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

[duffed]

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

Wholeheartedly agree, CharlieParley

I am not only bothered about videos showing women being abused and clearly suffering and not liking it at all, I am equally concerned about videos showing that women actually enjoy being abused, raped etc.

Excellent post @CharlieParley

Amazing post Charleyparley. I completely agree.

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

Ah thanks, apologies

Fantastic post, CharlieParley.

A lot of really, really worrying stuff in that post of Charlie’s.

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.

How can that not be illegal? And yet I bet no one faced any charges. They even got an “industry” award, FFS.

And this:

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)

Just heartbreaking.

We should be teaching girls in schools about what abuse is, how to spot red flags, what boundaries they’re entitled to and what their human rights are. But it doesn’t look like we are.

Correction:

50% of men admitted to visiting pornhub on that month.

@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?

I’ve just been on another thread about this.

Yes I do think porn should be banned ultimately. However I’d settle for all the online sites being closed down.

So much harm, so much exploitation, so many damage and so much abuse.

Consenting adults?! You are joking.

I’m one of the 16%. I really don’t see the issue with porn if I’m honest.

People watch horror films and don’t go around murdering people slaying through the night; not all people who watch porn are terrifying sexual partners I don’t think it’s fair to stereotype.

@CharlieParley also agree and well put.

I have also known a few people who have been in Porn movies. Most of them were adamant at the time that they were consenting adults, that it was OK, that it was their choice. Now all of them have told me that it was damaging and they hugely regret it.

One woman now cannot have children as she suffered so many STIs. One gay man told me that he was abused badly on set by a much bigger, older guy but didn’t want to admit that and so put on this ‘front’ that it was all OK.

@MyMabel horror movies aren’t real though. I wouldn’t watch someone being actually hurt. Don’t even like boxing!

If even just one person was being coerced into porn, or like my friends were actually pretty broken people (came from abusive families) and went into porn and it did damage them mentally and physically. Is that really OK?

"Yes I do think porn should be banned ultimately. However I’d settle for all the online sites being closed down."

Interesting how you think this could be implemented and enforced. VPNs/TOR now and their uses in bypassing blocks is now common knowledge

Since the internet is international, websites including porn sites are hosted all over the world. Even if you succeeded in making the UK close down all UK-hosted porn sites and have all porn sites blocked, all people have to do is use a VPN to access a porn site from another country.

Iceland made porn (online and offline) illegal in 2009. However online porn isn't blocked and some even still stock it and there are very few convictions. As the article below points out, "noone cares, not even the police".

grapevine.is/mag/2021/05/07/ask-an-expert-why-is-pornography-illegal-in-iceland/

I am very anti-porn, but I am actually encouraged by these statistics. On one hand, it's pretty depressing that so many people watch porn, but that's no surprise.
On the other hand, the numbers of people watching porn seem to be quite a lot lower than society would have us believe.

I am bloody fed up with being told that "literally everyone" watches porn, and that anyone who doesn't like it is a weirdo/prude/behind the times. What I take from these stats is that

1. the vast majority of women DON'T watch porn
2. Half of all men DON'T watch porn.
3. A quarter of younger men DON'T watch porn.

I'm fed up with being told its inevitable that my son will watch porn, when theres at least a 25% chance he won't. Or that my husband must be watching porn in secret, when there's a more than 50% chance he wont be.

When I was growing up, there was still some stigma around porn and most people wouldn't freely admit to watching it. But now, it's as if there's a stigma around NOT watching porn. And yet, despite growing up in a porn-saturated environment which actively pressurises boys into watching, a full quarter of young men are choosing not to. What we now need to do is find ways to give a voice to the half of men who don't watch porn, so that the other half of can stop feeling so bloody entitled

You do realise Pornhub isn't the only porn site? The question asked if they visited pornhub, even if they answered no they may well have still looked at other sites.

@MargaritaPie it’s the same with child abuse online - very difficult to police but there are penalties and it is illegal. If child abuse was not illegal online then we would be in a terrible society. At least if it was made illegal we’d be saying strongly ‘this isn’t OK’.

