PORN’S STICKY BUSINESS
Log on. Get off. If you can.
A team of young lacrosse players charged onto the Metro North train when it stopped at 125th Street in NYC. Consisting of about twenty-five 12-year-old boys, the rowdy group turned the normally quiet commuter car into a noisy locker room. As their four coaches tried desperately to keep an eye on their boisterous charges, I noticed that the three boys crammed into the row in front of me were watching porn on one of the kids’ cell phones. “That’s your momma,” he said, goading his friend. I was both amused and shocked by their antics. At their age, the only porn I ever encountered was a mislaid copy of Playboy magazine, which in the days of pre-frontal nudity, was tame compared to the full-penetration videos these kids were watching.
How the world has changed! Gone are the days of XXX theatres, magazines and pinups. Replaced first by video, then the internet and now, virtual reality, today’s pornography offers something for everyone. 85% of the adult population, some 215 million people, report having used internet porn in the last 6 months. In fact, according to Pornhub, a leading internet porn site, nearly 4.8 million videos were uploaded to their site in 2018 – that’s 1 million hours of video, which if you were inclined to watch all of it, would take you 115 years.
If you’re wondering who’s watching all of this content in the US, 72% of viewers are men who are more likely to use it alone and 28% are women, who tend to watch it with their partners as part of lovemaking. On average, they’re 38 years old and according to the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, nearly 100 million of them watched porn in the last week and they’re watching a lot of it. Pornhub reports that there are 92 million daily average visits to their site alone. That’s equal to the combined populations of Canada, Poland and Australia logging on every day. In calendar year 2018, there were some 33.5 billion visits. Every minute of every day there are 63,992 new visitors arriving at the site, watching 207,405 videos and performing 57,750 searches. Of those videos, 55 are views of Kim Kardashian’s sex tape, which with over 195 million views, is still the site’s most watched video of all time. As if that’s not enough, wrap your head around this factoid – more people voted for their favorite Pornhub video than voted in the last presidential election.
So, what are all of these people watching? Last year, the site’s top 5 searches were lesbian, hentai, MILF, step mom and Japanese. For those who are scratching their heads, hentai is sexually graphic animation and MILF is mother I’d like to f**k, well, you get the idea. The most viewed category by women is lesbian and their least favorite is double penetration. Since women seem to favor watching acts they enjoy having performed on themselves, it should come as no surprise that they are 281% more likely to view cunnilingus videos than their male counterparts, whose top category is Japanese. If you’re wondering who was the most searched porn star you needn’t look beyond the headlines, Stormy Daniels reigns supreme.
Perhaps due to the popularity of television shows like Pose and RuPaul’s Drag Race or recent news coverage about trans rights, trans porn is trending right now, especially among older viewers. The category saw a 124% increase among viewers 35-44, a 214% lift among 45-54 and 290% among adults 55-64, as well as a 167% increase in male viewership. They say curiosity killed the cat but will it kill the pussy?
Unlike the lack of research on lesbian viewership, which goes virtually unreported, there’s a treasure trove on gay men’s usage. While almost a cliché, the most viewed gay category is Straight Guys, replacing last year’s #1 category, Black; and William Seed (who comes up with these names?), is the most searched gay porn star. A study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior shows that 55% of gay men report watching opposite gender porn in the past six months. Similarly, 21% of straight men reported watching gay porn, which sounds like the plotline of countless gay porn films. You may find this tidbit fascinating – a University of Georgia study showed that heterosexual men with the strongest anti-gay attitudes were more aroused by gay pornography than straight men with pro-gay attitudes. Isn’t it always the ones that complain the loudest?
Regardless of sexual orientation, we all know that the sex we see in porn is not the sex most of us are having, but it does shape what we expect sex to be like. How can the average guy not be intimidated when he sees male porn stars swinging their Lincoln Logs at their partners? It explains why amateur videos are viewed the longest – people find it comforting to see other less-than-perfect specimens going at it. Sorry gingers, Red Head is the category with the shortest viewing time. Speaking of length of engagement, our friends in Mississippi are watching the most while Kansans are the quickest at getting the job done.
If you find these statistics surprising, you may be asking yourself what effect all this porn is having on viewers. Some experts consider it healthy, after all, can 215 million people be wrong? A study titled Self Perceived Effects of Pornographic Consumption found that respondents saw porn as beneficial to their sex lives, their attitudes towards sex, their perceptions of the opposite sex and towards life in general.
But, most experts see it as ruinous to both individuals and their relationships. Besides the concerns for mistreatment of industry workers, human trafficking and the endangerment of children, porn can color our perceptions of sexuality and human relationships. They also say it ultimately modifies the way we view romantic relationships and leads people to downplay monogamy in order to engage in more no-strings attached trysts. Till Porn Do Us Part, a 2018 study, found that divorce doubles for couples who start using porn after the honeymoon. Other studies show that porn use may cause sexual dysfunction and, with 17% of viewers being compulsive users, it can reinforce dependence on it.
The most profound effect of pornography may be the objectification of women who are not only called bitches, whores and sluts, but are portrayed as little more than a collection of ever ready orifices, devoid of their own sexual needs. A paper in the Journal of Communication showed that increased porn consumption corresponded with more hostile sexism and less egalitarianism. And Indiana University researchers found that self-admitted porn watchers were less likely to support affirmative action for women. Nowhere is this more obvious than in pornography itself. A 2018 study on representations of male and female orgasms in mainstream pornography looked at the 50 most popular videos on Pornhub. Only 18% of women were shown having orgasms versus 78% of men. Obviously, if people are taking cues about sexuality from pornography, they’re only learning what men want.
Research shows that the earlier someone starts viewing porn, the more likely they are to experience a break-up later in life. It also indicates that men who watch porn in their teen years tend to have more negative attitudes towards women, which is manifested by trying to exert power over them. These guys see porn and think that’s what real-life sex is going to be like. So that made me think about those kids on the train and wonder what their sexual lives are going to be like when, instead of disrupting the quiet on the train, they are one of the commuters heading home to their wives and their porn.
