Guardian: PornHub Porn trends in the UK
January 13, 2014 5:28 AM   Subscribe

Pornhub, one of the world's biggest porn sites, has shared its data with us, revealing how online habits - and sexual preferences – are changing across the country
posted by marienbad (57 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite


 
This smells like a very neat piece of PR: presumably the intention is to fight back against the campaign by elements on the right to censor the net by feeding articles to the press which demonstrate the universality of porn in the UK. I wonder which of the tabloids have run this story?
posted by pharm at 5:35 AM on January 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


presumably the intention is to fight back against the campaign by elements on the right to censor the net by feeding articles to the press which demonstrate the universality of porn in the UK.

That, or, a more subtle reminder to lawmakers that "It sure would be a shame if these IP addresses we've logged ever got out to the tabloids, wouldn't you agree?"
posted by Thorzdad at 5:43 AM on January 13, 2014 [14 favorites]


As an article its not really that informative is it? Also, as there's no breakdown of gender who are "Britons" exactly? How has who accesses it changed? Is it saying something more than "people look at porn" but I'm missing it?
posted by billiebee at 5:45 AM on January 13, 2014


Thorzdad: See, I'm just too trusting: I hadn't thought of that particular angle! Of course that's the whole point of this kind of carefully planted PR: the real message is deniable but will be transperently evident to the intended recipient.

billiebee: It's got just enough to hook the press - everyone likes to compare their locality to the neighbouring ones (or even better, to that pesky other group just far enough away to be different but close enough to be worth the comparison) regardless of the topic after all.
posted by pharm at 5:49 AM on January 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Lisa Ann!
posted by KokuRyu at 5:56 AM on January 13, 2014 [4 favorites]


They don't know most visitors' genders, just IP addresses, and my dirty friend told me that based on the location-based popups they serve, the geolocation from that is pretty coarse.

Witney, Oxon., pop. 22,765, had 29,623 visits averaging 9:23 each. According to my calculations, this means David Cameron spent exactly 12:06 viewing PornHub last year. The degenerate.
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 6:07 AM on January 13, 2014 [6 favorites]


I've actually had the pleasure to meet Lisa Ann, she's a remarkably frank and very, very professional lady. Like, most porn starlets I've met, even the ones who have been in the game a while, tend to have a playful element to them when dealing with other folks from the periphery of the industry. She's just like, let's get down to business, no bullshit.

I am not at all surprised to find that the top search term for each country is its own nationality. It reflects I think on the way that people really do just want to watch someone like themselves. Data like this makes the argument that porn homogenizes sexual desire seem a bit silly. Porn reflects desire, it doesn't create it.
posted by Jilder at 6:09 AM on January 13, 2014 [9 favorites]


Also, as there's no breakdown of gender who are "Britons" exactly?

We all are! We are all Britons, and I am your king!

Seriously though, I don't think PornHub or any of the other major "tube" sites actually track user gender, so it's hard to get a handle on who's watching what beyond just what can be gleaned from browser cookies and whatnot.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:10 AM on January 13, 2014 [5 favorites]


Nice splatter plots.
posted by swift at 6:14 AM on January 13, 2014 [12 favorites]


Hah! So apparently in Britain we even like our porn to be satirical?
posted by lucidium at 6:14 AM on January 13, 2014


It is of sociological interest that one of the top three French search words is "beurette".
posted by chavenet at 6:14 AM on January 13, 2014 [10 favorites]


They would have TLD's though. I bet the Mail would love to see the numbers for .gov.uk....
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 6:17 AM on January 13, 2014


It reflects I think on the way that people really do just want to watch someone like themselves.

Well, more like someone just like me except who is a MILF getting anally creampied in a teenaged interracial threeway -- there's maybe a desire for an initial similarity, but things tend to diverge after that. I actually wish they had listed the top five or eight search terms, so as to get past the obvious national ones (like British or Mexicana) and into the differences in desires.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:19 AM on January 13, 2014 [3 favorites]


I've noticed that the standard IP geolocation services can be pretty shoddy. My IP address is usually assigned to either Milton Keynes or Manchester, neither of which are anywhere near home. I wouldn't trust this dataset all that much without some serious (ahem) cleaning.
posted by pharm at 6:24 AM on January 13, 2014


And here I expected Germany to have 'David Hasselhoff' ranked high.
posted by delfin at 6:24 AM on January 13, 2014


Seriously though, I don't think PornHub or any of the other major "tube" sites actually track user gender

The most popular streaming porn site xhamster does, but only if you sign up for an account. They also have a "Female Choice" category that I think is based on what videos are most popular for female users although I'm not sure how that works exactly.
posted by Sexy, Sexy Anonymity at 6:27 AM on January 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm thrilled if they can disrupt the U.K. censorship programs, which routinely target the activist press (and some loonies). I'd also love it if the porn industry bought advertising space in main stream media talking about how it's okay to enjoy porn. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 6:27 AM on January 13, 2014


The most popular streaming porn site xhamster does, but only if you sign up for an account. They also have a "Female Choice" category that I think is based on what videos are most popular for female users although I'm not sure how that works exactly.
posted by Sexy, Sexy Anonymity at 9:27 AM on January 13 [+] [!]


