Back in the day, in order to access porn, you had to buy a magazine from a store or rent a tape from the adult section of a sketchy video store.
Now, the most hardcore images imaginable are only clicks away for anyone with access to the internet. No matter the consumer’s age or background, porn is more available, affordable, accessible, and anonymous than ever before. In other words, a lot of people are watching a lot more porn.
So how many people are on porn sites right now? How many people watch porn?
Well, according to global website traffic data from Statista, the top 3 porn sites in the world receive a combined 5.81 billion website visits per month.Statista. (2021). Most popular websites worldwide as of November 2021, by total visits. Accessed on 28 March, 2022. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201880/most-visited-websites-worldwide/Copy
That means there are about 134,491 new website visits per minute—just on those 3 websites. Plus, website traffic tools suggest that visitors to porn sites tend to spend about 18 minutes on the site each time they visit.Semrush Blog. (2021). Top 100: The Most Visited websites in the US—2021 Top websites edition. Accessed on 28 March, 2022. Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/blog/most-visited-websites/Copy
All in all, that means there are about 2.4 million people on the top 3 porn sites every minute.
Porn stats
It’s no secret that porn sites are getting a lot of traffic, but just how much porn—and what types of porn—are people watching? Here are just a few stats on the state of porn:
- Today, porn sites receive more website traffic in the U.S. than Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Pinterest, and Zoom combined.Semrush Blog. (2021). Top 100: The Most Visited websites in the US—2021 Top websites edition. Accessed on 28 March, 2022. Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/blog/most-visited-websites/Copy
- According to site data from 2019, in the time it takes you to read this article, Pornhub will have recorded more than 200,000 visits.Pornhub Insights. (2019). The 2019 year in review. Retrieved from https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-reviewCopy
- Pornhub estimates that in 2019, 12,500 gigabytes of porn were uploaded to the site every minute—enough to fill the memories of every smartphone in the world.Pornhub Insights. (2019). The 2019 year in review. Retrieved from https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-reviewCopy
- Enough porn was watched in 2016 on this one website that all the data would fill 194,000,000 USB sticks. If you put the USB sticks end to end, they’d wrap all the way around the moon.Pornhub Insights. (2016). Pornhub's 2016 Year In Review. Retrieved from https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2016-year-in-reviewCopy
- According to a 2021 study, 1 out of every 8 porn titles shown to first-time visitors to porn sites described acts of sexual violence.Vera-Gray, F., McGlynn, C., Kureshi, I., & Butterby, K. (2021). Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography. The British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azab035Copy
- “Teen” is the most common word used in porn titles.Vera-Gray, F., McGlynn, C., Kureshi, I., & Butterby, K. (2021). Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography. The British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azab035Copy
- In 2017 alone, Pornhub got 28.5 billion visits. That’s almost 1,000 visits a second, or 78.1 million a day—way more than the population of the entire United Kingdom. That number jumped to 42 billion site visits in 2019.Pornhub Insights. (2017). 2017 Year In Review. Retrieved from https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2017-year-in-reviewCopy Pornhub Insights. (2019). The 2019 year in review. Retrieved from https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-reviewCopy
- In 2016, 91,980,225,000 videos were watched on Pornhub. In 2018, that number jumped to more than 109,012,068,000. That’s over 14 videos watched for every person on the entire planet.Pornhub Insights. (2016). Pornhub's 2016 Year In Review. Retrieved from https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2016-year-in-reviewCopy Pornhub Insights. (2018). 2018 Year In Review. Retrieved from https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2018-year-in-reviewCopy
- More than 5,824,699,200 hours of porn were watched on Pornhub in 2019 alone. That’s equal to almost 665 centuries of content consumed in 1 year, on just one porn site.Pornhub Insights. (2019). The 2019 year in review. Retrieved from https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-reviewCopy
- “Lesbian,” “teen,” “stepmom,” “mom,” and “step sister” have all topped the charts as some of the most searched terms on the site for the last 6 years, at least.
We don’t share these stats to scare anyone, we share to shine a light on the reality of popular and normalized it is.
The magnitude of porn
Today, porn’s effects have permeated nearly every aspect of our lives.
Technology has changed not only the content of porn, but also how, when, and at what age people begin consuming it. Studies show that most young people are exposed to porn by age 13,British Board of Film Classification. (2020). Young people, pornography & age-verification. BBFC. Retrieved from https://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-classification/researchCopy and according to a nationally representative survey of U.S. teens, 84.4% of 14-18 year-old males and 57% of 14-18 year-old females have viewed pornography.Wright, P. J., Paul, B., & Herbenick, D. (2021). Preliminary insights from a U.S. probability sample on adolescents’ pornography exposure, media psychology, and sexual aggression. J.Health Commun., 1-8. doi:10.1080/10810730.2021.1887980Copy And for adults, an estimated 91.5% of men and 60.2% of women report that they’ve consumed porn in the past month.Solano, I., Eaton, N. R., & O'Leary, K. D. (2020). Pornography Consumption, Modality and Function in a Large Internet Sample. Journal of sex research, 57(1), 92–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2018.1532488Copy
In analytics released by popular porn site Pornhub a couple of years ago, women are 113% more likely to search the term “hardcore” than men. They are also over 105% more likely to seek out more intense genres of porn like “gangbang” and “rough sex.” (Click here to read an article about why that may be.)
Why this matters
Research and countless personal accounts have shown that exposure to pornography—especially on young, developing brains—has the potential to lead to unhealthy habits with toxic consequences.
Gone are the days when people hid their Playboy magazines under the mattress—we’re now in a society where porn is part of the cultural landscape. It’s clear how this shift in society harms consumers and relationships, so we are doing something about it. Speak up, and speak out that porn isn’t harmless or healthy.
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
This is why Fight the New Drug exists—but we can’t do it without you.
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