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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Ofcom finds 50% of UK men (rising to 3/4s for young men) visited pornhub in Sep 2020

103 replies

duffed · 09/06/2021 06:38

Well this is depressing... I'm not sure I've seen independent stats on porn use in the UK before.

"Half the adult population of the UK watched online pornography during the pandemic, according to a projection by Ofcom which lays bare the activities of the 26 million individuals who view adult material.

By far the most popular pornography site was PornHub, which was visited by 50% of all males and 16% of all females in the UK in September 2020 – giving the site a far larger audience than mainstream television channels such as Sky One, ITV4 and BBC News.

The figures rise substantially among younger age groups, with a third of young women and three-quarters of young men visiting PornHub in the four weeks covered by the research."

www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/09/half-british-adults-watched-porn-pandemic-ofcom

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FierceBarrie · 09/06/2021 06:41

50%? I’m very surprised it’s not higher.

GiantToadstool · 09/06/2021 06:42

Wow. I didn't realise it was that high.

Surely anything else done by half the (male) population would be regulated and made safe(r).

All those poor women 😔

PearPickingPorky · 09/06/2021 06:47

God, I'm shocked. That is very high. So 50% of men were watching the violent sexual abuse of women? Or, in many cases, children?

FierceBarrie · 09/06/2021 07:48

When this topic gets discussed on here - people try to assert that all men watch porn.

Namechangeme1 · 09/06/2021 08:20

That's a sad statistic OP

Conniethesensible · 09/06/2021 08:23

How about we let consenting adults choose to do what they want in their spare time. Are you trying to get porn banned OP?

JillyBoel · 09/06/2021 08:31

Conniethesensible - how does one ensure that the people in the porn you watch are consenting? Or adults? What chance are you willing to take that they are not? How do you think we should ensure that they are?

DoormatBob · 09/06/2021 08:42

Another way to look at it. Approximately 25% of visitors to pornhub were female?

I think that is more surprising!

PearPickingPorky · 09/06/2021 08:47

@FierceBarrie

When this topic gets discussed on here - people try to assert that all men watch porn.
If 50% of men are visiting this one particular porn website, then it's very likely that the percentage of men visiting porn websites generally is significantly higher.
Whatsnewpussyhat · 09/06/2021 09:19

3/4 of young men in the uk. No fucking wonder so many think treating women and girls like shit and being violent during sex is acceptable. So desensitized to it before they even reach maturity.

I remember reading a while ago that the largest increase in men accessing child sexual abuse 'porn' was 18-24yo and more and more men looking for children age 0-2.

They are so damaged by porn from a young age that, like drug addicts, they needed 'more' to get a hit.

guinnessguzzler · 09/06/2021 09:30

Miserable, isn't it? This can't be healthy in any way, obviously damaging for the women and girls involved but also damaging for the 'consumers', those around them, and wider society, exactly as you outline @Whatsnewpussyhat

duffed · 09/06/2021 09:42

No not trying to get it banned, but I think it’s pretty shocking that it’s not regulated and that those involved in the industry aren’t necessarily consenting or safe - as a viewer, how do you tell? I also see a very worrying trend of Extreme porn acts being used as Murder/abuse/rape defence in courts of law ‘bad sex gone wrong’. We know revenge porn or videos of child abuse can slip through into the mainstream, and that there’s little regulation.

More people visit the website poor hub than Bbc news- I’ve had a colourful sex life but I do think that’s shocking,

I think it’s really worrying that so many young people are consuming porn as their main sex & relationships education.

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Leanandmean31 · 09/06/2021 09:43

@DoormatBob

Another way to look at it. Approximately 25% of visitors to pornhub were female?

I think that is more surprising!

Not that surprising tbh.
duffed · 09/06/2021 09:53

I think one of the big concerns, which the article touches on, is that there isn’t actually a way to stop children accessing these sites and videos - I’m surprised to learn the government dropped the idea of mandatory age checks. All you have to do is tick the box that says you are 18+ and away you go. It’s quite naive to think it’s only consenting adults who access or are featured in porn.

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Leanandmean31 · 09/06/2021 10:31

There is evidence suggesting that more than 90% of children will have viewed porn by age 14 or something. It’s frightening and very harmful. It’s incredibly difficult to control though without banning internet porn outright and given its high consumption among men and women, that’s unlikely to go down well. As a society we will begin to see the harm of exposing kids to this stuff no doubt.

duffed · 09/06/2021 11:10

I don't know, there are plenty of online things I have to provide a passport/driving license or birth certificate for to verify I am who I say I am. I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to have some sort of government authentication system for age related websites if the people in charge actually wanted one.

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PearPickingPorky · 09/06/2021 12:24

I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to have some sort of government authentication system for age related websites if the people in charge actually wanted one.

