Everything from pop culture to politics has an influence on the type of porn people want to consume, and Pornhub’s 2024 Year In Review illustrates exactly that.
Before diving into the report, let’s acknowledge that we can’t fact-check these metrics to ensure accurate reporting, so we’re really taking Pornhub’s word with a grain of salt. Since Pornhub is the top free internet porn site, sampling people’s habits there can give valuable insights into how people interact with what’s going on in the world around them and how that inevitably trickles into their porn consumption.
Search terms like ‘demure’ and ‘tradwife’ topped the charts this year. However, the average time on the site actually dropped in 2024—particularly among young people.
Let’s examine some other key stats from the report and consider how they translate into real individual and societal impact.
Overall drop in time spent on the site and other notable trends
Several U.S. states have recently passed age verification laws in an effort to prevent children from being exposed to harmful content online. The new legislation requires any website containing 33.3% or more pornographic material to verify the users’ age using a government ID. It also makes porn sites liable for content deemed “harmful to minors.”
Pornhub responded by blocking itself from these states. However, Pornhub’s retaliation barely hinders visitors in those states, as a simple VPN can bypass it. Pornhub’s metrics clearly aren’t just skewed but turn a blind eye to the fact that underage kids and teens can and do still easily access hardcore content on its site. Just because a state is gray below doesn’t mean no one accessed Pornhub in those areas, just that Pornhub doesn’t report on those metrics:
The top relative searches by state are where things get interesting. For example, Nevada searched for “Vegas” and Arizona for “Navajo.” New York has the second-largest number of Turkish residents in the U.S. and had significant searches for “Turkish”. Similarly, in New Jersey, where there’s a large Iranian population, “Iranian” was a popular search term.
A top search term in California was “friends mom,” shifting from the piqued interest in “Asian stepmom” last year. Wisconsin switched from “swingers” in 2023 to “pee” in 2024. In Oregon, “nudist” from 2023 was replaced by “furry” in 2024.
Missouri’s top search was “grandma,” Washington “milking,” New Hampshire’s “enema,” and Iowa’s “work trip.”
Even with so many states off the table as far as Pornhub reporting goes, the U.S. still dominated the list of top 20 countries by traffic—bringing in the most traffic to Pornhub by a landslide.
Two countries—Mexico and the Netherlands— averaged more time spent per visit compared to the United States.
Pornhub also shared stats on time spent per visit within the U.S. only—Alaska had the longest average visit duration at 11 minutes 4 seconds and Louisiana the shortest at 9 minutes 18 seconds. Washington had the most significant duration increase from last year at +66 seconds, and Rhode Island had the largest decrease at -64 seconds.
Geography aside, Pornhub noted an overall drop in time spent on the site by -29 seconds in 2024. Young adults are driving the change, with 18-24 year olds spending -76 seconds below the average.
This landmark change implies that young people are getting what they’re looking for faster or going elsewhere to consume explicit content.
Other notable statistics involve the porn consumption habits of women. According to the report, 38 percent of Pornhub viewers worldwide are women—up 36 percent from last year. Women are spending +17 seconds longer on Pornhub compared to male visitors.
The proportion of female visitors has steadily increased since 2015.
The report also breaks down the top relative categories by generation:
Visitor demographics are also broken down by age and country. In 2024, the average visitor age was 38, climbing by +1 from last year. The 18-24 age group made up the biggest portion of traffic, with the 25-34 age group a close second. Together, those two categories make up over half of Pornhub’s visitors. In general, the older the age groups, the fewer visitors there are.
Top trends on Pornhub in 2024
- In 2024, the TikTok community latched onto the word ‘demure’ and phrases like ‘very mindful, very cutesy’. Unsurprisingly, this year, “demure” increased 133 percent, and “mindful pleasure” jumped 112 percent.
- The increase in ‘tradwife’ content on TikTok and the popularity of the reality show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives spiked demand for search terms like “traditional wife” (up 34 percent), “tradwife” (up 72 percent), “Mormon sex” (up 92 percent), “Mormon wife” (up 71 percent), and “Mormon threesome” (up 122 percent).
- Coworker fantasies were another trend this year, with searches like “coworker,” “workplace fantasy,” “office affair,” and “cheating coworker” up by 92, 57, 25, and 71 percent, respectively. Could there be a correlation with many people returning to in-person offices in 2024? That’s definitely likely.
- The 2024 Paris Olympics had a significant effect on summer searches as well as worldwide traffic patterns. The summer games correlated with an increase in searches like “sex Olympics,” “nude Olympics,” and “athlete”. “Paris,” “France,” and “French” became the most searched city, country, and language during the games. France also held the #2 spot in Pornhub traffic this year, which could likely be due to all the tourists and visitors.
