‘Porn for women’ revealed as Pornhub’s top search of 2017
Saudi Arabia among nations seeing increased female demand for X-rated content
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Women are seeking out female-friendly porn in record numbers, according to the internet’s most popular porn site.
Pornhub’s end of year round-up reveals that searches for “porn for women” soared in 2017.
Female users searched for the phrase 359% more frequently than in 2016, the site found, while overall searches increased by 1,400%, making it the top trending search of the year.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The trend towards porn aimed at female viewers is reflected in other major porn websites. Rival site xHamster reported a 2.4% overall increase in female users accessing the site.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the deeply conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia saw an 11% rise in the amount of women seeking out X-rated videos.
When it comes to particular preferences, Pornhub’s statistics showed that male users seek out “Milfs and step moms” while the female viewership inclines towards “celebrity sex tapes and lesbians”, TechCrunch reports.
This is reflected in the UK, where the most-searched terms of 2017 were “lesbian” - also the worldwide number one - followed by “Milf”, “step sister” and “step mom”.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Other insights from Pornhub’s end of year review reveal that viewers’ preferences are not what you might expect. After “porn for women”, the searches which underwent the biggest leap in popularity were “Rick and Morty” and “fidget spinner”.
The company’s VP, Corey Price, admitted he was baffled by the inclusion of the popular gadget. “It’s unimaginable why people in our audience are looking for videos that include [it]," he said.
The amount of porn being consumed by both male and female visitors is staggering. In 2017, Pornhub users streamed 3,732 petabytes of data, says Campaign Live, “enough to fill the storage of every iPhone in the world”.
-
Political cartoons for February 19Cartoons Thursday’s political cartoons include a suspicious package, a piece of the cake, and more
-
The Gallivant: style and charm steps from Camber SandsThe Week Recommends Nestled behind the dunes, this luxury hotel is a great place to hunker down and get cosy
-
The President’s Cake: ‘sweet tragedy’ about a little girl on a baking mission in IraqThe Week Recommends Charming debut from Hasan Hadi is filled with ‘vivid characters’
-
Epstein files topple law CEO, roil UK governmentSpeed Read Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to the US, is caught up in the scandal
-
Iran and US prepare to meet after skirmishesSpeed Read The incident comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East
-
Grok in the crosshairs as EU launches deepfake porn probeIN THE SPOTLIGHT The European Union has officially begun investigating Elon Musk’s proprietary AI, as regulators zero in on Grok’s porn problem and its impact continent-wide
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire