religious beliefs affect women in how they manage?

To understand this phenomenon, this study will examine various analytic theoretical perspectives, commencing with current day theorists and ending with Freud. The literature review will begin with the social feminists and their contribution to the understanding of pornography. While this is a limited view, it provides context and social history. Once the social environment for the use of pornography is established, the literature will move into the psychoanalytic realm and explore multiple theories.