Wacky Porn Statistics

A lot of people reading this article are probably wondering: Is my porn use abnormal or excessive? Below we present some basic facts about pornography that may help to put your own usage into perspective. That said, the question you should probably be asking isn’t about abnormal or excessive use, it’s about negative consequences related to that use. If your porn use is causing negative consequences in our life, and you continue to use porn despite those negative consequences and a desire to stop, then your porn use is addictive and needs to be addressed.

• 40 million Americans are regular visitors to porn sites.
• 12 percent of all websites are pornographic.
• 25 percent of all search engine requests are pornography related. (That’s about 68 million requests per day.)
• 35 percent of all Internet downloads are pornographic.
• The largest consumer group of Internet porn is men aged 35 to 49.
• The average age of first exposure to Internet porn is 11.
• Kids, especially boys, are being exposed to pornography at much younger ages. One study found that 93 percent of boys and 62 percent of girls were exposed to online pornography during adolescence. Boys were more likely to be exposed at an earlier age, to see more images, to see more extreme images (e.g., rape, child pornography), and to view pornography more often, while girls reported more involuntary exposure.
• 70 percent of men aged 18 to 24 visit a porn site at least once per month.
• One-third of all Internet porn users are women. This is up from 14 percent in 2003.
• Sales figures for Fifty Shades of Grey (the mother of all “Mommy Porn” books) have topped 20 million in the US alone!
• Multiple studies report that one potential consequence of frequent porn use is reduced or even nonexistent interest in sexual, physical, and emotional connections with real-world sexual partners. Oftentimes this disinterest manifests physically as sexual dysfunction.
• Women whose romantic partners look at pornography frequently (in the woman’s estimation) are less happy in their relationships than women partnered with men who infrequently use porn or don’t use it all (to the woman’s knowledge). Research results clearly indicate that as a boyfriend’s or husband’s porn use increases, a woman’s self-esteem and relationship happiness decreases. The most common complaint by women whose partners use porn is that they feel as if they can’t measure up to the images online.
• In a survey of 68 leading sex and relationship experts, 86 percent said they believe porn has had a negative effect on relationships. 94 percent said they have seen an increase in incidents of porn addiction. 63 percent believe porn use changes men’s expectations of what sex with a real-world partner should be like. 85 percent said they feel porn has had a negative effect on women’s confidence, with 67 percent saying women feel pressure to behave like porn stars in the bedroom.

If you are worried about your porn use, but still not sure it’s a problem, you may want to take our anonymous sex addiction self-test. Though porn addiction is most often a symptom of underlying emotional and/or psychological issues that will eventually need to be addressed in a therapeutic setting, the underlying behavioral issue (abuse of pornography) should be dealt with first. Usually the best route to recovery is counseling with a trained and licensed sexual addiction treatment therapist, coupled with or followed by group therapy and a 12-step recovery program. For many porn addicts, inpatient residential treatment or an Two-Week Intensive Program are needed to jump-start the process. It is important to remember that even though getting help for porn addiction (or any other form of sexual addiction) can feel shameful and embarrassing, the consequences of continuing the behavior are ultimately far worse.