An Inside Look at Female Porn Habits: What Kind of Porn Do Women Watch?

The used panty marketplace

With the invention of internet connections that don’t disrupt your landline phone capabilities and burn your ears with that horrible screech-like dial tone came a plethora of internet porn. If you didn’t understand that reference, I might cry because how am I “that generation” already? 

Before internet porn, there were nudey magazines, your next-door neighbor who insisted on taking out the trash every Tuesday morning in a towel, and your imagination - that was it. 

If you weren’t lucky enough to have a hunky, half-naked neighbor boy, then you weren’t left with much to fantasize about. Especially considering those nudey magazines were heavily focused on pleasing their predominantly male demographic, leaving very little for the heterosexual female to explore.

The invention (and subsequent adventures) of internet porn over the last few decades has been incredible to watch. The more time goes on, the more accessible, appreciated and accepted porn becomes. 

2020 brings the dawn of a new decade, and in a time when you can find pretty much any kind of porn you’re searching for, it begs the question: what kind of porn do we like to watch? 

More specifically, in this post, let’s dive into female porn habits. 

What do women watch? What do women want? What do women find attractive? 

Lacey & Tracey discuss their personal porn preferences before diving into some surprising statistics about the type of porn women consume.

Let’s Talk About Porn Habits

While our interests in porn can vary from generic searches like “lesbian” to super-specific searches like “solo male jerk off instructions for females in French” (which I have obviously never searched for…) - don’t you ever wonder what the “average” porn consensus is for “what’s popular” right now? 

I’m going to blow your mind right now. 

Did you know that Pornhub, one of the largest porn platforms around, averages about 1000 searches PER SECOND? This is just ONE porn site, on the entire internet. 

So you can imagine, then, how many people are watching porn. 

And in turn, you can only guess at the kind of kinky things these people are searching for at any given moment...it certainly makes you think of your daily commute on the train a bit differently, doesn’t it? 

I am sure next time you see that hunky guy you refer to as “brown shoes, leather briefcase” on your daily commute to work, the question of what kind of naughty things he types into that search bar will spring into your mind. 

Don’t worry, you naughty little minx, being curious about other people’s porn habits is totally normal. 

At least here on Sofia Gray, it is. 

How Common Is It For Women to Watch Porn? 

Long story short: women watch way more porn than you think. 

For many people, porn goes hand in hand with “locker room talk” in the way of thinking that it’s predominantly men who consume, share and talk about their sexual endeavors...but with an upswing in modern mottos like “you do you”, and the acceptance of sexual freedom on the rise, more and more women are feeling comfortable sharing their porn experiences. 

In 2016, the average percentage of women who consumed porn (according to porn website statistics for that year) was 26% worldwide. Fast forward to 2018 and almost 3 out of every 10 Pornhub users are female. 

Popular magazine Marie Claire launched something called “The Porn Project” in 2015, with the goal of bringing female porn-viewing habits out of the dark. And the results...were kind of shocking. I mean, impressive...but pretty surprising.

According to The Porn Project, 3000+ women were asked about their porn-viewing habits and it got REAL. Almost a third of the women surveyed said they watch porn every week, with 10% of women admitting they watch porn at least once a day. 

You go, girls! 

What Kind of Porn Do Women Actually Watch? 

The question of “what women want” seems to have plagued people for years, and as a vagina-haver, I am just going to come out and say it: we aren’t all the same! We don’t all want the same things.

Women’s desires in the bedroom have perplexed many people for what seems like eons...but it’s really not that complicated...it just varies from woman to woman, which makes it seem complicated.

There isn’t one set “thing” that we all like. It’s not like there is some factory setting of being female which means you can turn us all on by showing us some hunky, shirtless mechanic changing a tire. 

While you could never pin down what “all women” like because people have vastly different tastes, let’s take a look at what terms have been commonly searched by women in porn search bars across the internet in the last decade. 

What women have searched for on porn sites in the past decade: 

  • Real celebrity sex tape
  • Man eating pussy
  • World’s biggest cock
  • Lesbians scissoring 
  • Teen
  • Japanese
  • Ebony
  • MILF
  • Babysitter

Are you surprised by any of these search terms or do you see something familiar up there?

If you’re not surprised, keep reading - because how often women search for these terms compared to how often men search for the same terms might surprise you! 

Some Things That May Surprise You...

In 2017, Pornhub celebrated its 10th birthday, and with it, they released a bunch of statistics on what kind of things were searched for on their site since the birth of what is now known as one of the biggest pornography platforms online. 

With keywords like “lesbian”, “MILF” and “anal” ranking high in the top 10 categories of all time on Pornhub, you might get the impression that male viewers are doing most of the searching. 