Sadly I don’t think we are as a society at the point where the majority do think that porn is not OK. So no I don’t think anyone is going to make online porn illegal anytime soon. I thought our society was moving to be more tolerant and more caring. Where victims of abuse can speak out. Where human rights and safety were important.

Unfortunately I agree with @sharksarecool in that we seem to have a complete blind spot with porn. It’s getting worse. I think that the ease of online access have normalized this. It did used to be the top shelf where someone’s cringy Dad would buy the magazine and then hide it under his mattress. Now it’s seen as completely fine and normal.

Also, I don’t know but it seems as if it needs to be said. It’s not about being open about sex, being open to experiment, being fun and loving sex. Porn is not just an extension of sex. It’s watching real people get fucked in a way that is never normal, and it’s often watching real people get harmed whilst pretending they are not. Porn is abuse. Sex does not have to be about abuse.

@CharlieParley

What I want to know is how do we make a change? Even on a micro level? How do I teach my DS what is healthy?

Great post by @CharlieParley

This is how it works in practice:
www.bbc.com/news/technology-55333403

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9185227/GirlsDoPorn-cameraman-pleads-guilty-lying-models-appeared-videos.html

www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51391981

Ok ok

I followed the link to the actual report which is the first linked on this page

www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/internet-and-on-demand-research/online-nation

The stats in the report are from a group I haven't followed via links and pornhubs own insights.

The question is always how do they know the sex/ age etc of the viewers? Was it a survey? What was the sample size?

Did they visit one, more? Half an hour a month or every day? Once in the year?

Was the visit intentional? Did they stay and browse or leave immediately?

I visited sites a lot one day in 2019 when I realised that all parental controls were off on the router despite the info saying on. A customer services person had got me to change a lot of stuff to speed it up and in the process had fucked the parental controls. During the call to fix it up I kept checking. Nope can still access homepage. Woman getting fucked up arse. Yep still. Yep still. Aha that's done it.

So... As always with stats. Look at the sources.

Could be accurate or not.
Who knows.

@Leanandmean31

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.

This, and yet if you ask parents of teens most would say their child hasn't. If the internet has no security features anyone can access it.

I think that 'banning it' is pretty much impossible surely. The internet is an international network of connected servers and data stores etc.

Cross country, out of any one jurisdiction. I used to use Napster ( on dial up fuck me that was a labour of love!) which was so called peer to peer. One computer saying helloooo down the phone line to another, ooh can I have this bit of data? Yes sure! Facilitated by a central point that all the computers logged into to search and share... which could be anyone anywhere with enough power to run it

Are mobile phones now all sold with adult stuff locked and you have to phone up? I don't think so. The freedom of speech people (!) said having to call was a violation of their human rights and children weren't their problem iirc

Pathetic

What I think IS a good and doable idea is for the main search engines to not return porn unless it's obvious from search terms that's what is being looked for.

Search engines go by hits etc and porn is very popular. So the results float to the top even when not expected.

I know this as I had a new phone, looking for pictures of hamsters for DD. Mistyped hamster, got xhamster. Algorithm thought. That's misspelt what are people usually looking for? This.

The issues around older children and the content and everything are really tricky.

The main search engines saying ok we won't present porn (the main porn sites by hits-the smaller ones will be way down the search anyway) unless it is definitely being searched. Key words. Easy.

So kids don't get hardcore (I think there was a pic with the search, I didn't follow the link obv! But was like woah shit when my hamster search bunged a pic of whatever it was on the screen when I'm surrounded by people!).

The arguments 'against' are usually. It's impossible. You want to ban all porn. Etc etc

There are I'm sure plenty of smaller ideas that could be implemented quite easily at least to stop it being presented in response to an innocuous search.

Yeah I was just looking at the stats nice
They seem to have said there are 26million unique visitors and that equates to half the adult population.
But I would've thought if someone used different devices that would mean they could appear "unique" e.g. a Samsung phone and an ipad. Or work phone/personal phone.
I'm quite sceptical tbh

I cross-posted with a lot of posters.

Would be interested to see how some pp "don't see the issue" with porn sites serving up videos of a 14 year old girl being raped or making formal business partnerships with a bunch of men wanted/on trial/pleading guilty for sex trafficking.