Chinese Undergraduate Students’ Relational Satisfaction, Problematic Pornography Consumption, and The Paraphilic Fantasies: A Quantitative Research

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the relationships between relational satisfaction, problematic pornography consumption, and paraphilic fantasies among Chinese undergraduates, with a focus on the mediating role of relational satisfaction.Methods: Analysis were conducted on a sample of 127 (N = 127; age range: 18 to 25; Mean = 21.5; Standard Deviation = 1.63). Data was collected by survey method and conveyed though WJX.CN, which contain The Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS), The Paraphilic Fantasy and Arousal Scale (PF-AS) and The Problematic Pornography Consumption Scale (PPCS). Correlation, Multiple Linear Regression and Mediation Analysis were conducted by SPSS 29 and Process v4.3.Results: In this study, correlation analysis demonstrated that problematic pornography consumption was negatively correlated with relational satisfaction (r = -.813, p < .001) and paraphilic fantasies (r = -.871, p < .001). But problematic pornography consumption was positively correlated with paraphilic fantasies (r = .881, p < .001). The multiple linear regression showed that relational satisfaction negatively predicted paraphilic fantasies (β = -.456, p < .001), and problematic pornography consumption positively predicted them (β = .510, p < .001). Lastly, mediation analysis revealed the mediate effect of relational satisfaction between problematic pornography consumption and paraphilic fantasies, there is a significant indirect effect (IE = .17), explaining 84.7% of the variance in paraphilic fantasies.Conclusions: Higher relational satisfaction reduced problematic pornography consumption and paraphilic fantasies, which supporting the opinion that relationships could be the conceptual component in the treatment of paraphilia.