Women watch more porn than men. Believe it. Some women watch a lot of porn – at least when length is considered. Pornhub and Pornhub Insights have broken down facts and trends about all things porn. Now there are ten years of Pornhub data. Looking at the data provides a broad new understanding.
Research finds that women, on average, spend 1.14 more minutes a day on the site than male viewers. You might be more likely to walk in a woman flicking the bean than on a guy tickling his pickle. Anything that opens up discussing women and porn is a huge step forward. So many do it, but not enough talk about it. A Marie Claire survey found that almost a third of women watch porn every week, with nearly 10 percent of respondents watching it every day. So we can have the conversation and fight the taboo head on.
The data show women are into some pretty kinky stuff. The most popular category for women is lesbian porn. Straight, gay, or bi — women love watching women being sexual. Within lesbian searches, women are more likely to search for squirting and strap-ons than men are. Popular lesbian-related searches by women include ‘lesbians scissoring’, ‘lesbian seduces straight girl, hardcore lesbian scissoring’, and ‘lesbian stepmom and daughter’.
Women also get off on gay male porn — 37% of Pornhub’s viewers of this category are women. In fact, it was the most popular category for women over 45.
Women are 46% more likely than men to search for ‘big dick’ videos. They are 122% more likely to use the term ‘dick’; men are 94% more likely to search using ‘cock’ (though women prefer ‘cock’ to ‘dick’ in New York and Florida).
There have been changes in what women search for in the last couple of years. Men performing cunnilingus skyrocketed by over 500%, but so did ‘f*cked hard and screaming’. Romantic sex, meanwhile, grew by 125%. Women are 27% more likely to look for pregnancy porn, and this is most popular in the 25 to 34 age range. It may be that women going through pregnancy are the ones most likely to want to watch.
Sex fantasy and relationships
The question arises, is it okay to fantasize about someone else when you’re in a relationship? Most women and all men fantasize about sexual activities they’re not currently experiencing. In many ways, it’s completely natural to fantasize about others even if you are in a committed sexual relationship and in love. After all, relationships don’t mean you won’t find others sexually attractive. We are sexual beings with lots of reasons and stimuli to daydream about sex.
When those sex fantasies interfere with real life, then we may experience problems. It’s wise to be conscious of what the purpose of your fantasizing may be. Fantasies, like dreams, are often revealing of our deeper psychological wishes. You could ask yourself: What do I need? It could be more passion, more attention, to feel powerful or sexy. When you can understand what it is you are longing for, then you can plan to make that a reality in life.
Too often, people rely on sex fantasies to fulfil their needs rather than ask their partner for what they want. That’s where the trouble comes in. People who don’t know how to ask for what they want sexually are more prone to fantasy and negative assessment of their partner. Rather than trying to stop fantasizing altogether, you’re better off expressing your needs and desires to your significant other.
As sexual beings, having fantasies is normal and natural – and boosts your sexual desire and arousal. People who have frequent sexual fantasies can have a higher sex drive, greater sexual satisfaction, higher chance of orgasm, and are more sexually open in the bedroom.
A word of warning: it is healthy to avoid fantasizing about anyone who you actually know, such as a friend or co-worker. It’s one thing for a woman to fantasize about Brad Pitt, but fantasizing about your partner’s old college buddy is something different. It’s just too close to home. And, if your guy found out, it could lead to jealousy or other ill feelings and cause unnecessary tension. Also, having sexual fantasies about someone close to you could lead to confused and confusing feelings for that person in real life. It’s not worth the risk.
Negative effects of pornography | Porn addiction side-effects
Watching porn can have distinct and negative effects on the body and brain. Yep, it can begin to put you off your partner, mess with your memory – and even shrink your brain. Most people watch porn. Discussing it openly means that no one has to feel they’re the only one that does it or that there’s anything wrong with it. However, there is little research on how watching porn affects people generally, but we can have some idea.
First off, obviously, it’s going to arouse you. That’s the point. Porn and masturbation are close bed-fellows. Then there’s some weird stuff that can happen when you watch porn.
What is porn addiction?
A lot of what happens is in the brain. Porn affects your brain the same way drugs do, partly due to the dopamine release. (See the article: Sex And Recreational Drugs – And Rock And Roll?) A neuropsychiatrist has shown that men who describe themselves as addicted to porn, and who have lost relationships because of it, develop changes in the same brain area, the reward centre, that changes in drug addicts. It may be good to keep an eye on your habits.
For more information see this article: How To Stop A Porn Addiction | Side-Effects
Signs of porn addiction
As with drugs, you may need ever-stronger hits. Your brain gets used to what you’re watching, so you need to start watching more hardcore porn to get the same reaction. On a Reddit group called NoFap, 64 percent have reported that their tastes in porn have become ‘more extreme or deviant’. Habits change. If you what you are seeking becomes more intense with time, it may be time to step back and re-assess the situation.
Porn can have a strange effect on how your view your partner. It is common for porn-addicts who have watched a lot of porn to report that, far from getting more turned on by the idea of sex with their partners, they have become less attracted to them. This has been called the Coolidge Effect, or a tendency toward novelty-seeking behaviour.
Porn addiction | Unusual side-effects
Researchers in Germany have found that pornography can mess with memory. Men had a more difficult time recalling and forming memories when viewing sexual imagery. This difficulty increased when they were more turned on.
Lastly – and most weirdly – watching porn can shrink the brain. Other German researchers found that the striatum area of the brain, linked with the motivation and reward response, shrank in size the more porn a person viewed.
How to stop a porn addiction
If you are worried and wish to know how to break a porn addiction, one key step to self-help is recognizing the addiction. And then step back, turn off the porn, and when you masturbate, lose the porn-visuals and think about your best sexual experiences. This is sex fantasy – anything goes. Dealing with porn addiction can be challenging. It is important to realize that, ultimately, all of your desire, your sexuality, stems from inside yourself. You best know who you are sexually. If you have reached for extreme porn, chances are there is something in your sexual self which might not like itself, and so desires escape in pornography. To stop a porn addiction, bring your sexual pleasure back from the screen to your own mind and body. This can be a good first step to break a porn addiction. It is self-love – and self-love with your partner – rather than reaching for what – frankly – can become nastiness. Think of what makes lovemaking truly valuable.
Intense, right? But there is no need for this to freak you. There are extremes – and it’s if you’re heading into those extremes that you might need a rethink. Mostly, porn does just what you’d probably expect. If you’re not sure if your habits are normal or healthy for you, pull back and/or seek help. For the most part, we’d say that free and open access to imagery depicting sex is a benefit. Enjoying sexual fantasy is good for our sex lives.