The Golden Age of Pornhub

The Pornhub statisticians are getting down with demographics once more, today focusing specifically on age. The data we’re about to present is truly some of the most fascinating we’ve amassed to date and sheds new light on notions of age and sexuality. As a special collaboration with our friends over at Vocativ, we’re coming at you today with the data to prove that age ain’t nothing but a number.

HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU FIRST…

Let’s begin with a broad overview of what Pornhub’s viewership looks like, by age group. For the purposes of this post, we have divided our data into 6 age groups, specifically 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and 65+ and are making use of  anonymized demographics data provided by our analytics software. In other words, none of the data presented here derives from Pornhub user accounts. We have found that 35.3 years old is the average age of a Pornhub user whereas the worldwide median age is currently 29.7. Among our male users, the average age is 36, while our average female viewer is 34 years old. In terms of sheer numbers, the 18-24 age group is the most populated of the 6 at just over 30%, with the percentages gradually shrinking as the categories increase with age. This same trend continues when examining these same proportions but in regards to gender, though what really stands out here is the 18-24 group once again. For both males and females, this youngest of the divisions is the most populated but there is a significant 5% more women in this grouping.

Here we expand more on the average age of our viewer, by taking a look at how this figure varies across some of the countries that visit Pornhub the most. There is a solid 10 year range here, with Japan at one extreme at 41.1 years being the age of their average viewer, and India at the other with 30.3 years proving to be the age of their average viewer. Aside from Japan, it appears that the majority of our older viewers on this spectrum are located in central Europe, and the younger mostly in south Asia.

Here we have a breakdown of these same countries in terms of what their Pornhub viewing population looks like when broken down into our 6 main age groups. Again, we can see that south Asian countries like India, Vietnam and the Philippines all have considerable proportions of their respective viewership in the 18-24 range while Japan and a slew of central European countries like the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Belgium all  have decent representation in the 65+ group. The proportions of these groupings make sense when compared to the demographies of these countries. For instance, over 50% of India’s population is under the age of 25, while in Japan over 25% of the population is age 65 and older.

As a starting point, these numbers give us a general idea of how age proportions breakdown on a global scale. In the heat map below, however, we’re able to see what the age of the average Pornhub viewer looks like country by country. The way that these proportions change within each nation is fascinating, but we’ve noticed a few that really stood out. Once again, in certain south Asian countries like Bangladesh and India,  upwards of 50% of Pornhub viewers fall into the 18-24 category while in Eastern Europe, countries like Russia, Slovakia and Lithuania have over 40% of their viewership in the 25-34 range.

Our attention was really drawn back over to Asia in regards to their proportions of 65+ users. Countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Burma all have over 10% of their viewership proportions in this group. As the country with the highest life expectancy in the world, Japan really stands out here, with a solid 9% of their viewership belonging to the most senior of the groups. Eat your seaweed y’all!

Over in the US, it appears that older viewers are found within the country’s 4 corners. Older aged viewers are found in greater amounts around the perimeter, with younger viewers located more centrally.

These heat maps help illustrate this more concretely. As we can see in the heat map below, the highest concentration of older Pornhub viewers are located within New England. Specifically, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are home to some of our more senior American viewers, with other sizable pockets located in Hawaii, Florida, Arizona, Oregon and Montana.

LIFELONG DESIRES

Here we are going to hone in on what it is exactly that people of varying ages search for on the best site in the world. The 18-24 group is devoid of any group sex type searches but is heavy on the mom and step relative type terms like ‘step mom’, ‘milf’, ‘mom’ and ‘stepsister’. Our young adults have seemingly graduated to a more mature type of Saturday morning cartoon as ‘cartoon’ and ‘hentai’ also feature in the group’s top 10. ‘Massage’ doesn’t make an appearance as a top term among our youngest users but starts in at number 6 in both the 25-34 and 35-44 groups then moves up in popularity as ages increase, coinciding with increased likeliness of joint-related aches and pains. The reverse can be said about ‘squirt’ in that it is a popular search for the 18-24 and 25-34 crowds but doesn’t rank in the age groups beyond, signaling that watersports aren’t terribly popular among older crowds.

