Trigger warning:
*READER DISCRETION ADVISED. Many May Find The Following Language Describing Porn To Be Graphic, Disturbing, And/Or Triggering.*
It’s time for society to finally come to the realization that porn is no longer just “a guy issue,” it’s a human issue.
With the increased availability of internet porn, women are slowly becoming just as active as men on XXX sites. It’s clear that this isn’t just a guy problem, and the world’s largest porn site’s analytics are showing this fact more than ever.
Related: The Male Perspective: My Girlfriend Watches Porn Behind My Back
Beginning in 2013, Pornhub releases a year in review report every January on its blog that shares detailed analytics from the site. Just recently, the site released their 2017 analytics, showing what its consumers searched, viewed, and engaged with most often.
How many women watching porn?
In the popular porn site’s never-ending attempt to normalize the most explicit and violent content out there in society, and make it more mainstream, included in this year’s report is a disturbingly precise—but admittedly interesting—look into the activity of global female porn consumers on the site. Considering the fact that the site’s global traffic is 26% female, it’s clear that porn is on the rise with women in a lot of countries.
The traffic stats by country show just how widespread pornography has become and how it relates to female consumers.
The porn site gathered the top 20 countries with the most visitors and broke down their gender proportion. For the last three years, the Philippines has held the number one spot for the highest percentage of female visitors, almost matched by Brazil in the two last years. South Africa arrived at number 3 with a whopping 32% female viewership (down from 33% last year), pushing India to 4th place, almost tied with Sweden, Argentina and Mexico (all with 29-30% female viewership).
Yes, this means that almost a third of consumers in these large countries are women.
But what are these stats telling us, exactly? For one thing, they reveal the ever-increasing popularity of porn in every culture across the world. Not to mention, in some cases of developing countries, that statistics suggest that women would have easier access to porn than clean drinking water.
What are they watching?
Now we know what percentage of women are checking out the world’s largest porn site, but what are they watching?
As shown in the chart below, it turns out that women are much more likely to search out videos containing the words “lesbian,” as well as more hardcore content such as “gangbang” and “double penetration.” Stats like these show that the old ideals that women only want to see romantic comedies and read steamy novels like Fifty Shades of Grey is completely outdated.
With society’s porn culture, it’s no surprise that women are also seeking out explicit and even violent depictions of sex. One of the likely theories behind this shift to more aggressive, extreme content is that women want to keep up with what a large percentage of male counterparts are consuming. Or, there are other theories.
Related: True Story: I Watch Porn To Feel Loved And Wanted, But It Just Makes Me Feel Lonelier
Considering the millions of women who are logging on and watching porn on a regular basis, how do you think their favorite categories are shaping the way they view real lesbians, people of color, and considering the MILF category for both genders, parents? From what research is saying about how porn shapes the mindset of the consumer and what they’re aroused by, we know that these revealing stats don’t reflect the real psychological harm this type of content can do to consumers.
Related: The Most-Searched Porn Genre of 2018 Is…
These facts are important to know in our fight for real love because we have to continue to look at porn as an “everyone” issue and never assume that women don’t also struggle. Yes, men make up the majority of visitors to porn sites, but we can’t ignore the reality of this issue and how it affects everyone. The facts are in—millions of people watch porn, regardless of age, gender, or sexual orientation. This is why we need to spread the word on the real negative effects of porn to every corner of society. No matter who you are, pornography harms the brain, and creates negative and unrealistic expectations in sex and relationships.
If we are going to make this much-needed change in our society, we need to understand the issue in its entirety. Only then will we be able to stop the demand and fight for love instead.
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