I think that's the issue. They, too, will be accessing videos of abuse of women and girls, and they don't want to put their name to it. So they will resist it.

guinnessguzzler · 09/06/2021 13:27

A very good point, PPP. Which 50% do we think our esteemed PM falls in to?! They won't want to be accused of hypocrisy etc or be at risk of having their own browser histories exposed. What a grim world we live in. In years to come the research will be out telling us all how damaged several generations have been by this shit. Its obvious.

SmokedDuck · 09/06/2021 13:35

I thin it's likely a lot easier to have authentication checks for things like drivers licences, which are within the same country. And people can still get around those things, but it's not like there are dozens or organisations offering driver's licences.

Ultimately though this all goes back to the bigger picture in terms of what our society teaches about sex. If we say anything goes and you need to be sexually satisfied to be healthy and as long as their is consent, it's ok, this, or something like this, is the outcome.

CharlieParley · 09/06/2021 14:38

@Conniethesensible

How about we let consenting adults choose to do what they want in their spare time. Are you trying to get porn banned OP?
Banning porn should be given serious consideration. Yes.

It exploits performers, many of whom are underage and/or coerced and/or trafficked into the industry. And even performers who have chosen to go into it are coerced into doing things they have not consented to. This is a well known issue.

A lot of freely available porn is amateur porn uploaded without the consent of the women and girls featuring. Often the sexual acts themselves are obviously non- consensual. Even women who were raped as children and who are attempting to remove the porn films showing their rape are finding it nearly impossible to do so.

There has recently been some progress when an investigative journalist shamed credit card companies into taking action about non-consensually filmed porn, but not only was it the tip of the iceberg, the sheer number of men angrily proclaiming their right to watch women and girls being abused was a horrifying demonstration of what porn is and does: it dehumanises women and girls as a class to such an extent that these men believe access to women's and girls' bodies regardless of consent is their inalienable right.

25 years ago the majority of porn was about titillation. Today, more than 90% of freely available porn is about the humiliation, degradation and physical and sexual abuse of women and girls.

This saturation of the market with content that normalises the abuse of women and girls, that dehumanises them to this extent has an effect on the men and boys consuming porn. It teaches boys that humiliation, degradation and violence are a normal part of relationships and sexual intercourse. It normalises sexual practices that are often harmful, such as choking or anal sex.

See for instance Teen Vogue, a magazine targeted at 11 to 16 year old girls, featuring a question on what to do if a girl finds anal sex painful - not merely unpleasant - but painful. The answer was not that sex is meant to be pleasurable for both partners, that pain is not something a girl has to endure, and that the boy's enjoyment does not take precedence. No, the answer was use more lube and try again, you'll soon like it.

That's not a benign development. Women have died as a consequence of being choked and women and girls have become incontinent as a consequence of anal sex. There's a reason why the consumption of muscle relaxants is common in gay sex. Because the practice is not without risk. But porn ignores that risk and pain for the woman is often a desirable outcome in porn. Not that long ago a porn industry award was given to a scene where a performer was so brutally abused she lost consciousness and was then hospitalised due to the damage done to her. The producer continued filming, the male performers continued the scene. Abuse of performers is normal in the industry. And accepted.

About a third of young men now have a porn addiction. What that means is that they need to watch more and more extreme porn to achieve satisfaction.

And even without an addiction, the now ubiquitous depiction of women and girls being abused and humiliated in porn, has had a measurable and detrimental effect on the way these men view women and girls in society. And that has an effect on the women and girls in their lives, whether they're watching porn themselves or not. Did you know for instance that the number of young women and girls who believe that their boyfriend has a right to abuse them has risen in the last ten years? (IIRC it has doubled) That the rates of sexual harassment and physical and sexual violence against women and girls are rising?

So yeah, I would have no problem with porn being banned. Because I do not consent to all of the harm that porn does to women and girls. That it does to the men consuming it. And that it does to society.

PearPickingPorky · 09/06/2021 14:41

It exploits performers, many of whom are underage and/or coerced and/or trafficked into the industry. And even performers who have chosen to go into it are coerced into doing things they have not consented to. This is a well known issue.

It amazes me that some people still pretend this isn't the case. Or pretend that the benefits outweigh the harms when the harms are this serious.

Lumene · 09/06/2021 14:42

It says half of ADULTS in UK not 50% men.

Suspect proportion of male viewers will be higher than female, which = more than 50% of men.

colouringindoors · 09/06/2021 14:44

wow that is fkn depressing

duffed · 09/06/2021 14:45

CharlieParley - god everything you just said is so right.

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duffed · 09/06/2021 14:48

Lumene, the article says 50% of men and 16% of women in the UK accessed the website pornhub in September 2020.

It says that 26 million people accessed adult material (so on combined websites), which is where the article title is coming from perhaps?

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