Most people don’t think so. 19% of Americans say watching porn without your partner is always cheating, and another 28% say it sometimes is, in a national Deseret News poll fielded by YouGov (2017).
Interactive content is a different story. 47% of Britons say engaging with sexual content creators, such as on OnlyFans, counts as cheating, according to a YouGov survey from July 2026.
In this article, we’ll break down what polls and studies say about porn and cheating by gender, age, religion and politics, what couples actually do, and which popular statistics don’t hold up.
Top Statistics on Porn and Cheating
- 19% of Americans say watching porn without your partner is always cheating, and 28% say it sometimes is (2017).
- In a 2014 YouGov poll, watching porn ranked last of 10 behaviors Americans consider cheating, at 26%.
- 37% of Americans 65 and older called porn cheating in 2014, about 2.5 times the 15% of adults under 30.
- 47% of Britons say engaging with OnlyFans-type creators is cheating, including 57% of women and 37% of men (2026).
- About 1 in 4 partnered men and 10% of partnered women say they hide their porn use from their partner.
- 52% of Americans say viewing porn is morally wrong, versus 90% who say the same of a married person having an affair.
- The widely repeated claim that “56% of divorces involve porn” comes from an informal poll of divorce lawyers, not a study.
Is Watching Porn Considered Cheating?
Not by most people. In a 2017 national poll of 1,000 Americans fielded by YouGov for the Deseret News, 19% said watching porn without your partner is always cheating and 28% said sometimes.
That’s 47% who see it as cheating at least some of the time (our calculation). The remaining 53% didn’t answer always or sometimes (our calculation).
Every major poll lands in a similar range. Here’s how they compare:
| Poll | Population | Year | Say Porn Is Cheating |
|---|---|---|---|
| ABC News American Sex Survey | US adults (n=1,501) | 2004 | 34% (“unfaithful”) |
| YouGov | US adults (n=1,000) | 2014 | 26% |
| Talker Research for LELO | Sexually active US adults (n=2,000) | 2025 | 23%* |
| Deseret News / YouGov | US adults (n=1,000) | 2017 | 19% always, 28% sometimes |
| Negy et al. | US university students (n=392) | 2018 | 13% |
| Negy et al. | Spanish university students (n=200) | 2018 | 10% |
*Commissioned by a sex-toy brand; respondents said porn could “make or break” a relationship, which media reported as viewing it as unfaithful. Sources: ABC News, YouGov, Talker Research, Deseret News, Negy et al.
The student study is a useful check. 73% of American and 77% of Spanish students said viewing porn isn’t cheating, according to Negy and colleagues in Archives of Sexual Behavior.
How Porn Compares With Other Behaviors
Watching porn ranks at the bottom of what people count as cheating. In a 2014 YouGov poll, 26% of Americans called it cheating, the lowest of 10 behaviors, just below fantasizing about someone else (27%) and visiting a strip club (29%).
By comparison, 72% said joining a dating site or app is cheating, about 2.8 times as many (our calculation).
Here’s a breakdown of what Americans consider cheating:
| Behavior | Say It’s Cheating |
|---|---|
| One-night stand | 92% |
| Regular sex with someone else | 91% |
| Paying for sex | 89% |
| Sending naked photos | 79% |
| Joining a dating site or app | 72% |
| Kissing | 70% |
| Flirty messages | 68% |
| Visiting a strip club | 29% |
| Fantasizing about someone else | 27% |
| Watching porn | 26% |
The moral gap is just as wide. 52% of Americans say viewing porn is morally wrong, while 90% say the same about a married person having an affair, a 38-point gap, per Pew Research Center (survey of 3,605 adults fielded March 2025, published March 2026).
Is Watching OnlyFans or Cam Shows Cheating?
Interaction changes the answer, and the same debate now covers romantic relationships with AI chatbots. 47% of Britons say directly engaging with sexual content creators, such as on OnlyFans, is cheating, another 33% say it’s “not harmless but not cheating,” and just 6% call it harmless, according to YouGov’s 2026 Big Survey on Relationships (1,882 adults, July 2026, per the survey overview).
Older US data show the same split. 69% of Americans called webcam sex with a stranger cheating in a 2015 YouGov poll, 43 points higher than passive porn a year earlier (our calculation).
Here’s a breakdown of selected behaviors Britons consider cheating in 2026:
| Behavior | Say It’s Cheating |
|---|---|
| Sex with someone else | 94% |
| Sending nudes | 82% |
| Using dating apps | 80% |
| Kissing someone else | 73% |
| Secretly messaging or meeting an ex | 69% |
| Emotional attachment to someone else | 52% |
| Engaging with OnlyFans-type creators | 47% |
| Romantic feelings for someone else | 40% |
| Romantic or sexual chats with AI chatbots | 30% |
| Flirting | 26% |
Notably, young Britons are stricter here: 57% called OnlyFans-type contact cheating (YouGov doesn’t publish the exact age band). In the 2014 US poll on ordinary porn, a different question, country and year, the young were the most relaxed group.
