CYBERSPACE—The recently concluded 2017 has been described as the “Year of the Woman,” from the Women’s March in January of last year—believed to be the largest single-day protest march in United States history—to the surge in electoral victories for women in local and state elections across the country, to the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment.
But women also made strides in another area, as consumers of porn.
According to statistics released on Tuesday by Pornhub, increased numbers of women watching porn was one of 2017’s most prominent trends. In fact, the search phrase “porn for women” ranked as the top “search that defined 2017,” according to the site’s “Year in Review” data report, as searches for porn created for or appealing specifically to women skyrocketed by a factor topping 1,400 percent.
By far the biggest gains for women as porn consumers came in India, where female viewership of Pornhub videos zoomed up by 129 percent over 2016. That’s more than twice the increase in women watching porn seen by Japan, which places second in terms of increase in female porn-watching, with a 59 percent increase.
But neither of those two ranked as the country with the highest proportion of female viewership. Filipina women ranked as the world’s most voracious porn fans, with 36 percent of all porn viewed on Pornhub in the Philippines being watched by women in that country.
Brazilian and South African women were not far behind in their hunger to watch porn on Pornhub, however, with 35 percent and 32 percent respectively of all Pornhub adult videos in those countries watched by women.
Of the Top 20 countries for female porn viewing, only one, Russia, showed a decrease in the percentage of women watching porn from 2016 to 2017. In Russia, 26 percent of porn was viewed by women, an alarming drop of 39 percent.
Porn viewing in Russia was down overall, as well. Though the country continued to rank in the world’s top 20 for porn viewing, per the Pornhub stats, it dropped to 18th in the overall porn viewing rankings, down from 12th. That’s the largest drop of any country in the Pornhub top 20.
What accounts for the seemingly declining consumption in porn among Russians, and Russian women in particular? There may be two factors. In 2015 Russia began blocking online porn sites, a ban that was extended in September of 2016. While many Russians have clearly found ways to circumvent the government censorship of online porn, the ban has clearly taken a toll on Russia’a porn habits.
In addition, the population of Russia is declining. Ranked ninth in the world as of July 2015, at just shy of 150 million, the population of the country is projected to drop to 15th by 2015 when it will be home to fewer than 130 million people.
Women in the United States increased their porn viewing by a healthy 10 percent in 2017, according to the stats, with 25 percent of all video streamed or downloaded from Pornhub reaching women.
In the USA’s neighbor to the north the percentage of women watching porn was the same, 25 percent. But the share of porn watched by Canadian women as opposed to men rose by 19 percent, nearly double the increase posted by American women.
With the vast and growing amount of porn viewed by women, the Pornhub stats also revealed what type of porn women seek out. The answer was definitive in 2017—lesbian porn.
“For women that have a soft fantasy or curiosity, lesbian porn allows them to explore that part of their sexuality without risk,” said Pornhub Sexual Wellness Center Director Dr. Laurie Betito. “Of course, for bi or lesbian women, this category is an obvious choice.”
But in their top porn search preference, women proved no different than men, as “lesbian” ranked as the top Pornhub search term, just as it did in 2016 and 2015.
“Lesbians have been the number one fantasy of men since the beginning of time,” Betito said. “For the men that aren’t likely to ever have a threesome with lesbians, this is an ideal way for them to live out their fantasy.”
