PornHub Just Discovered the One Thing That Gets People's Heads Out of the Gutters

Culture

That a record number of fans tuned in to Game of Thrones' explosive season six finale on Sunday probably doesn't come as a surprise. But this might: According PornHub, as the political games unfolded in Westeros this season, the number of people watching porn plummeted.

PornHub's historical data shows that the website saw a 4% drop in traffic during the season six premiere April 24, which may not sound like a lot, but given the site's 60 million daily users, that equates to roughly 2.4 million people prioritizing George R. R. Martin's prodigious imagination over "me" time. Similar drops occurred during the next three episodes of the season, per PornHub. During that time, Game of Thrones-related searches on the site increased significantly. 

Pornhub

What's more, according to data from season five of the series, PornHub searches for terms like "princess" and "medieval" also saw an increase prior to the Sunday night premieres of new episodes, which could be loosely related to the series. Specific keywords about the show also cropped up — and some of them are downright weird. 

Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen, for one, is the most searched character or actor from the show (that's not a surprise). But PornHub also notes that "Walk of Shame" is another GoT-specific term that's been sought out by users, referring to Cersei Lannister's Walk of Atonement from season five.

Sure, Cersei is naked during that scene, but she's also being paraded through the streets of King's Landing with the smallfolk flinging fruit and feces at her while shouting expletives, as a nun rings a bell and repeatedly chants, "Shame!" It's safe to presume HBO wasn't angling this as one of Game of Thrones' most erotic sequences. 

Macall B. Polay/HBO

Game of Thrones, it turns out, is more than just a cultural phenomenon. The show set in a fantastical world produces even more fantasies — even if Septa Unella would disapprove of some of those choices. 

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