Who Thinks Watching Porn Is Cheating?
Older, more religious and more conservative people are much more likely to call porn cheating. In the 2014 YouGov poll, 37% of Americans 65 and older said so, versus 15% of 18–29-year-olds, about 2.5 times as many (our calculation).
Republicans (36%) were about 2.8 times as likely as Democrats (13%), and only 5% of atheists and agnostics called it cheating.
Religion produces the biggest gaps. 56% of Latter-day Saints said watching porn without your partner is always cheating, versus 19% of all Americans, in the 2017 Deseret News poll, as also reported by MEL Magazine. The Gospel Coalition reported that 31% of evangelicals called it cheating in the same poll.
Here’s how views differ by group:
| Group | Say Porn Is Cheating | Poll |
|---|---|---|
| Latter-day Saints | 56% | Deseret News 2017 (“always” cheating) |
| Women (ABC) | 42% | ABC News 2004 (“unfaithful”) |
| Ages 65+ | 37% | YouGov 2014 |
| Republicans | 36% | YouGov 2014 |
| Protestants | 35% | YouGov 2014 |
| Evangelicals | 31% | Deseret News 2017 |
| Women (YouGov) | 29% | YouGov 2014 |
| Men (ABC) | 25% | ABC News 2004 |
| Men (YouGov) | 22% | YouGov 2014 |
| Ages 18–29 | 15% | YouGov 2014 |
| Democrats | 13% | YouGov 2014 |
| Atheists and agnostics | 5% | YouGov 2014 |
Women are consistently stricter than men, but the gap varies by poll: 7 points in YouGov’s 2014 survey, 17 points in ABC’s 2004 survey (our calculations). In Britain, 15% of women and 7% of men called looking at soft porn in secret cheating, per a 2010 YouGov poll.
Are Attitudes Toward Porn Changing?
Americans have become less accepting of porn in recent years. 31% said porn is morally acceptable in Gallup’s May 2026 survey, down from 35% in 2025 and a 2018 peak of 43%, according to Gallup.
The longer view is flatter. Acceptance was 30–31% in 2011–2013, so the 2026 figure is back to early-2010s levels, per Gallup’s trend tables.
Here’s how moral acceptance of porn has changed since its 2018 peak:
| Year | Say Porn Is Morally Acceptable |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 43% |
| 2024 | 38% |
| 2025 | 35% |
| 2026 | 31% |
Moral disapproval isn’t the same as calling it cheating, though. There’s no recent US poll asking the cheating question directly, so we can’t tell whether that number has moved too.
What Do Partners Think?
Most partners accept some porn use. In a study of 404 college students, 70.8% of men and 45.5% of women said porn use in a future committed relationship would be acceptable under some conditions, per Olmstead, Negash, Pasley & Fincham.
Among US women married to or living with a partner who uses porn, 38% felt positive about it, 34% neutral and 28% negative, according to Ruffing at Boston University (survey of 625 women).
Here’s a breakdown of how partners view porn use:
| View | Men | Women | Study |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acceptable under some conditions | 70.8% | 45.5% | Olmstead et al. (404 students) |
| Unacceptable because of the relationship | 22.3% | 26.2% | Olmstead et al. |
| Unacceptable in any context | 5.4% | 12.9% | Olmstead et al. |
| Partner’s use acceptable, but not own | Not reported | 10.4% | Olmstead et al. |
| Porn is a form of marital infidelity | Not reported | Nearly 1 in 3 | Carroll & Willoughby (engaged/married women) |
| Acceptable only when watched together | About 1 in 5 (both) | About 1 in 5 (both) | Carroll & Willoughby |
The Carroll & Willoughby figures come from the RELATE survey of about 21,500 people (2011–2013). Their summaries are published by the Institute for Family Studies, a socially conservative think tank.
What Couples Actually Do
Secrecy is common. About 1 in 4 partnered men and 10% of partnered women say they hide their porn use from their partner, according to the 2020 National Couples and Pornography Study, a survey sponsored by BYU’s Wheatley Institution and the Austin Institute, with preliminary findings published by the Institute for Family Studies.
Partners often don’t know how much is happening, a gap that also shows up in data on whether wives know their husbands watch porn. In 37% of 1,486 matched couples, the man used porn more than his partner believed, per Carroll & Willoughby.
Here’s a breakdown of how porn shows up in couples:
| Finding | Share | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Man uses more than his partner believes | 37% | 1,486 matched US couples (2011–13) |
| Partnered men who hide their porn use | About 25% | US couples survey (2020) |
| Couples reporting porn-related conflict | About 20% | US couples survey (2020) |
| Married couples reporting porn-related conflict | About 1 in 6 | RELATE survey (2011–13) |
| Partnered women who hide their porn use | About 10% | US couples survey (2020) |
| Women who’ve never watched porn with their porn-using partner | 70% | 340 women (Resch & Alderson) |
Secrecy, more than use itself, is linked to lower satisfaction, a pattern traced in research on how porn use is linked to relationship quality. In a 35-day diary study of 217 Canadian couples, 54% of women’s and 64% of men’s and non-binary people’s solo porn use was unknown to their partner, and days with unknown use were linked to lower same-day satisfaction and intimacy, as reported by PsyPost.
