German poet Heinrich Heine said you cannot feed the hungry on statistics. Well-researched stats can only illuminate the problem, not solve it.
But for many, the problem of pornography in our modern culture still needs a spotlight. What do some of the latest stats tell us about this sexual-media giant?
Covenant Eyes has released a new conglomeration of pornography statistics based on some of the best research. Here are the highlights…
Porn is big business.
In the early 2000s, global porn revenues were estimated at $20 billion, with $10 billion coming from US consumers.
However, by 2011 both global and U.S. porn revenues had been reduced by 50%, due in large part to the amount of free pornography available online. It is estimated that 80-90% of Internet porn users only access free online material.
As far as online pornography is concerned, from 2001 to 2007, the Internet porn industry went from a $1-billion-a-year industry to $3-billion-a-year in the US alone.
Porn is a dangerous business.
On average, 17% of performers use condoms in heterosexual porn films. 66% of porn performers have herpes, and 7% of porn performers have HIV.
Ex-porn star Tanya Burleson says men and women in pornography do drugs because “they can’t deal with the way they’re being treated” in the industry. A 2012 survey of porn actresses demonstrated 79% of porn stars have used marijuana, 50% have used ecstasy, 44% have used cocaine, and 39% have used hallucinogens.
When hundreds of scenes were analyzed from the 50 top-selling adult films, 88% of scenes contained acts of physical aggression, and 49% of scenes contained verbal aggression.
All types of people look at Internet porn.
Paul Fishbein, founder of Adult Video News, is right when he says, “Porn doesn’t have a demographic—it goes across all demographics.” After an analysis of 400 million web searches, researchers concluded that 1 in 8 of all searches online is for erotic content.
Who is more likely to seek out pornography online? According to data taken from Internet users who took part in the General Social Survey:
- Men are 543% more likely to look at porn than females.
- Those who are politically more liberal are 19% more likely to look at porn.
- Those who have ever committed adultery are 218% more likely to look at porn.
- Those who have ever engaged in paid sex are 270% more likely to look at porn.
- Those who are happily married are 61% less likely to look at porn.
- Those with teen children at home are 45% less likely to look at porn.
- Regular church attenders are 26% less likely to look at porn than non-attenders, but those self-identified as “fundamentalists” are 91% more likely to look at porn.
Mobile porn is increasing in popularity.
After an analysis of more than one million hits to Google’s mobile search sites, more than 1 in 5 searches are for pornography on mobile devices.
By 2015, mobile adult content and services are expected to reach $2.8 billion, mobile adult subscriptions will reach nearly $1 billion, and mobile adult video on tablets will triple worldwide.
It is common for teens to see porn.
In a 2010 national survey, over a quarter of 16- to 17-year-olds said they were exposed to nudity online when they did not want to see it. In addition, 20% of 16-year-olds and 30% of 17-year-olds have received a “sext” (a sexually explicit text message).
More than 7 out of 10 teens hide their online behavior from their parents in some way.
35% of boys say they have viewed pornographic videos “too many times to count.”
More than half of boys and nearly a third of girls see their first pornographic images before they turn 13. In a survey of hundreds of college students, 93% of boys and 62% of girls said they were exposed to pornography before they turned 18. In the same survey, 83% of boys and 57% of girls said they had seen images of group sex online.
It is common for young adults to use porn.
About 64-68% of young adult men and about 18% of women use porn at least once every week. Another 17% of men and another 30% of women use porn 1-2 times per month.
Two-thirds of college-age men and half of college-age women say viewing porn is an acceptable way to express one’s sexuality.
Porn is destroying families.
The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reports that 56% of divorce cases involve one party having “an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.”
According to numerous studies, prolonged exposure to pornography leads to:
- diminished trust between intimate couples
- the belief that promiscuity is the natural state
- cynicism about love or the need for affection between sexual partners
- the belief that marriage is sexually confining
- a lack of attraction to family and child-raising
Continue to educate yourself about this topic. See our comprehensive list of statistics.
Thank you, Luke. This would have been on time if I had remember to watch for your reply. I like that better than what I ended up with, but this will have to work. Thanks again!
