In February I met Dr Clarissa Smith who told me about the massive research project into porn that she was undertaking with collegues Feona Attwood and Martin Barker. Not long after they put out the call for porn users to participate in their survey which aimed to look at porn use in a non-judgemental way.
They received 5,490 responses to their questionaire and a heap of extended emails. They’re currently working their way through a mountain of information (over 1.2 million words) and expect it will take some time to reach any extensive conclusions. Nonetheless, they’ve put out a preliminary report of the survey, with some useful statistics and information.
Naturally I was interested in their demographic data, particularly when it came to women. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey threw up the same “one third” figure that repeatedly appears in statistics about porn. In this case, 31.6% of respondents were female, a figure that is pretty similar to the Nielsen Netratings’ 2003 report which is regularly quoted in the media (and on this blog). What’s really interesting is how much age is a factor in porn use for women:
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As you can see, women aged 18-25 are far more likely to use porn than their older counterparts.
The authors make this interesting point:
What we can’t tell,from this snapshot, is whether this is simply a ‘passing phase’ for them, or whether it signals that wider generational shift we think we have identified – something which over time will reduce the overall differences between male and female interest in pornography.
It’s only an opinion (and largely anecdotal) but I think they’re on the right track. From what I’ve seen online, today’s young women have no problem with porn and a lot of them embrace it just as easily as their male friends. Previously there’s been a cultural difference in how women were brought up – there was no entrenched culture of sharing porn among the women of twenty or even ten years ago. Now, with the ubiquity of online porn, the male-female divide has weakened.
Of course, the majority of porn is still aimed at men and I think that partly accounts for the disparity in usage rates between men and women.
The report goes on to say that men attach more importance to porn and use it more frequently. When it comes to why people use porn, simple sexual gratification was the most popular reason. A user feels horny, they satisfy the urge with porn. Interestingly, they also found that a lot more women used porn to induce arousal than men.
Among the other results: DVDs are on the way out, tube sites are hugely popular and pop-up ads don’t convince people to look at porn. Also, amateur porn sites are far more popular than a lot of upmarket studio-produced porn sites.
I can’t wait to see the extended results. It will be incredibly useful to have this kind of research available, especially as there really isn’t enough unbiased information about porn use out there.
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