Couples who watch together tend to do better. In a national sample of 1,291 unmarried adults, those who only watched with their partner reported higher sexual satisfaction than solo viewers, per Maddox, Rhoades & Markman. These studies are correlational.
Can Watching Porn Lead to Cheating?
The research shows modest links, not proof. In a 12-week study of 291 college students, more frequent porn viewing predicted later intimate behavior with someone other than their partner, even after controlling for relationship satisfaction, per Gwinn and colleagues.
Longer-term data point the same way. Married US adults who started watching porn had an 11% predicted chance of divorce, versus 6% for those who didn’t, according to Perry & Schleifer (author manuscript). Reverse causation is possible: people in drifting relationships may be more likely to start.
Porn and Cheating Myths: Popular Statistics Checked
The most-repeated statistic, “56% of divorces involve one party having an obsessive interest in porn websites,” isn’t from a study. It traces, via 2004 Senate testimony, to a 2002 PR-firm press release with no published sample or method, as Psychology Today has documented. The Register’s 2002 report on the divorce lawyers’ conference behind it gives no percentage for porn.
Here’s how popular claims compare with their sources:
| Popular Claim | What The Source Actually Says | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| “56% of divorces involve porn” | A 2002 PR-firm press release about divorce lawyers, repeated in 2004 Senate testimony; no sample or method | Not a study |
| “Two-thirds of divorce lawyers say the internet played a role” | Lawyers at a 2002 Chicago conference said the internet played a significant role | Accurate, but about the internet, not porn |
| “Six in 10 internet-related divorces involved porn” | 2005 Senate testimony citing a 2003 American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers meeting | Rounded variant of the 56% claim |
| “Half of divorces are caused by cybersex” | Half of 500 petitions at one online divorce service contained allegations about cybersex, online relationships and pornography, bundled together | Misquoted |
| “Porn users are 300% more likely to cheat” | Attributed to a 2004 study whose abstract reports predictors of porn use, not cheating risk | Unverified |
How We Compiled These Statistics
We used national polls with published methods (YouGov US and GB, ABC News, Deseret News/YouGov, Gallup, Pew Research Center) and peer-reviewed studies of students and couples. We read the YouGov 2014 and ABC News figures directly from their published crosstabs.
Some couple-level figures come from studies by BYU-affiliated researchers published through the Institute for Family Studies, and the 2025 Talker Research poll was commissioned by a sex-toy brand; we flag both. Percentage-point gaps, ratios and the “always or sometimes” total are our own calculations.
The latest US poll asking directly whether porn is cheating is from 2017 (or 2025 for a commercial poll), so treat US figures as the latest available.
Key Takeaways
Most people don’t consider watching porn cheating: 19–34% of Americans call it cheating in national polls, and it ranked last among common behaviors.
Interaction is where views shift. 47% of Britons say engaging with OnlyFans-type creators is cheating, and 69% of Americans called webcam sex with a stranger cheating.
In couples, secrecy is the bigger issue: about 1 in 4 partnered men hide their use, and hidden use is linked to lower satisfaction. If porn is causing tension, an honest conversation or a couples therapist can help.
FAQ
Is watching porn cheating?
Most Americans don’t think so. 19% say watching porn without your partner is always cheating and 28% say it sometimes is, in a 2017 Deseret News/YouGov poll. In a 2014 YouGov poll, porn ranked last of 10 behaviors at 26%, below fantasizing about someone else.
Do women think watching porn is cheating?
Women are more likely than men to say so, but most still don’t. 29% of US women versus 22% of men called it cheating in a 2014 YouGov poll, and 42% of women versus 25% of men called porn websites “unfaithful” in a 2004 ABC News survey.
Is watching OnlyFans cheating?
Many people think so. 47% of Britons say directly engaging with sexual content creators like those on OnlyFans is cheating, including 57% of women and 37% of men, in a July 2026 YouGov survey. Another 33% say it’s not harmless but not cheating.
Is it cheating if your partner hides their porn use?
Polls don’t ask this directly, but secrecy matters in research. About 1 in 4 partnered men hide their use, and in a diary study of 217 couples, porn use the partner didn’t know about was linked to lower same-day relationship satisfaction.
Does porn cause divorce?
It’s linked, but cause isn’t proven. Married Americans who started watching porn had an 11% predicted chance of divorce versus 6% for those who didn’t. The popular “56% of divorces involve porn” figure comes from an informal 2002 lawyer poll, not a study.
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