On her sketch comedy series Inside Amy Schumer, the eponymous host aired a hilarious sketch titled “POV Porn.” In it, Schumer sat down with her reticent pal Amber Tamblyn, the latter voicing her displeasure with the so-called efficacy of porn. “Totally, like I hear you, but trust me—this is different,” says Schumer. “It’s not like porny-porn, it feels like real sex. It just happens to be, literally, from the woman’s point of view.”
What follows is horrifying: Strident bedspring squeaks, a chubby mouthbreather groaning in close-up, phone calls, shots of a pillow, complaints (“Ow, you’re on my hair!”), and, after one agonizing minute, a loud orgasm. Once it’s over, the man turns over and goes to bed while the woman grabs a remote and watches a televised auction. Amber is horrified.
Of course, the bit was in the name of comedy, and in reality, women are consuming porn in very large numbers. A Pew Research Center report in 2013 surveyed the online viewing habits of 1,003 Americans by phone and found that 25 percent of men admitted to watching porn, while 8 percent of women did. While the numbers seem far too low—the survey was conducted by phone, and most were likely playing coy—it marked a drastic increase from its study in 2010, when just 2 percent of women copped to watching porn.
Now, a new study conducted by the adult sites Pornhub and RedTube, which have a combined 40 million unique visitors a month, reveals more about the porn viewing habits of women. The study, published exclusively at The Daily Beast, used high-tech analytics software to shed light on what women are looking for in the XXX realm. Here’s what it found.
WOMEN ARE INTO WATCHING WOMEN
The three terms most often searched by women are “lesbian,” “threesome,” and “squirt”—all of which involve other women. So, women seem to be more interested in watching female pleasure play out onscreen, instead of your standard guy-on-girl porn that usually offers a male perspective.
If that weren’t enough, the categories most often viewed by women are “lesbian” and “Gay (male),” indicating that women are seeking out gay porn with far greater frequency than straight porn.
KIM KARDASHIAN REIGNS SUPREME
Mia Khalifa may have recently been crowned Pornhub’s No. 1 ranked adult female star, but that’s only among XXX actresses. According to the study, reality star turned entrepreneur Kim Kardashian, who once starred in a bestselling sex tape, dwarfs Khalifa as the ‘porn star’ women search for most, followed by former Teen Mom reality star Farrah Abraham, retired porn actress Lisa Ann (AKA the star of Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?), and fella James Deen.
WHERE THEY’RE WATCHING
In addition to revealing that 24 percent of the world’s Pornhub visitors were women—an increase of one percent over the previous year—Japan, where people don’t have much actual sex, presented the largest proportional gap between male and female porn viewers (83 percent male and 17 percent female). Meanwhile, U.S. women ranked pretty low (23 percent women and 77 percent male), while the most women proportionally watching porn are in the Philippines and Brazil (35 percent female and 65 percent male). It’s still mostly men watching porn, but women are slowly bridging the gap.
PORN IN THE U.S.A.
Yes, in the American South—AKA the red states—women constitute a much higher proportion of porn viewers than in the North, or the blue states. The states with the highest proportion of female porn viewers include Mississippi (26 percent), Georgia (25 percent), South Carolina (25 percent), District of Columbia (24 percent), and Tennessee (24 percent). These are also, with the exception of D.C., states that have adopted far more conservative (public) views when it comes to sex than they’re Northeast and Midwest counterparts. Meanwhile, the women proportionally watching the least amount of porn reside in Alaska (17 percent). Thanks a lot, Sarah Palin.
Interestingly, this heat map indicates that as the temperatures drop, so do the number of women watching porn. States in the scorching hot South are some of the biggest consumers of XXX action as far as women go, while chilly ones like Alaska and Nebraska include the lowest proportional number of women watching porn.
MAKING IT LAST
While the top adult film sites’ porn viewership is comprised of just 24 percent women and 76 percent men, women are actually spending more time watching porn—tuning in for a worldwide average of 10 minutes and 10 seconds, compared to men at just 9 minutes and 22 seconds. And the U.S. boasts the second largest proportional gap in the world of time spent watching porn between women and men, with women spending an average of 11:23 tuning in compared to 10:09 for men. These numbers seem to make sense since women have always by and large, well, lasted longer.
Congrats Bernie Sanders! In the U.S., the women spending the most time watching porn proportionally compared to men reside in the presidential candidate’s home state of Vermont, where women spend an average of 12:09 watching porn compared to 10:00 for men.