- Animated porn, including hentai and anime, remains some of the most popular categories and continued to grow this year, with “realistic animated” searches increasing by 78 percent. “Hentai” remains the world’s #1 search for the 4th straight year.
- The viral social media trend resulted in 10 million “hawk tuah” searches on Pornhub in 2024 and influenced the increases in searches for terms like “spit on d***” increased 233 percent.
- The most traffic was between 10 pm and 1 am, with 11 pm the most popular time. Monday was the most popular day to watch porn, and Friday was the least popular.
- Smartphones made up 90.5% of worldwide traffic, which was actually a 1% decrease from 2023. Desktop and laptop computers only made up 7.9% of traffic, but that number increased by +11% compared to 2023. So did tablets, with a +8% increase.
- By operating system, traffic from Apple devices, including iPhones and iPads, plummeted 27% since 2023, while traffic from Android was up 24% since last year.
- Traffic dropped -33.5% in the United States on Thanksgiving Day.
After “hentai,” the term “milf” consistently ranks in the top 3, holding its 2nd place spot yet again in 2024. Below are other most searched-for terms worldwide, then specifically in the United States:
Among the most viewed categories in 2024, “lesbian” dropped out of the #1 spot for the first time since 2022.
What Pornhub’s report doesn’t acknowledge
In reviewing Pornhub’s report year after year, we uncover far more than just statistics and trends. When you really digest and analyze the report, you see how it highlights many of the consequences of the mainstream porn industry that are too often overlooked.
There are also many unreported metrics that Pornhub has conveniently left out of its annual report since 2021—including site visits, videos consumed, and the total amount of new content uploaded to the site. But why?
It really doesn’t come as a surprise, given that Pornhub was globally confronted in December 2020 for reportedly hosting and profiting from nonconsensual content and child exploitation images. Visa, Mastercard, and Discover severed ties with Pornhub, as a result, suspending payment processing services on the site.
Pornhub responded by announcing an updated age verification process and purging a slew of unverified videos—although these changes aren’t enough to prevent abuse and undo the damage that has been done to countless victims of underage content, revenge porn, nonconsensual porn, sex trafficking, sexual exploitation, and other forms of image-based abuse. Increased security measures also don’t mean that the content featured on Pornhub moving forward is safe and healthy to consume.
Similar to last year, the 2024 report also leaves out categories like “barely legal” and “teen,” which have topped the charts for most searched-for terms nearly every year prior and continue to be expected to be high in search volume.
As dark as it is, it’s also a reality that categories fetishizing underage girls and teens are so popular in mainstream porn that “teen” has been absorbed into all other categories.
Given the heat Pornhub has faced in recent years and threats of porn being banned altogether, it’s probably not a coincidence that the annual report is carefully constructed and serves as another effort to try to win back public opinion.
Still, the data Pornhub does choose to report perpetuates harmful stereotypes and portrayals of individuals and marginalized groups.
Take popular terms and categories that rank near the top year after year—ebony, Japanese, Latina, and black, just to name a few.
The porn industry fetishizes and profits off of racist stereotypes and sexualizes the degradation, humiliation, torture, or abuse of marginalized groups—even underage children.
Take “hentai,” for example—the top search term year after year on Pornhub, characterized by highly exaggerated sex acts, rape, incest, and other disturbing fetishes—particularly involving little girls.
Porn also misrepresents and fetishizes LGBTQ+ individuals and relationships, promoting derogatory terms and exploiting rather than authentically depicting the community with content generally intended for a cisgender, heterosexual audience.
When you consider the fact that teens and even children are learning to have sex from porn, this is especially concerning. Research shows that as much as 85% of 10-17 year olds have seen porn whether or not they wanted to see it or intentionally sought it out themselves.
One 2021 study found that at least 1 in 3 and as many as 9 in 10 porn videos show sexual violence or aggression. Exposure to this content is influencing young people’s perspectives on sex and sexual relationships.
What did we learn?
Just as concerning as what Pornhub’s report showed is what it didn’t—including the harms associated with the mainstream content it hosts on its platform.
It also ranked its most searched-for performers without acknowledging that many top-ranking performers from previous years have come forward to share the dark truth about the exploitation and abuse they endured in some of their most popular scenes that are still being consumed on Pornhub today.
Porn is more accessible and normalized, yet mainstream content has become increasingly violent, exploitative, and harmful.
On a hopeful note, information and resources on the harmful effects of porn have also never been more accessible or sparked more public attention.
So as Pornhub continues to drive billions of annual visits to its site, we’ll keep on sharing the facts and raising awareness to help give every person the opportunity to consider before consuming.
Check out our resources to get more educated on the harmful effects of pornography:
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