Hi, I am doing a speech on this on the 13th of this month (so basically I need to have the outline done today). It is a 5 to 6 min speech for a college speech class. I am over loaded with information and struggling with what my 3 points should be. I was thinking definition, effects on the brain, and effects on family/society… basically the change in view of woman. But with the amount of information, I have no idea how to narrow it down. Any thoughts would be helpful. Thanks so much.
Not sure if I’m replying too late, but here’s one way to narrow it down:
1. How porn changes the brain
2. How porn harms one’s view of women
3. How porn shapes one’s sexual expectations
I have more reason to believe it’s your repressive attitude towards sexuality that causes your marriages to fail. I’ve recently had a women I loved very much, and who loved me back by any reasonable standard, leave me because I was a broke loser… and I’m sure you could make a reasoned argument that I would be more successful if I spent less time thinking about sex… but our relationship, just like every relationship I’ve been in with a woman who was openminded about sex, was more open, more romantic, more intimate, more sexual, and generally better as a result of us being indulgent towards one another’s sexual desires. And when I found myself in that position (the broke loser position) the first bad habits to go were laziness and pessimism, not pornography; I’m doing just fine now, thank you for asking. I think the whole concept of sexual addiction is preposterous… it’s like being addicted to football, or clean mountain air, except that neither of those things is a fundamental human drive which is naturally unhealthy and stress inducing to ignore. Could you indulge in those things too much? Sure. Could you indulge in them too much with your wife!? Probably not, unless you’re watching football when you (both) ought to be getting up off of your lazy behind(s) and finding (a) real job(s). Watching pornography with your lover is one of the most intimate sexual activities there is… you see one other at your weakest, with the very root of your sexual psyches exposed. I suggest you all try it. Don’t be stupid about it, though… just like if you were having sex, you have to know your partner and be gentle when you are trying something new, until you have a deeper understanding of what they like and don’t like. It’s perfectly normal to have some kind of “weird” fetish (the rule more than the exception, I’ve found, but maybe that’s just New York City), but that’s not what you should be breaking out the first time you watch an erotic film together… ESPECIALLY if you’ve already been married for years! Anyway, my point is that while you can do anything too much, I can tell you that I know from personal experience that a man and woman, in love, and intending (at least at the time) to marry and raise a happy family together, can enjoy watching porn together that would have made the Whore of Babylon blush. So there.
Hi Reg,
As you said, “Could you indulge in those things too much? Sure. Could you indulge in them too much with your wife!? Probably not, unless you’re watching football when you (both) ought to be getting up off of your lazy behind(s) and finding (a) real job(s).” That’s exactly the point: when someone’s viewing of porn takes people to the place where they are sacrificing things that make life sustainable, they are addicted. That’s exactly what marks an addiction. I know men who go thousands of dollars in debt because of porn. Addicted. I know men who go to jail because their obsession with porn brought them to more graphic and sadistic material, eventually bringing them to child porn. Addicted. I know men who watch porn every day and refuse to make love to their wives who are desperate for intimacy. Addicted.
I would hardly call a woman “repressed” in her sexuality simply because she doesn’t want her husband to use her body to masturbate to fantasy images of porn stars. That’s called “normal.”
To Luke . . . . .Only loser’s & idiots pay for porn; which makes you a loser & there for a idiot as well,
Hi Chris,
Not sure how you concluded that I personally pay for porn from my comment. Care to share how you drew that conclusion? Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough.
Luke: Your comment makes absolutely no sense. You are lying, and you know that. There is literally no way, one can be tens of thousands of dollars in debt because of “porn addiction”. Maybe prostitutes, but this was about porn only. I don’t know, if you know, but lying is as much of a sin, as watching porn.
Well, I’m not sure I would say “tens” of thousands. Of course, that’s not unheard of, at least as far as some of the counselors I’ve spoken to. I will do some fact-checking on that, however. It isn’t my intention to lie, but rather to report what I’ve heard from other reputable sources.
You sick my friend to think that watching porn is fine and there is nothing wrong with it!!!