Pornhub Reveals 11 Things You Didn't Know About Millennials And Porn
We've come a long way since sneaking in late-night episodes of Real Sex on HBO.
Many of us discovered porn at some point in the '90s, via a weird mix of old-school methods (anyone remember watching grainy smut on "stolen" cable channels?). But at some point in the early 2000s, the Internet became super fast, bringing with it all types of porn, including Pornhub on demand, in an instant, in our bedrooms.
As the first generation to come of age during the Internet porn era, it's no surprise that the current 18- to 34-year-old demographic has a different relationship to smut than the over-35 crowd. To make sense of that generational gap, Mic teamed up with everyone's favorite porn destination, Pornhub, to get some data on millennials' porn preferences.
The results showcase a number of revelations many of us never talk about.
1. We're watching most of our porn on our phones.
Desktop porn access is officially old-fashioned. According to Pornhub.com's data, 60% of porn-watching millennials watch smut on their smartphones, while only 33 percent watch porn on an actual computer.
2. More women are watching porn than ever before.
As expected, the core audience for porn is predominantly male: 76% of millennial viewers are dudes. But the fact that 24% of millennial porn viewers are female does indicate a telling difference between the older crowd, in which ladies only make up 21% of the audience. Perhaps if this trend continues, we'll get to a place where pornagraphic films are produced with both male and female fantasies in mind.
3. We're getting in — and off —Pornhub in under 10 minutes.
For millennials, the average time spent on a Pornhub visit is 9 minutes and 10 seconds. The 35+ set spends more than a minute longer with their content, clocking in at 10 minutes and 15 seconds.
4. Monday = porn day.
The start of a new workweek means a brand new cycle of sex-hindering sleep deprivation, so it's no surprise that the data also reveals that Saturday is porn's least popular day of the week — possibly because that's when we're all well-rested enough to actually do the real thing.
5. Pornhub's most popular search term is "lesbian."
The Pornhub research includes extensive data on users' most popular search terms, and the runaway winner is simply "lesbian." The site's relatively low percentage of female users (21 percent in the United States, according to 2014 data), however, suggests that the people searching in this category are not actual lesbians.
6. Faux-incest porn is surprisingly popular.
A quick scan at the top seven search terms reveals an incestuous trend: "step mom," "milf," "mom," and "step sister" are all there. Why? One theory, as sociologist Chauntelle Tibbals told Vice in February, is that "there's something about stimuli for such a highly taboo topic simultaneously being so commonplace that may resonate with some people."
As for the step-sister thing, perhaps those illicit step-sibling romances that were sprinkled throughout our favorite '90s teen movies (shout outs to Cher and Josh in Clueless and Sebastian and Kathryn in Cruel Intentions) may have left some lingering effects on users' porn preferences.
7. We're into cartoons.
When users aren't watching porn stars get busy with maternal figures, they may be watching hardcore cartoon sex. The search terms "cartoon" and "hentai" clock in at 13 and 17, respectively, on the popularity list. Furthermore, millennial users are 190% more likely to search for hentai than the 35 and up crowd. They're also 131% more likely to search for "anime."
No wonder Jezebel wanted to illustrate Disney Dudes' Dicks last year.
8. We're officially over smoking in porn.
When it comes to smoking in porn videos, millennials are quick to Left Swipe Dat. According to the data, we're 48% less likely than our older counterparts to search for "smoking" porn (who even knew that was a thing?), suggesting that all those anti-smoking campaigns we grew up with may have made an impact after all.
9. We're big into fitness porn.
On the other end of the health-and-wellness-meet-porn-viewing-habits spectrum, we're apparently 112% more likely to use "gym" as a search term. We're also 91% more likely to look up "yoga" porn. Maybe the rise of acro yoga on Instagram has something to do with this?
10. Millennials love big butts.
As a category, "Big Ass" is 69% more likely to be searched by millennials than older porn viewers. (Insert the requisite Sir Mix-A-Lot reference here.) Given the ass renaissance that has taken place in pop culture in recent years, this isn't entirely surprising, but the generational gap between younger and older big butt lovers is nonetheless fairly wide.
11. The most popular "porn star" is Kim Kardashian.
Nowhere is our generation's ass fetish more apparent than in the results for Pornhub's most searched-for porn star: Kim Kardashian. While Kardashian's repertoire is limited to a single piece of XXX footage, it seems that porn enthusiasts just can't stop watching it — so much so that her 2007 sex tape is the #1 most-viewed video in Pornhub's history, garnering well over 93 million views.
Because if anything defines the millennial generation, it's Kim Kardashian.