E-porn-ysterical.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:31 AM on January 13, 2014 [4 favorites]


" I bet the Mail would love to see the numbers for .gov.uk...."
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show

I bet they already have them.
posted by marienbad at 6:36 AM on January 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


KokuRyu: "Lisa Ann!"

"The American pornographic actress Lisa Ann is the top search term in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales."

Until this moment, I've never heard of her. Interesting that she's popular in both the UK and Mexico. Those seem like very different demographics.

*googles*

Wikipedia: She played the lead in "Who's Nailin' Palin?"

o.O
posted by zarq at 6:50 AM on January 13, 2014 [3 favorites]


And the Pornhub team had an AMA a few days ago
posted by bdz at 6:52 AM on January 13, 2014


Wankers.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:52 AM on January 13, 2014 [4 favorites]


There was a previous FPP about popular tags for porn. Lisa Ann was all over the place there too. Still makes no sense.
posted by squinty at 6:53 AM on January 13, 2014


Metafilter: The real message is deniable but will be transperently evident to the intended recipient.
posted by stinkfoot at 6:56 AM on January 13, 2014


Lisa Ann was all over the place there too. Still makes no sense.

Thanks to "Who's Nailin' Paylin?", she's more or less the face of MILF porn, which is a huge segment of porn these days.
posted by Etrigan at 7:06 AM on January 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Re Lisa Ann - probably not the Sarah Palin lookalike thing.
posted by rongorongo at 7:06 AM on January 13, 2014


Wikipedia: She played the lead in "Who's Nailin' Palin?"

o.O


Lisa Ann also played Liz Lemon in the 30 Rock porn parody, so now everything has turned into some kind of weird comedy-politics-porn Ouroboros, forever eating its own tail. In a manner of speaking.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:07 AM on January 13, 2014 [12 favorites]


Regarding the strange three-way overlap (everything sounds dirty when you're talking about porn!) of Sarah Palin, Lisa Ann and Tina Fey, Fey has gone on record saying that out of the three of them, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:16 AM on January 13, 2014 [46 favorites]


I'll let you all know why Lisa Ann is so popular: she's really really attractive.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:34 AM on January 13, 2014 [5 favorites]


some kind of weird comedy-politics-porn Ouroboros, forever eating its own tail

It's sort of a closed-loop human centipede.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:42 AM on January 13, 2014


Ah!

Faint of Butt: "Fey has gone on record saying that out of the three of them, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy."

Hilarious. And no doubt true. :)
posted by zarq at 7:53 AM on January 13, 2014


I'd like to propose a new corollary to Godwin's law, concerning the invocation of human centipedes in forum discussions.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:57 AM on January 13, 2014 [3 favorites]


Faint of Butt, I had to immediately google that quote, and now the first day of my final semester is a little bit brighter.
posted by X-Himy at 8:02 AM on January 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Wankers.

Tossers.

Faint of Butt, I just snorted soda all over my keyboard, thank you!

Interesting that teen is such a popular one. I would say my opinion about how prudish Americans are, but it's probably not a good idea.
posted by Melismata at 8:10 AM on January 13, 2014


We are all Britons, and I am your king!

I want to do a watery tart joke here, but it just seems to easy for this thread.
posted by nubs at 8:12 AM on January 13, 2014 [4 favorites]


If anyone would like to see the top ten for each country, it's here, NSFW obviously.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 8:30 AM on January 13, 2014


This Guardian article is garbage with no useful insights other than Lisa Ann. The big revelations are that a lot of people in London look at porn, Japanese people like to search for Japanese porn, and a hint that it takes men in Ware longer to get off than the rest of England. Awesome. Too bad, because the data should be fascinating.

PornHub has a whole data insights project. The Guardian article is presumably inspired by PornHub's 2013 year in review, which is similarly banal but at least has interesting data on mobile vs. desktop. (And a tag cloud! Adorable.)

