Online porn still outperforms most major streaming services that we’re familiar with— and that might not be such a bad thing.
Romeo & Juliet, Ken & Barbie, but really, is there a more long-lasting, time-tested, loving relationship in history than that of the internet & porn? The space was basically tailor-made to deliver high quality, easily accessible, and lightning fast adult erotica, straight to your desktop (or tablet, or phone). While our penchant for viewing online porn has changed over time, it definitely hasn’t dampened our spirits. We’ve reached a point in time where pretty much everyone watches porn at some point in their lives, with the vast majority of it being online. Even when we have the likes of Netflix and other major movie streaming services at our fingertips.
Maybe that’s because there are even more porn categories than streaming services themselves. Which makes sense as pornography just happens to be one of the most multifaceted, fractal genre forms of artistic expression we know of. Hang in there, we’ll explain. See— porn literally caters to everyone. With roughly zero judgement, so even if you’re into some pretty far out fantasies, like baby play, feeding, or even vampires… there is definitely online porn that will give you what you seek. Other types of fantasies, like the ones we look towards movies and televisions shows to fulfill, are quite a bit harder to perfectly exemplify, because even with the most complicated of fantasies, it’s still just people having sex. Creative sex maybe, but sex all the same. So it only makes sense that as a whole, we’d be watching a whole lot more porn than movies.
Comparing It to Modern Giants
While it’s a bit difficult to compare porn to say Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, or Prime Video— porn streaming time still dominates that of the time we spend with our favorite movies and TV shows. Regardless of the fact, we spend, on average, only a short period of time with any given stream. In fact, porn purveyors have seen over six times the bandwidth use of streaming services like Hulu and 30% of all data transferred across the internet is devoted to porn and erotica.
Okay, so a ton of the internet is for porn— we know that— but what about the hours we spend on end, binging our favorite series on the big-name streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and Disney? Chances are, we spend more time with the shows we love than we do with our favorite porn stars. As one psychologist puts it, most people treat porn more like “a coffee break”. Using it instead as some dark rabbit hole into a fetid Wonderland where they’ll spend hours, most people only spend an average of about 12 minutes on any given porn site. Usually just long enough to get a little reprieve from the world around us.
So Much Porn, So Little Time
Which is a pretty great way to relieve stress. Masturbation has proven to be a pretty formidable health habit: lowering blood pressure, increasing bonding behaviors (through an increase in oxytocin), even helping to stave off certain cancers. More than these effective (and thoroughly enjoyable) physiological benefits, there are also some pretty great emotional benefits as well. This is because each time we perform a little self-love, our brains release a slew of beneficial neurotransmitters that can help boost our moods and even fight pain.
Oxytocin, Serotonin, Dopamine, Endorphins, and Prolactin are just a few of the delightful brain cocktails that begin sloshing around after a solo romp in the sheets. While each of these chemicals has a number of jobs around the brain and body, each of them are associated with mood and stress regulation. Helping to curb depression, anxiety, and mitigate our stress responses. So it’s no wonder that people are visiting porn sites now more than ever— because sometimes we could all use a little pick me up.