You may (or may not, depending on how kinky you are) find this interesting: did you know that “lesbian” was actually at the top of the women’s search history for the year 2015

Along with “threesome” and “squirt”, which also placed higher on the female’s “search list” than the male’s “search list”...it turns out women are doing a lot of the heavy searching on porn websites. 

Some more interesting facts on female vs male search terms...

Did you know that the word “babysitter” was searched more often by women in 2015 than by men in the same year? 

Or that “threesome” ranked in the top 6 on the female’s search list but didn’t even crack the top 10 on the male’s search list? 

Jumping ahead to 2017, “porn for women” ranked as one of the “searches that defined this year” on Pornhub. This was also the year that “gangbang” ranked higher on the women’s list than on the male’s list. 

Way to go, you naughty girls. 

To see some more interesting stats, just keep an eye out for Pornhub’s “Year in Review” articles, they release them every year and they are super interesting. 

Hot & Trending...What Kind of Porn Do Women Watch Today?

Now that we’ve talked a bit about what the last decade of women’s porn habits has been like - let’s discuss current events. And by “current events”, I mean what naughty things women have been typing into their search bars this last year. Because actual current events are kind of depressing so let’s bury ourselves in porn stats, shall we?

Entering into a new year, it’s normal for us to pause and reflect on what the last year has been like  - and porn websites do the exact same thing. 

While you’re captioning your Instagram shots with your New Year’s resolutions, sites like Pornhub are compiling their “Year in Review” statistics to give us a bit more insight into what has been popular in the last year. 

In 2019, women searched predominantly on Pornhub for the following keywords: 

  • Lesbian
  • Popular with women
  • Japanese
  • Threesome
  • Ebony 
  • Amateur

In 2019, women searched YouPorn for these terms: 

  • Lesbian
  • Hardcore
  • Threesome

There are some trends amongst these three porn sites that should be noted: women like to watch lesbians as much as men like to watch lesbians. No wait...they actually (in some years) have watched lesbian porn MORE OFTEN than the male demographic did. 

Because everyone loves lesbians. 

Another one that surprised me a little was the search for “threesome” content is also very popular amongst the female viewers across multiple platforms. 

More and More Women Are Watching Porn, Says Porn Stats Everywhere

2019 wasn’t just the year of lesbian threesomes and hardcore amateur porn, though. 2019 was a great year for female viewership in general, across many popular porn platforms.

YouPorn female viewership increased by 2% over the previous year, meaning 31% of the kinksters who frequent the platform are females. 

While the up-and-coming porn website XHamster didn’t break down the gender demographics, they did release the news that now 28% of their user base is female.  

Fashionable entrepreneur businesswoman checking emails and working online using laptop at home

An online publication called The Cut has recently released a super interesting “What We Learned About Sexual Desire” post based on Pornhub’s 10th anniversary. 

With 2007 being the year of the MILF and 2017 being the year of Hentai - there is a lot to be learned from looking at our porn habit trends over the last decade. 

The Importance of Porn Statistics & Being Open About Our Porn Habits

While I just find these stats amusing and interesting, there is actually a big benefit to big platforms like Youporn and Pornhub releasing their stats every year. Reviewing stats like these, having “the porn talk” and just being open about our porn habits are important, for a number of reasons. 

Let’s Just Be Honest 

Being honest about our sexual lives is something that has taken a huge leap forward in the past few years, specifically. 

With blogs that talk openly about kinks and fetishes (hey, there!) to podcasts that dive into what it means to have a healthy sex life to shows about sex-education that people can actually relate to...being honest about our sex lives (including our porn habits) can be such a great thing.

A New Normal 

The more common it is to talk about sex, porn, and our primal desires, the more “normal” it will become to have conversations about consent and safety during risky sexual activities. 

This “new normal” of talking about porn can do wonders for people who have been too nervous to speak about things they like, things they don’t like and the sexual experiences (both good and bad) that they’ve had. 

The More You Know…

Along with the normalcy of the consent conversation and more information being available on sexual health and happiness, we also can learn more about the things we’re into. No more than 5 years ago, searching for sex writers, sex blogs or blogs that gave you real information on how to have a healthy sex life would have yielded way fewer results than if you were to search for those things today.  

Talking about sex and porn is becoming more normalized and the more we talk about it, the more we know about the things that we like. 

Healthier Relationships

Porn can be a difficult topic to broach with that special someone, but it really shouldn’t be. 

We should not have this “we don’t talk about it” kind of rule when it comes to monogamous couples, but for some reason, it’s so common to just avoid the topic of porn with your partner. 

Being open and honest about your porn habits, what you like and the things you’re interested in trying can actually be a great bonding experience in your relationship. 

Not to mention, once you get the “porn talk” over with, you may even enjoy watching porn together and getting a bit creative with things. 

Smashing Stereotypes 

This weird kind of stereotype that says women don’t watch porn, women shouldn’t talk about sex, women shouldn’t be open about their sexuality...it’s so last decade. 

Being open about your porn consumption habits can help erase the stigma that has been there for decades around women and their sexuality. In the past decade, huge leaps forward have been made in the name of sexual awareness and acceptance and one of the biggest reasons is that people are being honest about what they like and what they want. 

The Rise of Audio Erotica

Remember The Porn Project launched by Marie Claire, that we talked about earlier? Well, the project uncovered some more interesting facts...specifically, facts about the rise (and demand) for audio porn. 

Now, if you have read any of the content I’ve created recently, you know I love audio porn

I think it’s innovative, it’s great to be able to use your imagination, I love being able to dive into a fantasy world to make masturbation more fun, and I think it’s a great alternative if visual porn comes off as “a bit too much” for you sometimes. 

I wasn’t at all surprised to learn I’m not alone in my enjoyment of audio erotica, though.
I mean, the 50 Shades of Grey audiobooks were so hot they practically burned out people’s iPods back when they were first released...so it’s natural to assume other kinds of audio erotica would be well-received. 

While the majority of women who participated in The Porn Project admitted to watching internet (visual) porn, nearly 40% of women said they used erotic stories (novels, podcasts, etc) and 6% said they frequently used audio porn. 

The Psychopathology of Women Watching Porn

Now, I want to preface this by saying that I’d be writing about this specific topic even if we were talking about men watching porn. 

For ages, it seems like people (specifically women, people on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, etc) have been put under a microscope and analyzed for their sexual preferences. While I don’t condone paying more attention to any one group of people over another, I do admit there is merit to doing a bit of digging when it comes to why we like what we like. 

So let’s talk about the psychology of women watching porn. 

According to Psychology Today, women’s perceptions of the performers’ enjoyment of sex during porn had implications for their own enjoyment and arousal during masturbation. For example: if a woman watched a sex scene that was very obviously fake and sensed that the actors themselves weren’t having a good time, she would be less likely to feel pleasure and sexual enjoyment herself. 

As a woman who watches porn, I can totally agree with this statement. 

In fact, this may be one of the reasons women enjoy searching for “amateur porn” or “threesomes” or “lesbian porn” - because these genres are more well-known for their authenticity. 

In the same Psychology Today article, they talk about the internalization of porn by women. 

This isn’t a new topic, but it is something I’d like to touch on here because internalizing porn is totally normal and may even lead you to feel some pretty surprising emotions.

As recently as a few years ago, I was that spouse who would be a bit offended (for lack of a better word) to find porn on my partner’s laptop. “Was I not enough?” is a thought that immediately popped into my head...until I started becoming a more avid porn-watcher, myself. 

Before, I would look at these women and think about their perfect non-saggy, totally symmetrical breasts, and their toned tummies and think: why can’t I be like that?

When I started watching porn for my own enjoyment, I started to look at these other women and think: yeah that’s fine and all, but it’s make-believe. It’s reality TV at best, and my partner and I have is real life. Plus, this is super hot (so why should I judge him for watching it?!)

How women internalize porn can be extremely different based on each woman’s sexual experiences, preferences, and desires. Whether you are someone who watches porn and feels pangs of jealousy and annoyance, or someone who watches porn and feels like you’re watching one hilarious episode of raunchy TV - how we feel about porn can give us insight into how we feel about ourselves. 

Without getting too deep, ladies - sometimes it’s important to think about how we view ourselves in relation to the sexualized images we see in the media and remind ourselves that we are all beautiful, and we are all enough. 

Conclusion 

Our knowledge and understanding of our own sexual activity, health, and sexual desires are becoming less and less taboo as time moves forward. With this positive evolution of porn, we are noticing more and more women joining the ranks in terms of top-tier porn consumers. 

And yet, for some reason, society is still lagging a little behind on this, it seems. I mean, when have you ever seen (in mainstream media) a scene where a woman is watching porn while masturbating, deleting her browser history or trying to find DIY solutions to get herself off? 

Immediately, you’re likely thinking of the opening scene of American Pie (which is still so cringe-worthy that it’s funny and I stand by it), or basically any other scene on TV where a guy is watching porn. 

Why is there never a woman watching porn? Even when women are shown expressing their sexuality in the media, it’s almost always for the benefit of the male character - a perfect example being that “this one time, at band camp” confessional scene in the same movie. 

It’s time for society to accept this one simple fact: women like porn.

Porn is no longer this “guy thing” that women get upset over or have no interest in. That idea is archaic and needs to be put to rest. 

So ladies...on behalf of women everywhere: go out and watch porn - and don’t be afraid to talk about it!