Pornhub 2019 Year in Review: Our Desire is as Diverse as We Are

These porn statistics reveal we want variety, not just conventional beauty standards.

What kind of online porn do you watch? What do you think your friends watch?

Pornhub, the world’s biggest porn site, just released their 2019 Year in Review, sharing statistics on the over 100 billion video views on their site this year, plus the search terms we use to find what turns us on.

If you were one (or more) of Pornhub’s 42 billion visits this year, you added to this massive pile of data.

What do you expect the top search terms were? The most watched videos?

Growing up in American society, with conventional Western beauty standards shoved down my throat since childhood, I assumed the top search terms would be “barely legal,” “teen,” and “blonde.”

I’m happy to report, our porn data reveals our desire is as diverse as we are.

Take a look at the top search terms this year in the United States.

“Teen” is nowhere to be seen, but the decidedly adult terms “step mom” and “milf” are both in the top 10. So are “ebony,” “asian,” and “latino,” but not “blonde.”

Nothing against blondes, but most media has long celebrated that particular type of beauty in a way that assumes a universal attraction to it. I grew up comparing myself to that beauty standard, believing I would never be beautiful because of my brown curly hair.

The truth is, Americans are attracted to people of all different races and body types — BBW stands for Big Beautiful Women — and the US’s Top Relative Categories reflect that.

Worldwide, these trends continue.

On the left are the top 25 search terms of 2019, words people actually typed into Pornhub’s search bar. On the right are the top 20 most viewed categories — out of over 100 — which people can access without typing their own search terms.

GILF (Mature) and MILF are both in the top 10 categories, but Teen is nowhere on that list.

I know it’s porn, and so much of it is problematic in so many ways, but there’s a lot to get excited about on these lists. (Well, I guess that’s the whole point.) What I mean is, there’s a cultural problem where people are afraid there’s something wrong with them for being attracted to people outside of conventional beauty standards.

In an essay for the Guardian, Lindy West wrote about this problem: “I’ve dated men who relished me in private but refused to be seen with me on the street, or who told me, explicitly, that we had no serious future because they were afraid their friends would laugh at them.”

People who don’t fit cultural ideas of beauty are often treated as consolation prizes, or dirty secrets. When we talk about this data, when we make these private desires public, we hopefully can change that status quo.

Yes, diversity in porn doesn’t necessarily lead to equity in life. Lust and respect definitely don’t always go hand-in-hand.

But this worldwide map shows us some of the most-viewed ethnic categories are a result not of fetishizing other races and cultures, but of viewers wanting to watch people who look like themselves having sex.

Arabs are seeking out “Arab” porn. Japanese beauty standards dominate most of Asia, but Indians are viewing “Indian” porn.

“Ebony” is the most watched Pornhub category in most of Africa. So perhaps we’ve come a long way from the 1947 doll tests, made famous by the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation trial, where most Black children wanted to play with white baby dolls instead of dolls that looked like them.

Likewise, when we look at the terms people in different US states are more likely to search for, we can see regional, ethnic and racial trends. From Pornhub’s Women of the World focus, this US map shows us specific desires are connected to the diversity we do or do not see.

(Also, I hope you enjoy knowing women in Idaho are 61% more likely to search for “my little pony” on Pornhub.)

Pornhub named “amateur” as the #1 search term that defined 2019. Porn-viewers want reality in their fantasy.

Fashion magazines, Hollywood movies, stock photos, and Google image searches are slow to model reality, to acknowledge attractiveness is not the sole domain of young, thin, white women. The privacy of our internet porn searches allow us honesty in admitting what turns us on.

Whether we’re talking Mature, Lesbian, Big and Beautiful, or Ebony, isn’t it exciting to admit our desire is as diverse as we are?