‘Smoking’ is only really of interest to the middle aged crowd and ‘granny’ is only really searched for those who have either entered or are approaching retirement age. Some interesting trends can also be observed when looking at the top viewed categories for each age group. The ‘Teen’ category dominates the top spot across the board until the 65+ group, where ‘Mature’ takes over, indicating that as people age, they are more and more interested in content that is more representative of who they are. This is further reinforced by the fact that the ‘Mature’ category doesn’t appear until we look to the 45-54 group, where it then climbs in popularity until it hits #1 with the 65+ group. The ‘MILF’ category is also more popular in the 35-65+ crowd, versus the 34-18 bunch.

Another interesting way at looking at how these search preferences vary by age is by looking at which age groups are more likely to search for certain terms in regards to others. For this next chart, we’ve clustered the 6 age groups into 3 in order to be able to observe more sweeping trends. For starters, it’s clear that the 18-34 aged users are more porn star oriented than their older counterparts, as 60% of the list here is comprised of prominent industry names. This same age group is also more likely to be using social media technologies such as Twitter and Instagram, which several of these porn stars use to engage with and build their fan bases.

Over in the middle aged group, porn stars wane a little in popularity but those that do make the cut are definitely indicative of their age group. Leading ladies of yesteryear,  Traci Lords and Jenna Jameson are 822% and 29% more likely to be searched for by the 35-54 group than the other 2, respectively. Perhaps suffering from some considerable 7+ year itch, the middle aged group are also seemingly very interested in content featuring wives and various ‘spicing up the marriage’ type scenarios. In other words, there is a strong interest here in watching other people’s wives get to work. Our 55+ group is all about embracing old age. Searches like ‘very very old granny,’ ‘soft,’ ‘hairy pussy,’ and ‘hairy’ showing significantly more popularity here again indicates that older people are more drawn to visual representations of bodies that are more like their own, perhaps now less than traditionally ‘perfect’ bodies. The following chart illustrates this same trend in another way.

When we isolated these same age groups and focused specifically on how they search for ‘teen’ themed content versus ‘MILF’ type material, it’s clear that as the older people get, the more they search for porn featuring older talent. This is observed especially in the United States, which, as we learned in our 2014 Year In Review is where the most significant portion of Pornhub traffic comes from. Though when observed on a global scale the trend isn’t as definitive, it is clear that ‘MILF’ is vastly more searched for than ‘teen’ and the popularity of the latter does increase slightly with each age group.

SWEET LONGEVITY

With age and experience comes enviable lasting power. While none of the age groups here can really accurately be accused of being one minute (wo)men, it’s nonetheless clear that the older one gets, the longer they last. The 18-34 crowd finish up on Pornhub a little prematurely in regards to the international 9:16 average time on site. 35 appears to be the tipping point in that this is where visit duration begins to extend beyond 9:16, then hitting the 10 minute mark with the 45+ crowd. Perhaps retirement affords more time to spend doing the things you enjoy or older age requires a little more time to to get the engine going, we can’t say for sure. However you choose to spin it though, older people just have what it takes to make the good times last.

 

Lastly, we have a basic breakdown of how each age group accesses Pornhub in terms of device. At a glance, it’s clear that the younger the Pornhub user, the more likely they are to be using a smartphone to access the site. The reverse is true about desktop, in that the older one is, the more likely they are to be logging on from a computer. This could easily be dismissed as a generational difference in terms of technological abilities, but tablet use throws a sizable wrench into that theory. As seen in the chart below, older Pornhub users are using their tablets more and more, which aligns with a trend observed in a recent study carried out by the Guardian. Essentially, tablet use is hugely on the rise among the elderly due to the fact that more older people are getting online to begin with. Perhaps the ease of use combined with comfortable size are what make tablets and attractive choice for older Pornhub users.

And with that we’ll retire until next time. We’ve got tons more of these demographic-themed posts on the way so be sure to check back regularly for more fresh porn stats! What did you think of the information presented in this post? Drop us a line in the comments section below, we want to hear from you!