For a different take, see PornMD's search trend tool. Their top 10 terms for the UK are british • indian • milf • teen • lesbian • mature • pov • lisa ann • amateur • massage.
posted by Nelson at 8:31 AM on January 13, 2014


I was wondering how to get at data for other countries. And of course, I'm at work so this will have to wait until later...

What do we call this? Big data doesn't seem enough...BigHardData? Dataporn? Porndataporn?
posted by nubs at 8:37 AM on January 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


BBD (big beautiful data, of course).
posted by codacorolla at 9:40 AM on January 13, 2014 [5 favorites]


See, I'm just too trusting: I hadn't thought of that particular angle!

Read that as "thrusting" but, c'mon, can you blame me?
posted by Cyrano at 10:11 AM on January 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


nubs: "What do we call this?"

Hard-Ware
posted by chavenet at 10:11 AM on January 13, 2014


I don't know wbout Pornhub, but other sites don't track gender so much as ask ("I am a man/woman looking for men/women/both) so they can filter results according to preference.

Lisa Ann, huh.

*googlegooglegoogle*


*shrugs* the pants want what they want, I suppose.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:21 AM on January 13, 2014


Hard-Ware

Hard Data, surely.
posted by nubs at 10:44 AM on January 13, 2014


Is Indian:British::Beurette:French? Like that's the local version of exotic, a POC with an accent you recognise?
Now I'm curious who non-colonial european countries fetishise as the other.
posted by fido~depravo at 11:43 AM on January 13, 2014


Wikipedia: Arabs in France: "French people of Arab origin (predominantly from Maghreb but also some from Mashreq areas of the Arab world) in France forms the second largest ethnic group after French people of European origin."
posted by zarq at 11:51 AM on January 13, 2014


Pretty sure British-Indian people are just as capable as looking a porn as anyone else.
posted by Artw at 12:08 PM on January 13, 2014


Now I'm curious who non-colonial european countries fetishise as the other.

I'm curious about these exotic non-colonialist europeans you speak of!!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:20 PM on January 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well, they've got the porn preferences, but what about the pressure points?
posted by maudlin at 12:35 PM on January 13, 2014


I am not at all surprised to find that the top search term for each country is its own nationality. It reflects I think on the way that people really do just want to watch someone like themselves

I doubt many people watch porn for the dialogue but it's not hard to imagine why people would want to view videos in their own language.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:51 PM on January 13, 2014


There is talking in porn? I thinking moaning is a universal language
posted by I am the Walrus at 12:59 PM on January 13, 2014


For a different take, see PornMD's search trend tool.

The results for Ireland are kind of weird compared to the others I clicked on. German femdom, Drunk and Cap D'Agde are in the top ten.
posted by jamesonandwater at 1:29 PM on January 13, 2014


The main search terms in Canada were peace, order, and good government.
posted by anothermug at 3:27 PM on January 13, 2014 [11 favorites]


There is talking in porn? I thinking moaning is a universal language

Here is the brief version of the story of an eastern european friend of mine, a delightful young lady whose otherwise quite proper english had some interesting additions. I eventually discovered that she'd learned her vernacular english from two primary sources: the first was the simpsons, which I am sure is a common enough source worldwide; the second was from her job as a female voiceover actress for US porn being dubbed for the czech market.
posted by elizardbits at 5:02 PM on January 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


PornHub has a whole data insights project. The Guardian article is presumably inspired by PornHub's 2013 year in review, which is similarly banal but at least has interesting data on mobile vs. desktop. (And a tag cloud! Adorable.)

For a different take, see PornMD's search trend tool.


Now that I'm at home and can have a look at these sites, I am disappointed in their crudeness; I was hoping for some ability to dig in deeper and get down and dirty with the data. I like being able to get my hands on some variables and manipulate them, see what happens.
posted by nubs at 6:18 PM on January 13, 2014 [3 favorites]


So, the second most popular video is from 2011 (or before) of a young lass (apparently 22 at the time, but she looked 15) who quit in 2011.

Curious.
I have no idea what it means. Seems kinda creepy.
posted by Mezentian at 4:18 AM on January 14, 2014


the second was from her job as a female voiceover actress for US porn being dubbed for the czech market.

Something seems to be backwards about this sentence, or at least very inefficient. The US is busy importing eastern european porn stars to make porn that then has to be translated, dubbed, and reissued for the eastern european market? Globalization sure is complicated.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:21 AM on January 14, 2014


10 Regiment: They do both. Why not make a cheap dub of your porno and sell it to a whole new market?
posted by Jilder at 9:48 PM on January 15, 2014


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