I’m standing at my college boyfriend’s door when I hear it. A woman’s scream.

It’s a deep, guttural scream. Sort of like the woman is … having sex?

Suddenly my skin is prickling with rage. I crouch down to peer through the broken blind in his living room window. I need to see, I convince myself — I need to catch him in the act. So, I do the unthinkable, and look.

I’m right. There’s a woman in his living room having sex. Only, she isn’t having sex with him, exactly. She’s standing by a pool getting down and dirty with what appears to be her very well-endowed pool cleaner.

He’s watching porn.

Filled with betrayal and incredulity, I burst in and expose him before giving him a piece of my mind.

I tell him he might as well have cheated on me, because this is practically the same thing. In some ways, it’s worse. It’s degrading, exploitative, and morally wrong. He should be ashamed of himself.

This is the part of the story I wish I could do over. I wish I could go back and tell 23-year-old Me that the only person behaving in a morally questionable way in that scenario is her. Because a decade on, I know better.

I know porn contributes to a healthy solo sex life and can be an equally beneficial tool for couples looking to reignite the spark in the bedroom. And I know our collective cultural attitude to it is largely misinformed — particularly when it comes to the idea that it feeds sexual violence and rape culture.

Modern data actually suggests it’s the contrary — studies show areas with more liberal attitudes to X-rated content have seen lowered rates of rape and sexual assault in line with increases in its use. According to a National Crime Victimisation Survey, since 1995, sexual assaults have fallen by 44 per cent in the US, one of the world’s biggest consumers of porn. Denmark, Japan and China have seen similar results.

And while it would be folly to say exploitation doesn’t exist in the porn industry (though, let’s get this straight — exploitation exists in all industries), it’s not as common as you may think.

Porn is heavily regulated. There are rules about what actors can and can’t do in particular scenes and lengthy negotiations take place prior to filming to determine each performer’s comfort levels with scripts. Policies and unions work to ensure performers get regular breaks, access to information regarding their rights, and the ability to reject unreasonable requests by a producer or director.

“If your female co-actor doesn’t want to be called certain words in a scene, we’ll take them out,” Australian porn performer Jake Shyy explains. “If there’s any roughness in a scene, it’s rehearsed in the same way actors would rehearse a fight scene in a film. No one’s actually getting hurt.”

I’ve spent countless hours interviewing porn performers throughout my career as a sex columnist, and Shyy’s experience is not unique. Situations in which performers are abused are not the norm, despite what the anti-porn movement would have us believe.

And it’s this misinformation that causes so much shame and secrecy around the topic. Research has shown when we don’t feel the need to “hide” our porn-watching habits from our partners, our relationships benefit.

A study published in The Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found individuals who engaged in regular porn use and felt safe being honest with their partners about it, reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction.

Demonising porn and viewing sex workers as victims only serves to rationalise our ‘right’ to ban it from our partners, which, regardless of where you stand on the issue, doesn’t make for a healthy relationship.

Today, I don’t presume I own my partner’s body, or his masturbatory life. It’s really not my place to say whether he gets off watching RedTube or not. And, perhaps somewhat ironically, given it’s not an issue in our relationship, he doesn’t feel the need to reach for it often.

If anything, it’s there to get him through a stretch when we’re separated for a week or two by work or illness. Also, given the choice, I’d much rather he turn to porn than another woman when I’m not available.

Though, to be fair, if anyone regularly surfs RedTube in our relationship, it’s me. Porn has provided a safe channel to explore new ideas and fantasies, which allowed me to develop my own solo sexuality outside of the relationship, something that has rather paradoxically enriched our sex life immeasurably.

It’s a satisfying feeling, knowing my sexual self doesn’t begin and end with my partner. And I have porn to thank for that.